This monograph, part of a series that attempts to bring a particular intellectual perspective to bear on the practical problems of administering education, points out that educational administration as a field of study is of limited use in coming to terms with the complexity and value-laden nature of educational practice. Language and cultural sensitivities create illusions about change and progress, and "reform" programs are created to reformulate the relationships among purpose, means, and ends. Yet investigations of the phenomenon of change reveal an overwhelming resiliency of institutional patterns. An introductory essay is supplemented by four readings, all of which illustrate the difficult problem of improving school life. Change and stability are intricately tied to and are a part of our social, political, and historical world. To pursue this relationship, the introductory essay focuses on the institutional character of schooling, suggesting that underlying the social patterns of school organizations are principles of legitimacy, authority, and social order. These underlying principles, however, are the subjects of constant debate. The four readings that follow the introductory essay are critical analyses of particular events in which people have sought to transform schooling, and give attention to the effects of social, cultural, and economic influence on school life as well as the social density of existing school relations. The essays are drawn from different historical contexts (Scotland, Sweden, and the United States) to illustrate the multiple elements outside of, as well as in, schools that come into play when people act to alter and modify their world, and point to the importance of situating the problem of change within specific historical and cultural circumstances. The four readings (with their authors) are: (1) "Robert Owen and Education: A Re-assessment" (D. Hamilton); (2) "Educational Reform as the Organization of Ritual: Stability as Change" (T. Popkewitz); (3) "Lessons from a Comprehensive School System for Curriculum Theory and Research" (D. Kallos, U. P. Lundgren); and (4) "The Politics of Middle-Class Success in an Inner-City Public School" (R. T. Sieber). (EDS)