The education field favors innovations, but innovative schools tend to fade after an initial 'golden age.' According to the new institutional theory, this happens due to the innovative school's need to achieve institutional legitimacy, which encounters several difficulties. This study aims to explore the journey to attaining legitimacy in one…

The increased competitive nature of higher education institutions has caused many small private liberal arts colleges/universities to struggle economically. The cost of keeping such institutions viable is high. Many institutions have had to raise tuitions rates, which resulted in decreased enrollment numbers. As a result, many institutions have…

In June 2011, the Souris River flooded the city of Minot, North Dakota, destroying schools, businesses, and more than 4,000 houses. District administrators, staff, and teachers responded creatively to provide continuity for the students over a two-year period while three schools resided in temporary locations. The author details how the schools…

This article aims to revisit the relationship between school-level variables and students' educational opportunities through the lens of institutional habitus. This approach is particularly well suited to explore the notion of school culture because it brings to the forefront the impact of social context, avoiding some of the limitations typically…

In 2007, Walter P. Webb Middle School faced a crisis. One evening in January, the superintendent at the time held a meeting at the school in Austin, Texas, to let students, parents, teachers, and community members know that at the end of the academic year, their school would close. Thanks to a new state law focused on accountability, the…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the most necessary and the most feasibly practicable future leadership behaviors of the educational leader of a California Schools to Watch-Taking Center Stage middle school necessary to lead a school organization toward continued survival. Methodology: The participants in the present study were…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to determine the common programs and practices that Beating the Odds (BTO) high schools in California are using to achieve high graduation rates. More specifically, this study identifies specific programs and practices that the high schools are using to address at-risk student behaviors as well as…

This article reports on a study of teachers at one reforming high school. Though it is not their task to debate No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the authors locate their investigation inside the current policy context to which NCLB is attached. Specifically, they present their analysis through the organizational behavior lens of threat rigidity to…

Organisational ecology and world cultural perspectives are used to analyse the struggle of the former East German textbook publisher Volk und Wissen after reunification. We argue that the normative expectations of Western Germany with respect to instructional materials clearly emulate world cultural principles, and so Volk und Wissen's transition…