This study examined the educational experiences of marginalized, rural, white males at a small high school in the Midwest. The nine students in the study were interviewed over the course of one school year. The interviews, along with observations and document review, constituted the methods used in the study. The researcher utilized ethnographic…

This study examined an elementary school, located in an urban school district, which was labeled as a Persistently Low-Achieving School (PLAS) by the federal government in 2009 in order to determine how the school planned to change leadership and staff; increase student achievement; and implement new approaches for changes in school climate. The…

This paper explores the impacts of proposed school closures on families in rural communities in the South Taranaki region of New Zealand. We situate this instance of educational restructuring in a critical policy context and present an account of its regional unfolding through drawing on local media coverage. We then interpret narratives gathered…

In 1988, the Chicago public school system decentralized, granting parents and communities significant resources and authority to reform their schools in dramatic ways. To track the effects of this bold experiment, the authors of "Organizing Schools for Improvement" collected a wealth of data on elementary schools in Chicago. Over a…

As schools continue to strive to meet federal testing requirements, many schools have been looking at ways to improve. During the 1990's many school districts thought they had found the method, tool, or program, with which to accomplish this goal: the "block schedule". This study was a comparison of the teaching strategies and attitudes of…

The aim of this article is to contribute to an improved comprehension of the relations between administrators and teachers. The main argument is that mutual dependency is an operational feature of a school organization. I analyse a school case that shows essential features of the interconnections between the parties. An extensive commitment to ICT…

Many school districts offer alternative education programs for their students who do not succeed in the regular classroom. At the high school level, many of these programs are separated from the regular schools. It seemed that many districts were establishing alternative education programs, but there were differences in the types of programs that…

For a great portion of the history of the American education system, multiage education was the norm in one-room schoolhouses throughout the nation. The current graded, curriculum-centered approach in the U.S. appeared during the mid-nineteenth century with the rapid economic development and massive immigration into the country. Concurrently, some…

This article discusses several strategies for building varied bases of influence within a college setting. These strategies include, providing opportunities for success, advocating and implementing good ideas, interacting with individuals on both the personal and non-personal levels, establishing support among marginal individuals, learning to…

This article analyzes how macrolevel institutional forces persist and limit the expansion of decentralized schools that attempt to challenge normative definitions and practices of traditional school organizations. Using qualitative case study methodology, the analysis focuses on how one decentralized charter school navigated and reconciled its…

The purposes of this research were to quantify trends in three components of teacher turnover and to investigate claims of excessive teacher turnover as the predominant source of teacher shortages. Attrition and teaching area transfer rates were comparable in special and general education and increased substantially from 1991-1992 to 2000-2001.…

This article investigates teaching as collective work. The goals, functions and forms of teachers' collective work and changes in the professional representations or repertoire of actions through collective activity are identified. A synthetic framework is outlined and shown to be useful in addressing the data, by revealing the importance of…

Research has identified school-related factors that are predictive of a student's involvement in delinquency: specifically, school-level communal school organization and individual-level student bonding. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to examine the multilevel relationships among these concepts in a nationally representative sample of…

When tough economic times set in, school business administrators heighten their normal zeal in finding ways to reduce costs and improve efficiency. The author's school district recently underwent a yearlong internal self-analysis to examine and determine the proper staffing levels for the administrative functions within the school district's…

Preservice teacher-candidates enrolled in teacher education programs across Canada are exposed to the nuances of school organization during their practice-teaching assignments. Although the literature is full of scholarship about the concerns of new teachers, less attention has been given to school organizational factors as sources of dissonance…