The Organization of Schools and Classrooms
Title
The Organization of Schools and Classrooms
Author
Diehl, David
McFarland, Daniel A.
Research Area
Social Institutions
Topic
Educational Institutions
Abstract
Schools are complex organizations and their functioning involves far more than just the delivery of academic content. Existing research establishes the importance of taking such organizational features into account in examining how important school outcomes such as academic achievement are shaped by the relationships, interactions, and experiences of students and teachers. Standard approaches, however; tend to treat the organizational structures of schools as static and unchanging environments within which teachers teach and students learn. In contrast, we present the beginnings of a different conceptualization, one of schools as complex and dynamic social institutions constituted by multiple types of relations and defined at numerous levels. In this essay, we summarize existing research in order to elaborate such a view. To that end the essay is divided into four sections: major role relationships in the school; organizational levels of the school; current socio‐cultural changes shaping schools as organizations; and finally, suggestions for future work.