Schools as organisations: some contemporary issues Available to Purchase

Reports a study of the perceptions of school leaders who have engaged in practitioner research, concentrating on perceptions which relate to schools as organisations. The study complements recent theoretical work on the connections between reflective practice, leadership and organisational environment. It illustrates tensions between leaders’ values and national policies, their experience of school autonomy, and approaches to developing the cultural characteristics of learning organisations. The study also illustrates the organisational implications of futures thinking, and changing patterns of surveillance and control in schools. The article concludes that the nature of schools as organisations is contested, with much of the regulatory framework within which schools operate being no longer supportive of the direction for development favoured by school leaders who have thought through their own commitment to learning.