School managerial control: validating a social concept

School managerial control is derived from perceptions of behavioural interactions between teachers and administrators along two dimensions: regular patterns of formal and informal structures and rules; and discretionary behaviours reflecting the quality of managerial performance. Analyses the interactive effects of these two dimensions across processes of control labelled as standards, information processing, assessments and incentives – all within the task domain of curriculum and instruction. The discussion of structure and discretion is significant in terms of the relationship, seemingly contradictory, between uniform guidelines of administrative practice and qualitative discretion.