The school as a social system: Indicators for change

Abstract

In systems analysis, the school may be viewed as a functionally differentiated subsystem of the broader social system in which it is embedded. To maintain a viable relationship with that social system, the school is subject to continual changes to meet the shifting social, economic, political, and technological forces in its environment. However, the more successful the school organization is in assessing accurately changing environmental forces, and in making appropriate adjustments to those forces, the more successful will it be in resisting temporary pressures and transitory movements and in controlling its own directions. A major research problem is to identify those organizational properties that enable the school to assess accurately new demands and to adjust appropriately to those demands. Theoretically, those properties might be expected to include: (1) operationalized statements of instrumental goals; (2) a work structure that involves interdependence in task performance; (3) participation in decision making; (4) an incentive system that utilizes performance criteria rather than expressive relationships; (5) personnel practices that encourage a cosmopolitan orientation; and (6) institutionalized provisions for change advocacy. The specification of the relationships among these properties, or variables, and the determination of means for assessing them quantitatively, are tasks that remain to be accomplished.