Organizational Literacy for Educators

Helps educators develop the knowledge and skills they need for reading and interpreting the patterns that constitute the social texts of everyday life in school organizations, thus becoming empowered to initiate effective schoolwide change efforts.

Teachers and administrators who understand the "politics" in schools can operate more successfully to facilitate change. This text teaches educators to identify and influence common social patterns that affect their work in school organizations. It combines literature from educational leadership and foundations of education to provide a comprehensive introduction to organizational theories related to schooling. A particularly notable feature is that in addition to traditional bureaucratic and political approaches, there is a substantial focus on recent critical and feminist theories. Extensive use of narrative vignettes makes the theories accessible for prospective and practicing teachers. Practice cases and exercises assist students in applying the theories to their own organization settings. Assuming little prior knowledge of theories about school organizations, this volume is intended as a text for introductory graduate courses, as well as for advanced undergraduate courses, and groups such as site-based management teams and district professional development committees.

Contents: Preface. Organizational Literacy and Social Patterns. Bureaucratic Social Patterns and Schools. Political Social Patterns and Schools. Communal Social Patterns and Schools. Patterns of Inequality: Earlier Critical Approaches to Schooling. Patterns of Inequality: More Recent Critical Approaches to Schooling. Patterns of Inequality: Feminist Approaches to Schooling. Complexity and School Organizations. Cases for Analysis.