Organisational Perspectives on Schools and Change

The chapter builds on institutional theory and how it explains stability and change in organisations. Loose coupling is described as a common phenomenon to uphold a harmonious relationship between the demands of the external environment and the inner life of the organisation. Organisational development (OD) is presented as a framework to understand the work processes in school organisation when school leaders and teachers do improvement work. The concept of improvement capacity is defined in a socio-structural perspective, encompassing the infrastructure of the school organisation, the improvement processes, the improvement roles and the improvement history of the organisation. Finally, this is framed in a practice and sensemaking perspective. The organisational perspective is contrasted with the need to focus on the teaching situation. The concepts of means and goal-situated strategies are introduced, and four common means-situated strategies are described. We argue for the need for goal-situated strategies and underpin this with a social learning perspective.