The Modern Educational Bureaucracy and the Process of Change

The notion of the modern educational bureaucracy is developed in this paper suggesting that the decision-making process of the school is controlled by two authority structures, one in the hands of the superordinates and the other in the hands of the subordinates. Each of these groups is continually engaged in attempts to control the behavior of the other, and both have the authoritative means of doing so. The result has been a balance of power relationship between the teachers and the administrators with each carefully preserving their own sphere of influence over specified activities of the school. E. Mark Hanson is Associate Professor of Education and Adminis tration at the University of California, Riverside.