Change of mind. How organization theory led me to move from studying educational reform to pursuing educational design
| Date | 07 September 2015 |
| Pages | 794-804 |
| Published date | 07 September 2015 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-06-2014-0064 |
| Author | Rodney T Ogawa |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy |
LEGACY PAPER
Change of mind
How organization theory led me to move
from studying educational reform to
pursuing educational design
Rodney T. Ogawa
University of California, Santa Cruz, California, USA
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is for the author to recount how his use of organizational theory
to understand educational reform in the USA led to a change of mind.
Design/methodology/approach –My shift resulted from my conclusion, derived from the new
institutionalism, that only marginal changes can be made in schools and, thus, fundamental change
requires the design and construction of new systems.
Findings –I moved from applying organization theory to find ways in which schools could improve
academic outcomes for students, generally, and students from underserved communities, specifically
to using organization theory to develop conditions that support efforts to design new systems to
support learning.
Originality/value –This paper’s contribution is that it encourages students of school organization to
consider applying their theoretical perspectives to designing innovative social arrangements to foster
learning and teaching.
Keywords Information technology, Organizational theory, School reform, School organization
Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction
I have been teaching a seminar on educational reform in the USA for a couple of
decades. A few years ago, something unprecedented happened. About halfway through
the course, the students had read Tyack’sThe One Best System. During a class
discussion, Amy, a doctoral student in psychology, burst out, “I got it!”When I asked
what she got, she explained, bearing the unmistakable look of a person for whom the
proverbial light had gone on: “I took this class to learn how to fix schools so that they
would do a better job of teaching students from low-income, minority communities.
What I get is that schools don’t need to be ‘fixed;’they’re not broken. They do exactly
what they were designed to do.”
Amy’s insight captures the change of mind that I experienced over the past several
years. I began doing research on educational reform to figure out how to “change
the organization”of schools in order to improve learning and teaching, generally, and
expand opportunities to learn for students from so-called “underserved”communities,
specifically. Recently, I shifted my attention to figuring out how to “design formal
settings for learning”that afford more personalized and equitable opportunities
to learn. In this paper, I trace the sources and rationale underlying my change of mind.
I begin by describing how my research on school reform has been guided by
organization theory and the new institutionalism, or institutional theory. I then explain
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 53 No. 6, 2015
pp. 794-804
©Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-06-2014-0064
Received 4 June 2014
Revised 18 July 2014
Accepted 12 August 2014
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
Some of the work described in this paper is supported by a grant from the National Science
Foundation, Award No. SMA-1338411.
794
JEA
53,6
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