In this article, principal theoretical developments in the study of schools as organizations are reviewed, particularly, neo-institutional theory and the analysis of the faculty workplace. On the basis of this review, a theoretical approach that integrates the two is proposed. In this approach, institutional constraints on schools and administrative response to them serve as prime sources of the exceptional stability of the formal organization of school districts and schools. Networks of informal faculty ties serve both to buffer and further stabilize formal structures, while situating important mechanisms through which teachers can adapt their work to inherent uncertainties in teaching and to the particularities of local circumstance. Implications of this approach for the further study of school organization are suggested, with particular reference to the study of school production.
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