School Organization: Models, Theories, and Systems
Models of Organization: Basic Aspects
Concept: The discipline that studies the ordered arrangement of different elements that interact in a school’s reality to achieve its objectives. Its main objective is the study of school climate as a conflict.
Content: Study subjects, keeping the various elements of the school, the dimensions, macro-organizational aspects, and the prospect of interaction. Different authors’ focuses include Pardo and Saenz Barrio, among others.
Paradigms are some predictions, the anticipation of a report, and the ideal closed with the Taylorist/Fayol model, who has been the principal of a company. Bureaucracy is impersonal, with respect to the hierarchical order, and human relations, as it is what matters to the individual and their interaction with the organization.
We also have challenges to the paradigms: effective schools and organizational development. Both seek to improve the school; only one is more restrictive in power and control of staff, and the other promotes more progress and creativity development.
Finally, there is an emerging paradigm, cultural pluralism, which appears due to the variety of thoughts, cultures, and characteristics.
School Organization and Other Sciences
There is no single classification of Education Sciences. Each author sets their own criteria. For example, we may mention the classification of García Hoz, among others.
In all classifications, School Organization appears directly related to teaching. It relates, in addition to other sciences of education: Psychology of Education, School Guidance, Sociology of Education, etc. At the macro-organizational level, there is an interesting relationship with other closely related sciences: Educational Administration, Planning, School Law, etc.
Theories of School Organization
- Structural Theory: Gives priority to structural aspects such as organizational structure and the distribution of time and space. It manifests environmental factors and is characterized by faith in rationality. The movement is made to note the early ’60s, with different currents (Hage, Simões, etc.).
- Classical Theory: This was the first model to appear:
- Taylorism (the perspective of the business world)
- Fayol (standing work in the department with the strategy of the defendant: Planning, Organization, Select, Direct staff to coordinate, Reporting, searching for information, Budgeting, Price)
- Weber (developed work of legislative organization. All written and very accurate and legal. All this gives rise to increased bureaucracy)
- Movements of Human Relations: Defends the supremacy of the individual over the organization and focuses on the humanization of work. Developed in the 1930s.
- Theory of Human Resources: Defends the possibility of harmonious relations between the individual and the organization, with different authors: McGregor, Whyte, etc.
- Systematic Theory: In the middle of the 20th century, with the work of Bertalanffy, organizations are studied as open systems.
- Interpretive Approach: The cultural or symbolic. Considers organizations as “cultural artifacts.” The symbolic manifestations of the organization are analyzed to understand the meanings, beliefs, and values of organizational life. Highlights include Weik, Borman, and Clark, etc.
Relationship Between School Organization and Other Sciences
There is no single classification of the so-called sciences of education. Each author sets their own criteria.
In all these classifications, the school organization appears directly related to teaching. It is related, yet, with other sciences of education: psychology of education, educational guidance, educational sociology, etc. At the macro-organizational level, there is an interesting relationship with other closely related sciences: educational administration, educational planning, school law, educational policy, economics of education, school demographics, history of education, and comparative education.
Models Proposed by Muñoz and Roman
Three basic or dynamic aspects:
- Product: School as a business
- Humanist: School and community education
- Bureaucratic-Structural: Structure and school bureaucracy
- Model-Makers: School, power, and freedom
- Models-Systematic: School and system
Difference Between Organizational Development and Effective Schools
Organizational development centers seek to improve the satisfaction of their members. The school develops and improves, while effective schools aim for great performance and great efficiency at work.
School System
- School System: How to organize education for the educational policy of a country at any given moment in its history.
- Characteristics of Educational Systems: Obligation, universality, uniformity, freedom, generosity, and secularism.
- Functions of Education Systems: Conservative (player), creative (renewal), socializing transmitter conduct of social differentiation and selection, personal development.
Factors Underlying Education Systems
Economic, socio-political, historical, cultural, and philosophical.
Ideals, Character, and Pluralism
- Ideals: A document of philosophical, religious, or moral nature, drawn up by the owner of the center (as does the public administration), which contains the rules and precepts that govern the center.
- Character: The fundamental values of the center, such as its philosophy.
- Pluralism: Attention to the difference of cultures and thoughts.