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This paper reports on a study of a desegregated Individually Guided Education (IGE) middle school which drew volunteers from throughout a large, midwestern city. Findings are based on participant observation and interviews by the author. The author concludes that the school failed to incorporate all the features of IGE, which calls for alterations in staffing so that staffs are more differentiated and more collegial than in traditional schools, the specification of learning objectives, and the grouping of students according to work needed on skill development rather than more traditional grouping practices. The author found that the IGE model helped the school succeed in minimizing disorder, creating positive relationships between students and teachers, fostering non-hostile and often friendly interracial relationships, and improving test scores. Other characteristics of the school were found to foster positive relationships including extracurricular activities, the "fresh and sweet" quality of the student body, the varied class background of students, and the muting of competition among students. (Author/MK)

In an ethnographic study of three recently desegregated junior high schools, the pressures placed upon teachers by students in different academic tracks were analyzed. Students in each track were grouped homogeneously in terms of race, social class and academic performance. The methodology of this study consisted of utilizing students' responses to interview questions along with classroom observations. Though teachers' beliefs about educational goals and the proper character of the student teacher relationship varied significantly in these schools, there was as much variation in the behavior of the same teacher with different tracks as in the behavior of ideologically opposed teachers with the same track. Further, where desegregation was recent, teachers' ideologies showed significant effects from the behavior and expectations of the socially homogeneous student bodies in the schools where they had taught before desegregation. A conclusion of this study is that when desegregation brings sudden and significant changes in not only the racial but also the social and academic attributes of students, the adjustments required of the faculty in both educational theory and daily practice are an important factor in the social changes which will occur in the school. (Author/GC)

This paper concentrates on incidents of severe conflict in eighth-grade classrooms observed in studies of four socially diverse junior high schools in two districts. Severe conflict is generated when teachers violate students' conceptions of the character of legitimate classroom authority. In a cosmopolitan community within an urban complex, students of both high and low social status and academic achievement were unusually skeptical of the schools' good faith. The school staffs had especially small resources for exercizing forms of control other than authority. Consequently, the character and importance of authority emerged with unusual clarity in classroom encounters. In a small, conservative, midwestern city, there was a significant contrast. Neither teachers nor students were self-conscious about the character of authority, and at first glance classroom conflicts appeared to stem from personality characteristics and conflicts. But, analysis of interaction in the light of findings in the first district suggests that, though the participants were less articulate in their claims, adherence to norms defining the legitimate character of authority was as crucial to harmony and conflict in the second district as in the first. (Author)

This is a report on a study of two junior high schools in a small Midwestern city called "Avon". This industrial community serves an agricultural region. This study was undertaken as a complement to a study of two other junior high schools in a much less ordinary community and school system ("Canton") which had been previously studied. This report concentrates upon a comprehensive analytic description of the character of the classrooms and schools studied in Avon and upon those theoretical issues or empirical hypotheses where the findings from Avon extend or qualify those from Canton. Avon operates three junior high schools drawing from the city and two drawing mainly from surrounding unincorporated areas. Two city schools were chosen for this study, Dale and Fillmore. They have the highest proportion of recent Appalachian migrants in their student bodies and were chosen for this reason. The approach in studying the schools was ethnographic. The main focus was to observe the ways in which maintenance of control interacts with the school's other functions both in the classroom and in the school at large. In studying these differences in children's behavior within and between schools, differences between teachers and differences in the way a single teacher treated different students, differences in the policies and the practices of the principals, and differences in the character of the schools as whole organizations were studied. It was observed that the character of a school depends in large part on the nature of its environment; as that term is technically used in the study of organizations. Perhaps the most important single influence on a school was the students. Because the teachers perform the central work of the organization and because they form the vast majority of persons given a formal right to define the situation, they were found to be the next most important group in determining the character of the school. This detailed description of Dale and Fillmore provided a subjective sense of the complex ways in which students' behavior, teachers' skills and characters, and the principal's policies blend into a total school atmosphere which in turn shapes students', teachers', and administrators' behavior. (Author/AM)

Three magnet middle schools which were established as part of a voluntary desegregation plan in a school system in a large, American city are described in this report. The schools are examined as organizations that differed in their innovative educational approaches to bring about desegregation. One school offered a system of open education, in which students planned their own daily programs of activities in consultation with their teachers, and implemented these programs individually. The second school provided Individually Guided Instruction (IGE), which involved breaking the school population down into units, each with a common group of teachers, to create smaller social contexts within the whole school environment. The third school emphasized education for the gifted and talented, and was distinctive more for the character of its students than for any special teaching approach. The report focuses on the historical and political context within which the schools developed; the educational patterns that each school employed; organizational processes (such as leadership styles, school history, student composition, and interpersonal relationships) through which each school developed a distinctive character; and the effects that the schools had on interpersonal/interracial relationships and on attitudes toward school. Concluding observations about organizational processes in schools in general and in magnet schools in particular are presented. (Author/MJL)

This collection of papers is the final product of a project designed to explore the ways in which high schools as organizations facilitate and frustrate teachers' ability to be engaged with their work. Ordinary schools were chosen as the research subjects: two in high socioeconomic (SES) settings; two in middle SES settings, and two in low SES settings. Two Catholic schools were included--one middle-class college-bound, and the other predominantly working class. The schools were considered alternately as social structures, technical systems, cultural systems, and political systems. Similarities and variations in teachers' approach to their work in the classroom were considered by looking at a triangle composed of teachers' roles and behavior, the students' roles and behavior, and the formal curriculum in use and the broader goals teachers pursued with students. Particular attention was paid to the multiple interacting differences that flow from communities and families in different social class situations into the schools. Social class was seen as having a pervasive and fundamental role in the internal lives of schools and teachers. (JD)

This paper, based loosely on findings presented in the other papers collected with it in a single volume, discusses general issues in designing magnet schools, focusing on three main themes: (1) the interdependence of program design and recruitment issues; (2) school level practices which help to turn racial desegregation into racial integration; and (3) the strains experienced by teachers and principals when programs are imposed from above. Magnet schools must be designed to be attractive to volunteering parents. This task is complicated by the requirement of appealing to a constituency that is both narrow (those interested in a specialized education) and diverse (racially and ethnically). Moreover, magnet schools are obliged not to make regular schools appear to be second class, or to leave the staffs at regular schools feeling that their best students are being pulled away from them. To avoid this seeming conflict of goals, it may be best to think of a magnet school as an array of schools rather than as a single school. Magnet schools must appeal to all types of students, not just to those who are best at competing in traditional instructional environments. Because most magnet schools are desegregated schools, it is important that teachers pay attention to students' social and cultural diversity. Magnets allow students of different races to be put in situations where they must cooperate to achieve common goals. Magnet school teachers and principals, who are often expected to work in magnet programs that are quickly designed and imposed on a school, deserve much support and latitude. (KH)

Explains why desegregation is an important practice that must not be allowed to lapse and discusses some pressures that have often made it less than satisfactory for African American children in local contexts and national patterns. Also discusses magnet schools as a tool that can help or hurt. (SLD)

Magnet schools strive to draw students voluntarily to racially mixed settings by offering diversified educational opportunities. The impact of magnet schools on the political and organizational processes of a school system are discussed. (DF)

This paper analyzes the content of a subculture in an organization, that of the faculty of a public middle school. The paper tries to articulate the substance of the subculture and to discover its sources in the shared experience of the teachers and in the way in which they wove that experience into a coherent and satisfying pattern of meaning. That pattern of meaning was shaped by the values and understandings of reality which are part of American culture generally; this small subculture existed within the context of that larger culture. It also existed within the context of the subculture of teaching as an occupation. The subculture was not fully shared by all of the faculty. Other subcultures to which various members belonged (e.g., gender, race), seemed to explain the variation in their attachment to the local faculty culture and their slightly different versions of it. The paper therefore explores the intersection of subcultures from the rest of the society with that in the organization. (JD)

America's urban schools have come under pressure for their racial segregation and for a rigid traditionalism which alienates many students. Magnet schools have been established in several cities to attack both of these problems with attractive innovative educational programs which are intended to draw students of different races as volunteers. This book explores the lives of three magnet schools in a large American city. Examples of how these schools were affected by community political struggles are discussed. The sources of each school's internal life are analyzed; each developed a distinctive character, though often one only loosely related to the formal design for education which it advertised to volunteering parents. The book traces the development of relationships between teachers and students, among staff, and among students of different races. As it analyzes the sources of these special magnet schools' character and their potentialities and limitations as tools to uproot entrenched patterns of educational practice, this book reveals the influences which shape students' experiences in all American schools. (JD)