Organizations Alive! Have We At Last Found the Key to a Science of Educational Administration? CCEA Studies in Educational Administration, Number 52.

Application of the new naturalism, a synthesis of the natural and social sciences based on the concept of the living system as a self-renewing and self-organizing structure, to educational administration, is the topic of this paper. The new naturalism promises not only a synthesis of the natural and social sciences, but also one of contemporary thought in educational administration. An implication for policy making is that in conceptualizing education as a living system, administrators must consider the structures of expectations that influence the system's decision-making processes. The cultural, material, and political contexts in which the systems operate must be understood in order to affect organizational change. (34 references) (LMI)