Largely rewritten and completely updated, this new edition places contemporary American educational practices in a historical and cross-cultural perspective.
Among its up-yo-date features:
• The material on bureaucratization has been revised to emphasize goal ambiguity and loose coupling.
• The discussion on professionalization gives greater prominence to unions and collective bargaining.
• The chapter on governance now focuses on the centralization of power.
The authors discuss all topics in terms of elementary, secondary, and higher educational levels, linking them to broader issues in the field of sociology. They present recent empirical research and up-to-date statistics in a scholarly, but easily understood manner. Two major theoretical approaches-consensus and conflict-are explained and evaluated.