Many urban school districts have recently implemented sweeping reforms that alter the ways in which educational services are administered. The environment in which these reforms are embedded is increasingly and more directly tied to core political institutions and business elites. Hence, as this dependence has grown, districts have become more likely to reflect the rational myths regarding the structure promoted by these proximate political institutions and business elites. Using a subset of the educational field in New York City, this article explores the process through which conformity to these pressures results in organizations changing structural arrangements to become isomorphic with institutionally prescribed expectations emanating from proximate organizations.
Borgatti, S.P., Everett, M.G., & Freeman, L.C. (2002). Ucinet for Windows: Software for social network analysis (Version 6.109). Harvard, MA: Analytic Technologies.
6.
Burt, R.S. (1992). Structural holes: The social structure of competition . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7.
Callahan, R.E. (1962). Education and the cult of efficiency. Chicago: University of Chicago.
8.
Child, J., & Smith, C. (1987). The context and process of organizational transformation: Cadbury limited in its sector. Journal of Management Studies , 24, 565-593.
9.
Cuban, L., & Usdan, M. D. (Eds.). (2003). Powerful reforms with shallow roots: Improving America's urban schools. New York : Teachers College Press.
10.
Cubberly, E.P. (1923). The principal and his school. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
11.
DiMaggio, P.J. (1986). Structural analysis of organizational fields: A blockmodel approach. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 8, pp. 335-370). Greenwich, CT: JAI.
12.
DiMaggio, P.J., & Powell, W.W. (1983). The iron cage revisited: Institutional, isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. American Sociological Review, 48(2), 147-160.
13.
Efron, B. (1979). Bootstrap methods: Another look at the jackknife . Annals of Statistics, 7, 1-26.
14.
Fiore, T.A., & Curtin, T.R. (1997). Public and private school principals in the United States: A statistical profile, 1987-88 to 1993-94. Washington, DC: National Center for Educational Statistics.
15.
Freeman, L. (1979). Centrality in social networks: Conceptual clarification . Social Networks, 1, 215-239.
16.
Gamoran, A., & Dreeben, R. (1986). Coupling and control in educational organizations . Administrative Science Quarterly, 31(4), 612-632.
17.
Hannan, M.T., & Freeman, J. (1977). The population ecology of organizations. American Journal of Sociology, 89, 929-964.
18.
Henig, J. R., & Rich, W. C. (Eds.). (2003). Mayors in the middle: Politics, race, and mayoral control of urban schools. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
19.
Hinings, C.R., & Greenwood, R. (1988). The dynamics of strategic change. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.
20.
Kanter, R.M. (1972). Commitment and community. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
21.
Kanter, R.M. (1983). The change masters. New York : Simon & Schuster.
22.
Katz, M.B. (1975). Class, bureaucracy, and schools: The illusion of educational change in America. New York: Praeger.
23.
Kimberly, J.R., & Rottman, D. (1987). Organization and effectiveness: A biographical approach. Journal of Management Studies, 24, 595-621.
24.
Lawrence, P.R., & Lorsch, J.W. (1967). Organization and environment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
25.
Meyer, J.W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized organizations: Formal structure as myth and ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83, 340-363.
26.
Miller, D., & Friesen, P.H. (1984). Organizations: A quantum view. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
27.
Mintzberg, H. (1979). The structuring of organizations. Englewood Cliffs, NY: Prentice Hall.
28.
Natriello, G., & Pallas, A.M. (2001). The development and impact of high stakes testing . In G. Orfield & M. Kornhaber (Eds.), Raising standards or raising barriers? Inequality and high stakes testing in public education (pp. 19-38). New York: Century Foundation Press.
29.
Nee, V., & Ingram, P. (1998). Embeddedness and beyond: Institutions, exchange and social structure. In M. C. Brinton & V. Nee (Eds.), The new institutionalism in sociology (pp. 19-45). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
30.
Noguera, P. (2006). Unfinished business: Closing the achievement gap in our nation's schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
31.
Oliver, C. (1988). The collective strategy framework: An application to competing predictions of isomorphism. Administrative Science Quarterly, 33, 543-561.
32.
Parsons, T. (1956). Suggestions for a sociological approach to a theory of organizationsI. Administrative Science Quarterly, 1, 63-85.
33.
Perrow, C. (1976, August). Control in organizations. Paper presented at American Sociological Association annual meetings , New York.
Ransom, S., Hinings, B., & Greenwood, R. (1980). The structuring of organizational structures. Administrative Science Quarterly, 25, 1-17.
36.
Ravitch, D. (1973). The great school wars. New York: Basic Books.
37.
Ravitch, D. (2005, June). Bloomberg's education reforms in New York City: An assessment. Paper presented atThe Brookings Institution , Washington, D.C.
38.
Rogers, D. (1968). 110 Livingston Street: Politics and bureaucracy in the New York City schools. New York: Random House.
39.
Rowan, B. (1990). Commitment and control: Alternative Strategies for the Organizational Design of Schools. Review of Research in Education, 16, 535-389.
40.
Sarason, S. (1996). Revisiting "The culture of the school and the problem of change." New York: Teachers College Press.
41.
Schein, E.H. (1996). Culture: The missing concept in organization studies . Administrative Science Quarterly, 41(2), 229-240.
42.
Scott, J. (2003). Social network analysis: A handbook (2nd ed.). London: Sage .
43.
Selznick, P. (1957). Leadership in administration. New York: Harper & Row.
44.
Shipps, D. (1997). The invisible hand: Big business and Chicago school reform. Teachers College Record, 99(1), 73-116.
45.
Slack, T., & Hinings, B. (1994). Institutional pressures and isomorphic change: An empirical test. Organization Studies, 15, 803-827.
46.
Snijders, T.A.B., & Borgatti, S.P. (1999). Non-parametric standard errors and tests for network statistics. Connections, 22(2), 161-170.
47.
Steinhauer, J. (2002, June 13). As Bloomberg takes over schools, Pataki takes center stage. New York Times, p. 3.
48.
Stinchcombe, A.L. (1965). Social structure and organizations. In J. G. March (Ed.), Handbook of organizations (pp. 143-193). Chicago: Rand McNally.
49.
Stone, C.N. (1989). Regime politics. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
50.
Stone, C.N. (1993). Urban regimes and the capacity to govern. Journal of Urban Affairs, 15(1), 1-28.
51.
Tolbert, P., & Zucker, L.G. (1983). Institutional sources of change in organizational structure: The diffusion of civil service reform, 1880-1935. Administrative Science Quarterly, 28, 22-39.
52.
Tushman, M.L., Newman, W.H., & Romanelli, E. (1986). Convergence and upheaval: Managing the unsteady pace of organizational evolution. California Management Review , 29, 29-44.
53.
Tyack, D. (1974). The one best system: A history of American urban education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
54.
Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Social network analysis: Methods and applications . Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
55.
Weick, K.E. (1976). Educational organizations as loosely coupled systems . Administrative Science Quarterly, 21, 1-19.
56.
Zucker, L.G. (1987). Institutional theories of organizations. Annual Review of Sociology, 13, 443-464.
57.
Zucker, L. G. (Ed.). (1988). Institutional patterns and organizations: Culture and environment. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
