Abstract:
In this paper, after briefly examining participative and managerial conceptions of educational organisation and the current education policy context with its climate of corporate managerialism and educational control, I shall illustrate how developments in the literature of educational administration have been compatible with the political and economic press for conservative educational reform and managerialism. Finally, I shall endeavour to illustrate two opposed types of educational organisation by discussing several aspects of organisation which would be conceived of differently in the case of an organisation characterised by a technical/managerial form of organisation or a participative/professional one. For the purpose of the exercise, I shall examine the possible differences between technical/managerial schools and participative/professional schools in terms of their general conception of leadership, their response to policy direction, their conception of organisational roles and their relationship with the school community.