To analyze high school students' access to the forms and content of knowledge, the author used nonparticipant ethnographic research in four midwestern high schools to study how the pattern of knowledge control in the classroom varies in different administrative contexts. Through observation of social studies classrooms and interviews with teachers, students, and administrators, she examined the presentation of economics knowledge, the organizational structure of the school, administrators' relationship to the classroom and the curriculum, and the overall community setting. Research results are presented in 11 chapters grouped into three parts. Part 1's three chapters discuss social structure and classroom knowledge, review previous research, set forth the research design, and describe administrators' and teachers' patterns of control of the classroom and curriculum planning. In part 2, four chapters describe each school, its structure, community, and administrative context, and individual teachers' methods of classroom and knowledge control. Comparative analysis of the data is presented in part 3, which considers the locus of authority in the school and the classroom, methods of "defensive teaching" to maintain control of knowledge, and the effects of these teaching methods on the economics knowledge presented in class. (Author/RW)