Subject departments form the primary organizational unit of the high school. The chapters in this book illuminate the ways in which departments shape the views and practice of individual teachers, serve as a locus of professional community, and express institutional and social values. The book examines the implications of subject affiliation and department membership for teachers' work and for students' experience of schooling. The 5-year project of the Center for Research on the Context of Secondary School Teaching (CRC) provides the impetus for exploring issues related to subject departments. Following the introduction entitled "The Subject Department: Continuities and Critiques," by Leslie Santee Siskin and Judith Warren Little, the chapters include the following: (1) "Subject Divisions" (Leslie Santee Siskin); (2) "Work Units in Organizations: Ransacking the Literature" (W. Richard Scott and Randi C. Cohen); (3) "Boundaries of Teachers' Professional Communities in U.S. High Schools: Power and Precariousness of the Subject Department" (Joan E. Talbert); (4) "Revisiting Subject Disciplines as the Opportunity for Group Action: A Measured Critique of Subject Subcultures" (Stephen J. Ball and Colin Lacey); (5) "The Strong Department: Building the Department as Learning Community" (Don Hill); (6) "The Balkanization of Secondary School Teaching" (Andy Hargreaves and Robert Macmillan); and (7) "Subject Affiliation in High Schools That Restructure" (Judith Warren Little). Contains an index and references for individual chapters. (LMI)