We know far less about the unintended social-psychological consequences of out-of-school suspensions on students than we do of the academic, behavioral, and civic consequences. Drawing on theories of socialization and deviance, I explore how suspension events influence students' emotional engagement in school through changes in their attitudes.…

School choice policies necessarily impose registration timelines, constraining access to schools of choice for students who register late. Drawing on administrative data, survey data, and interviews with 33 parents in Boston, we find that late registration is common and highly stratified: Nearly half of black kindergarteners miss the first…

Given the dominance of residentially based school assignment, prior researchers have conceptualized K-12 enrollment decisions as beyond the purview of school actors. This paper questions the continued relevance of this assumption by studying the behavior of guidance counselors charged with implementing New York City's universal high school choice…

On the basis of theories of cultural reproduction and rational choice, we examine whether access to study-abroad opportunities is socially selective and whether this pattern changed during educational expansion. We test our hypotheses for Germany by combining student survey data and administrative data on higher education entry rates. We find that…

In recent years, private for-profit education has been the fastest growing segment of the U.S. postsecondary system. Traditional hiring models suggest that employers clearly and efficiently evaluate college credentials, but this changing institutional landscape raises an important question: How do employers assess credentials from emerging…

Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design, we analyze quantitative administrative and survey data and qualitative archival data to examine the organizational character of standardized test cheating among educators in Georgia elementary schools. Applying a theoretical typology that identifies distinct forms of rule breaking in…

Offers a theory of academic change which links pressures for change with a policy decision to change. The process involves conflict and interest group pressures followed by power exertion, administrative intervention, faculty leadership and compromises negotiated through administrative leadership. The model is compared with alternative models of…

A theory of evaluation and authority is applied to the system for evaluating university faculty. Results show that professional opinion outweighs administrative opinion and that research is more important than teaching. Balancing these factors tends to dictate faculty orientation. Satisfaction with evaluation is a function of a field's dependence…

Reviews principal theoretical developments in the study of schools as organizations, particularly neo-institutional theory and analysis of faculty workplace. Discusses a theoretical approach integrating these developments including institutional constraints on schools, administrative responses to them, and networks of informal faculty ties.…

Participation in school-choice programs has been increasing across the country since the early 1990s. While some have examined the role that families play in the school-choice process, research has largely ignored the role of social contexts in determining where a student attends school. This article improves on previous research by modeling the…

Presents a theory of workplace control in American high schools based on the assumption that school workplaces contain potent systems that control the everyday work attitudes and conduct of teachers. Posits the formation of teacher types, each comprising distinctive attitudes toward work, as the link between control systems and behavior. (MJP)

Reports on the effect of external political pressure on the distribution of influence in school districts. Focuses specifically on the influence exercised by school-level administrators and teachers on school-level policy. Expounds on a theory of local variation across institutional organizations using the High School and Beyond study. (CFR)