Revisiting "The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change"

by Seymour B. Sarason, Julie Sarason (Contributor)

Revisiting “The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change” provocatively and seamlessly joins Seymour Sarason’s classic, landmark text on school change with his own insightful reflections on those same issues in the face of today’s crisis in public schools. This is an extensive, monograph–length revisiting.

Part I of this book reproduces the second edition of Sarason’s ground–breaking work, The Culture of the School and the Problem of Change, in which he detailed how change can affect a school’s culturally diverse environment—either through the implementation of new programs or as a result of federally imposed regulations. Throughout, many of the major assumptions about change in institutions are challenged. Specific events and examples demonstrate that any attempt to implement change involves some existing regularity within the school. Dr. Sarason also takes a close look at government involvement in change efforts in schooling—and includes a detailed examination of current efforts to implement PL 94–142 into public schools. He presents compelling evidence that the federal effort to change and improve schools has largely been a failure. Also included are investigations into the purposes of schooling and how these purposes can be affected by change, and the process by which educators and administrators formulate intended outcomes of change efforts.

In Part II, Dr. Sarason “revisits” the text and the issues 25 years after the original publication. As he explains in his preface, to him the word crisis means “a point in time when a dangerous situation contains conflicting forces of an intensity or seriousness that in the near term will be dramatically altered depending on which forces win out. When I wrote the book a quarter century ago, I did not regard our schools as in crisis...[though] my intuition . . . was that a crisis would come sooner or later. It has, in my opinion, come.” Believing that “what happens in our cities and our schools will determine the fate of our society,” Dr. Sarason is deeply concerned that the reform arena is being manipulated by forces that are at best untroubled by and at worst intent on the dismantling of the public school system. That, coupled with his fear that even the system’s defenders are not focusing on the real issues, has infused Dr. Sarason’s return to the topic of educational change with a great sense of urgency. The important things he has to say will be welcomed by all who truly care about the state of the public schools that America’s children attend.

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 1996

About the author

Seymour Bernard Sarason was Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Yale University, where he taught from 1945 to 1989. He is the author of over forty books and is considered to be one of the most significant researchers in education and educational psychology in the United States. The primary focus of his work was on education reform in the United States. In the 1950s he and George Mandler initiated the research on test anxiety. He founded the Yale Psycho-Educational Clinic in 1961 and was one of the principal leaders in the community psychology movement.

Reviews

[Gea · Rating 3 out of 5]

A dense book - but begins to get more clear near the middle. Excellent for finding many studies and research that shows the destructive and dysfunctional environment of the public school system; talks about teachers, principals, the the higher systems - highlights the power (dominator) structure of the 'system.' Written in a very professional and academic tone, the author of this book is a Yale professor and does very credible work. Fun to read? No - therefore, I can't highly recommend it.

[Laurel · Rating 5 out of 5]

All I can say is this is one of the most important books I have ever read about a problem most people don't realize is at the heart of so mnay other problems.