Schools Versus Linking Agents as Contributors to the Change Process

Abstract

not. While it may be necessary to control for situational variables to eliminate spurious relationships, they argue that policy research questions should examine the relationships between policy variables and outcome variables (Coleman, 1972). Although the emphasis on policy variables makes such research more interesting and perhaps useful to policy makers, it can be misleading when situational variables severely limit the effects of policy variables or when the situation is especially intractable and poorly understood. In the field of educational change policy, initiatives are often blunted by the realities of the school situation. A considerable body of research testifies to the difficulty in promoting constructive change in schools. These studies have identified a variety of situational factors including the quality of local leadership, the collegiality of a staff, and the nature of the motivation to change which can affect the success of a change effort (Berman & McLaughlin, 1977). Because schools have been especially resistant to the curriculum development and diffusion strategy for producing change at a distance (Welch, 1979), interest is growing in change strategies that put a human linking agent in direct contact with a school or district. There has been

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