Introducing ICT in secondary schools: a context for reflection on management and professional norms

Within the Scottish educational system there have recently been significant moves towards devolution of decision taking and the expressed intention that schools must be more responsive to changing community requirements and expectations. We focus on two aspects of those organizations considered successful within changing external contexts: their processes for the effective acquisition, generation and flow of novel information; and their internal mechanisms for informed decision taking and complex communal problem solving. We use data from two studies on the introduction of ICT as the vehicle for exploring the characteristics of the professional activities and organizational features within secondary schools that appear to be barriers to the effective operation of devolved management and empowered professionalism. We interpret the data on the identified nodes of decision taking - the central and local government, the different levels of the secondary school management, and the individual teacher - in terms of aspects of the cultural norms within secondary schools and indicate the multi-level action taken by the Scottish government which may ultimately 'reculture' the schools