When the issue is stated this way, three things become clear.
First, the issue is but an instance of a much more general prob-
lem: How does change occur in any complicated, highly organized
setting? Second, those fields (political science, sociology, anthro-
pology, history) that have been most interested in the general
issue have concerned themselves only minimally, if at all, with
the school setting. Third, it is by no means clear that what these
fields have come up with is applicable to the problem of change
and the school culture.

What is missing in the educational scene is recognition and
study of a very basic problem, and its absence is symptomatic of
the isolation of education from the social and behavioral sciences,
an isolation that stems historically from the snobbish traditions of
academia ( Sarason, Davidson, Blatt, 1962 ). But if what is missing
is recognition and study of a very basic problem -- a problem
which transcends the educational setting and about which our
level of sophistication is no cause for satisfaction or enthusiasm --
one should be somewhat cautious about assigning blame for fail-
ure of educational change to the intellectual and personality
characteristics of individuals. If only the problem were under-
standable in such simple terms!

For introductory purposes I shall describe some situations and
experiences that may give the reader a glimpse of the problem
I have discussed.

Numerous people from a variety of fields, previously unconnected
with schools, have approached a school or school system to do a study re-
quiring the cooperation of children, teachers or both. Far fewer people
have approached the schools with the specific aim of rendering some kind
of service within the schools, requiring that in some way they become
part of the school. In either case, one of the most frequent reactions they
come away with is that the school is a "closed" place that views with marked
suspicion any outsider who "wants in" in some way. The outsider feels
he is viewed as some kind of intelligence agent whose aims, if not nefari-
ous, are other than what he states. The adjectives that the puzzled out-
sider applies most frequently to school personnel are insecure, uncoop-

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