Restructuring restructuring: postmodernity and the prospects for educational change

This paper examines the concept, implications and dilemmas of school restructuring. The meanings of restructuring are confusing and complex. Restructuring can be a synonym for top‐down reform or ruthless retrenchment. Or it can point to the redefinition of power relationships in the classrooms, staffrooms and communities of schooling. The paper identifies four different dilemmas of restructuring within which these different possibilities are contained and analyses their implications for educational policy. The dilemmas are those of vision versus voice; trust in persons versus trust in processes; mandates of imposition versus menus of choice; and structural change versus cultural change.