Interorganizational Patterns in Education

Educational structure in the United States is changing under the impact of modern economic, demographic and political forces that generate national interests and condition the self-interest of colleges and school systems. With control formally located in state and local units, much of the alteration takes the form of influence exerted from the center through voluntary relations among public agencies and private groups. The relations that emerged around the Physical Science Study Committee formed a new pattern in which action is concerted by the leverage of money and prestige and the limited confluence of independent interests. Other schemes are also developing rapidly, e.g., the federation of private colleges, in which co-operation is brought about by the search for competitive advantage. These patterns of partial linkage can be compared with bureaucratic processes to move toward a theory of confederative organization. This theory will connect with or become part of a theory of influence that has thus far largely developed in the study of politics. Burton R. Clark is research sociologist at the Center for the Study of Higher Education and professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley.