A school is like any other organization, and, as such, has an organizational structure that can be identified and analyzed. Overview of the Organizational Structure Burton Clark has coined the term organizational saga to encompass the totality of the school, or any organizational, culture. The organizational sag a arises from three elements of school practices which construct the ethos or saga . This ethos is a direct result of the organizational structure of schools. In most any organization, there are clearly definable socio-emotional roles .
Schools provide their own means of promoting factionalization or the formation of cliques .
Tracking is a major contributor to clique formation. In his research Rist has revealed what he says is the internalization process of labeling. Before dealing with the issues above, take a look at the responses of junior-high school students who were asked to identify the most popular students in their schools. There has, as one might expect, been a tremendous amount of research carried out to find out what makes one school better than another. While we cannot include a review of all such research here, we can provide a list of those characteristics which have demonstrated through research findings some relevance when identifying effectiveness of educational programs.