ABSTRACT
Up to this point, I have emphasized the heavy influence the central government exerts on schools and their employees. Most of the Indonesian educators I observed had become accustomed to the narrowly defined responsibilities assigned to them by the Ministry of Education and Culture. Conditioned to esteem their ties to the state, they resisted opportunities to increase their authority and independence. I did, however, find an exception to this pattern. At one of the schools I studied, teachers and administrators refused to allow the government to dictate the manner in which they educated their students.
