ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the possibility of analysing at least some secondary school classrooms in the terms of Marxist political economy. It focuses upon decision-making by teachers, and seeks to show why school classrooms are as they are, and possibilities for alternative action. In the objectivist view, rationality is the conjunction between an actor's intention and the structure of the system—mechanical, social or otherwise—upon which he seeks to act: in short a decision is rational if it pays off. The dilemma poses further difficulties for a subjectivist science of decision-making. In modern capitalism the school is constituted by the principles of rational-legal authority embedded in bureaucracy. Cross Street is of special interest because the dilemma expresses itself in the inconsistency between the head's policy and the practices of most of his staff, as well as in the responses of pupils to the classroom regime.
