ABSTRACT
The HM stands at the polar opposite of the RM in its fundamental assumptions and therefore serves to throw into sharp relief the advantages and disadvantages of the RM. But it too has its strengths and weaknesses hence the CM is an attempt at synthesis. These models are complex and not entirely mutually exclusive. The benefit of comparison is not merely, therefore, for the purposes of critique but to explore the extent to which elements of each can be brought together to create a model of school development in a defensible synthesis. We should emphasize that the models we present here are rational reconstructions1
and hence are to be understood as ideal types. We begin by examining the (RM) according to Lakatos’ account of the structure of research programmes.
