ABSTRACT
The scientific study of schools as formal organisations has traditionally relied on theoretical tools and frameworks derived from the study of organisations in general. General open systems theory was designed to explain no less than ‘the world as organisation’. The return to equilibrium is interpreted as the system’s seeking to achieve this goal. A final, and most important worry for closed systems thinking is that it has a very limited view of organisational learning. What is meant by this is captured in the feature of regulation, particularly the feedback function which in closed systems is a single feedback loop. Coordination and control become ends in themselves, desirable states within a closed system rather than means of attaining an adjustment between the system and its environment.
