ABSTRACT
The teachers who are closest to the kids, and most likely to understand what impact the school's programme is having on them, are the least able to influence school policy. Social control in schools is usually discussed in terms of teachers’ control of the kids. Like almost all workers, teachers themselves are subject to a system of supervision. Teachers in private schools are vulnerable to this kind of surveillance and control. They are less likely to have formal qualifications, especially formal teacher training, than state school staff. Their unions are markedly weaker. The supervision of teachers is part of a management effort to produce a particular pattern of authority and accepted set of practices in the school as a whole. While some teachers have only a cloudy idea of how the school works as an institution, others have it in very sharp focus.
