Schools seen as mini Nations

 

	Unitary Viewpoint	Pluralist  Viewpoint	Radical Viewpoint
The interests of individuals	Emphasis on the achievement of common interests. The organisation is viewed as being united under the umbrella of common goals and striving towards their achievement in the manner of a well-integrated team.	Emphasis on the range of individual and group interests. The organisation is regarded as a loose grouping which has just a passing interest in the formal goals of the organisation.	Emphasis on the oppositional nature of contradictory "class" interests. Organisation is viewed as a battleground where rival forces (eg management and unions) strive for the achievement of largely incompatible ends.
The sources of conflict	Regards conflict as rare, passing and removable through appropriate managerial action. Where it does arise it is usually said to be due to the activities of deviants and troublemakers	Regards conflict as an inbuilt and unavoidable characteristic of organisational affairs and stresses its potentially positive or functional aspects.	Regards organisational conflict as inevitable and as part of a wider class conflict that will eventually change the whole structure of society. It is recognised that conflict may be suppressed and that it thus often exists as a background rather than an obvious characteristic of both organisations and society.
Thoughts about power	Largely ignores the role of power in organisational life. Concepts such as authority, leadership, and control tend to be preferred means of describing the managerial duty and right of guiding the organisation towards the achievement of common interests.	Regards power as a crucial variable. Power is the medium through which conflicts of interest are alleviated and resolved. The organisation is viewed as a collection of different power holders drawing their power from many different sources.	Regards power as a key feature of organisation, but as something that is unequally distributed and follows class divisions. Power relations in organisations are viewed as reflections of power relations in society as large, and as closely linked to wider processes of social control, eg control of economic power, the legal system, and education