Symbolic power and the social organization of turmoil: Order, disruption, and conflict in an urban elementary school

Using data collected through a two-year ethnographic study of “Costen Elementary School,” this dissertation models the social organization of turmoil. Though conflict is a routine feature of schools and other organizations, turmoil involves a disruption of routine, and subsequent conflict. I argue that turmoil is organized in four ways. First, turmoil involves changes in the broad context in which the setting exists. In the case of Costen School, this change involves the rise of bureaucracy and accountability policies that compete with the autonomy traditionally associated with teaching. Second, turmoil involves pointed disruptions in the immediate social order. At Costen, these disruptions include efforts by a new principal to create a tighter coupling between accountability policies and practices in the school. Third, turmoil is organized by authority relations that enable disruptions, for example the rational-legal authority of principals to introduce changes. Fourth, turmoil is organized by the credibility of participants to intercede in a social order without prompting turmoil. In contrast to rational-legal authority, this credibility is created in informal interactions. Once acquired, school personnel can deploy their credibility as the symbolic power to define disruptions as justified, and thereby avoid turmoil. The study of turmoil has important implications for our understanding of organizations and educational policy and practice.