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In the context of rapid environmental changes under current school reform, the present paper attempts to locate an answer for a historical question related to the sources of organizational changes and for a prevailing question probing the relationships among external, internal and contextual factors affecting school organizational learning. Based on the information provided by 1,197 teaching staff from 67 Hong Kong government‐aided elementary and secondary schools, the present study confirms the proposition advanced by the “strategic choice school”, that it is leadership action which accounts for organizational adaptation. Moreover, through a series of path analyses, transformational leadership along with supportive culture and flexible structure are mainly accountable for organizational learning, while external and contextual conditions provide the additional incentives in dictating the extent of organizational learning that is taking place in schools.

Using a recently developed instrument, the environmental characteristics and constraints of Canadian public schools and those of Swaziland were captured in respective profiles for detailed comparison. Problems unique to the school in each cultural setting were identified and the adaptation processes each system had undergone were explored.

With data secured from 256 school principals in Manitoba, the study examined the impact of external environmental constraints upon the various types and sources of job‐related stress. Results indicated external pressures triggered extra‐organizational, intra‐organizational as well as the less obvious intrapersonal stress. Constraints from external sources therefore constitute a major dimension that cannot be ignored in understanding the complex phenomenon of school administrators' stress.

Factors considered important for predicing attrition were extracted from the research done on university dropouts for the past twenty‐five years and integrated into a conceptual model. Stepwise discriminant analysis coupled with logit regression analysis of freshman data from Brandon University yielded six variables: student status, residence, financial sources, distance of hometown from the university, goal fulfilment, and satisfaction with overall university atmosphere, which were useful in prediction. Several recommendations are made for minimizing the withdrawal phenomenon.

Persistent concern for equal opportunities in higher education and the significant decline of Universities' enrolment across Canada in the late 1970's increasingly prompted researchers to focus upon a growing group of high school students who were undecided whether they should proceed with further studies or whether they should join the labour market. Data for the present study were obtained from 374 males and 423 female high school students close to graduation. Crucial socio‐economic factors, school factors and intra‐personal variables affecting their perceived probability for further education in future were identified and their conceptual causal linkages were empirically examined in two separate path analyses. Some striking similarities were located between male and female students indicating that socio‐economic factors play dominant roles accountng for the types of school activities they engaged in. These in turn exerted considerable influence upon their educational plans and aspirations. Extreme pragmatic outlooks, new lifestyles characteristic of students' subculture, and inaccurate assessment of the educational level required for the professions to which they aspired were important deterring factors to further studies for both groups of students. On the other hand, family size, maturity and school achievement had varying degrees of impact on the two groups. Strategies aiming at more effective guidance of students' choice were entertained.

Against the backgrounds of twin forces (grass‐root and government) that have governed the reform movement in Taiwan since 1995, the present paper attempts to assess school development along the path towards learning organizations. Guiding the present assessment is a newly conceived model, which resorts to organizational learning processes and outcomes to construct a two‐by‐two typology, and four possible stages of development were postulated. From the distribution of a sample of 88 elementary and secondary Taiwanese schools, a bipolar concentration of schools in the relatively unchanged conditions and advanced stages of organizational learning were found. This suggested a sharp contrast between schools that prefer status quo versus those that actively search for new directions in meeting the rising challenges. Further exploration of factors that promote organizational changes revealed that external, intra‐organizational and, to a smaller extent, the contextual factors all play some part in organizational learning. Additional interviews with principals of schools located in differential stages of development clarify how their perception and mentality shape their schools’ development.

As a follow‐up to an earlier effort to distinguish schools by stages of development along the context of organizational learning (OL), this paper further targets the OL processes and outcomes to generate a more dynamic and functional framework for sustaining and refining the earlier version of the typology. It is hoped that through such a framework, the conditions that register the developmental characteristics of a school organization can be readily pinpointed. By comparison of schools in different conditions, factors that promote or retard school progress towards attaining the status of a learning organization can also be extracted for organizational restructuring.

Engulfed in the rising tide of youth misdemeanors and youth social problems, public educators everywhere are looking for means and ways of restoring social order and ecological sanity to the classroom and the school. While there is no ready‐made panacea for the deep‐rooted problems, the present writer points to a necessity for improving the contextual conditions of the school to nurture a multi‐disciplinary approach of problem‐solving and conflict resolution. It is through the breakdown of the traditional compartmentalization of disciplines and jurisdictional isolation. Can the school unleash collective wisdom and engage in a self‐renewed process of organizational learning to surmount the growing severity of students’ anti‐social behaviors that threaten to derail school reform?

The present study attempted to explore the relationship between teacher learning and student learning under different school structural conditions.

Some 1,330 teachers from 29 secondary schools of different community backgrounds and student academic abilities in Hong Kong were surveyed, using instruments from diverse conceptual sources.

Findings emerging from the data supported two propositions: First, high flexible structure fostered conditions that were more conducive to teachers' learning than working conditions which were perceived as “medium” or “rigid” structures. Second, the three structural conditions that elevated greater teacher learning as reported. i.e. having greater control, higher motivation and more collective learning opportunities, exerted a definitive impact on students' progress in diverse aspects of their development.

The results highlight the significance of structural impact on school performance. In so doing, it underscores the need for broadening the scope of investigation of other equally salient internal school environmental features for a better understanding of how school organizational self‐propelled improvement can be sustained.

In contrast to those of the earlier decades, recent school changes and educational reforms in developed countries are not governed by ideologies originated from specific social or national contexts, attempting to address unique specific interests or educational concerns. Rather, the universal “economic rationalism” is contended to be the primary driving force shaping the nature and spirit of the global educational reforms. In support of this conviction, reform literature prepared by scholars from America, Canada, England and Australia is examined. By identifying some common threads extracted from diverse articles, a general model is woven, linking rationalistic principles such as efficiency, productivity and accountability with various formats of reforms. Specific objectives include cost‐reduction, higher rate of social return, more reliable and comparable outcome assessment and greater market (public) control. Public educators should realign themselves to this paradigm shift if they are to retain their professional leadership in a more turbulent environment.