Reading, Writing, and ... Ranking? Social Stratification in Schools, pt. 1

Several weeks ago, as I was reflecting on a glaring inadequacy in the organizational structure of our school, it occurred to me that I'd never seen an official organizational chart.  There might be one lying around here somewhere, and the fact that I'd want to see one at all reveals how ensconced I am within the corporate culture of the U.S. workplace.

As societies and communities grow, diverse groups form within, each with their own interests and pursuits. On some occasions one operates hermetically, seeming to have no outside influence; but more often than not, groups interact with each other, employing power or persuasive methods at times to achieve their goals. 

I've had the chance to dive head-first into some of the spectacular literature on this subject.  The diversity of viewpoints is impressive:

• Jared Diamond's well known Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies does a superb job of recapitulating many of the anthropological perspectives on the relation between population size and social stratification.
• The business world offers an array of perspectives on organizational restructuring for maximized efficiency and productivity.  I'm really out of my element here, but when I worked for on-campus housing at USU, I read one such book: Zapp! the Lightning of Empowerment: How to Improve Productivity, Quality, and Employee Satisfaction.  I was disappointed that there was no mention of shock therapy anywhere in the text.
• I'm no Marxist (unless your talking about Groucho), but any discussion of groups within a contested public organization like a school has to take into consideration the contributions of Conflict Theory.  Just as the name implies, groups are in competition with one another over issues of class, wealth, power, and ideology.
• Finally, I have to return to the structural-functionalist roots of anthropology and name drop the likes of Malinowski and Evans-Pritchard (Dr. Simms would be so proud!).  These perspectives, though ultimately flawed for overuse of the the "society-as-organism" analogy, continue to permeate public thought on how to structure an organization.

Getting back to the point of this post now, as I was puzzling over an organizational flaw that worries me I began wondering if others even have the same view of our school's structure as I do.  What better way to find out than to ask them, so I created a brief exercise intended to uncover student thoughts on this matter.  Each student was given a blank sheet of paper and told that they could work on their own or collaborate with others if they desired.  They would not have to write their name on the sheet, but they should write their grade level.  Then, I revealed the first question on the LCD projector, followed by the second question about 5 minutes later:

1. What groups exist in Frankfurt High School?  Name the groups as specifically as possible.  Please include groups of adults and students.
2. Using your list of groups, create a visual representation of the hierarchy ("pecking order") of these groups in our school - according to power.  Consider using a chart, map, or other form of artwork.  Please also include a sentence or two clarifying what you count as power (popularity? control of money? control of privileges? etc...)

Then I turned them loose.  They jumped right into it and worked furiously for the remainder of the class period, as if their grade depended on it (did I neglect to mention that this was an optional task?)

I haven't yet taken the time to thoroughly examine their work, but a preliminary glance has already convinced me that this project will yield some interesting results.  Look for future posts.