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Educational administration, like many other social sciences, has traditionally followed the rubrics of classical science with its emphasis on prediction and control and attempts to understand the whole by understanding in ever finer detail how the parts fit together. However, the "new" science (especially quantum mechanics, complexity, and chaos theory) has challenged the view that to understand the parts is to understand the whole. Scientists now take into account such phenomena as holism and emergence, self-reference, self-renewal, self-organization, and autonomy. In recent times social scientists have incorporated these understandings from the new science into the social sciences. This paper presents some of the theories of one such social scientist, Niklas Luhmann. The first part applies Luhmann's theory to the field of school administration. The next two parts consider the usefulness of the theory of schools as self-referential systems, first as a framework for research, and second, as a basis for understanding the social reality in which administrators operate. (Contains 45 references.) (LMI)

This paper presents a holistic conceptualization of the school as an autonomous system. Two major scientific paradigms, reductionism and holism, are outlined and their impacts on educational administration are discussed. Findings of a study that investigated the participation of the governing bodies of independent schools in the schools' self-renewing processes are presented to illustrate the holistic approach to educational administration. The sample included five independent schools in the Anglican Diocese of Sydney. Results indicate that the governing body participates reflexively as well as directly--an adaptation that allows the school's self-renewing processes to function. However, to place the two paradigms of reductionism and holism in opposition is to create a false dichotomy. Administrators must recognize when it is appropriate to operate within one paradigm or the other. Differences exist in how school heads view their schools--as machines to be maintained or as something with lives of their own. (Contains 16 references.) (LMI)