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The Convergence of Tight and Loose Coupling in Chinese Art Test Prep Schools

Sat, August 12, 4:30 to 5:30pm, Palais des congrès de Montréal, Floor: Level 5, 517B

Abstract

Recent scholarship on New Institutionalism has noticed a shift to more tightly coupled practices in education organizations that were once “loosely coupled” systems.
What happens on the ground when tight and loose coupling converge or conflict? Drawing on ethnographic data and 30 in-depth interviews from Art Test prep schools in China, this paper investigates private education organizations that feature both tight and loose coupling. It examines the micro-strategies that organizational actors use to cope with the convergence of tight and loose coupling. It shows that art teachers and students can resolve inconsistencies that arise from the convergence by using the following micro-strategies: (1) negotiation of time and workload, (2) symbolic coupling rituals that are embodied in school rules or peer interactions, and (3) reconstruction of meaning of art students as both an identity and a profession through “talk.” By examining the convergence through an inhabited institutions approach, this paper makes two interrelated contributions. First, it shows how tight coupling (standardizing creative practices) looks on the micro-level, and challenges Scott and Meyer’s (1991) hypothesis that high levels of internal conflict are unavoidable. Second, it provides an in-depth analysis of private education organizations in China to signal the possible application of New Institutionalism in analyzing forms of education organizations in East Asia.

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