WORKING WITHIN THE SCRIPTS - BUILDING INSTITUTIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE FOR CHILDRENS SERVICE COORDINATION IN SCHOOLS

This article describes and discusses theoretically the development of a new institutional infrastructure for service coordination in a unive rsity-community-school partnership project in Chicago. Using insights from the New Institutionalism, it examines 5 aspects of infrastructure : (a) convening and goal-structuring processes, (b) institutional inte rests and reward systems, (c) relations to external environments throu gh institutional activity, (d) communication linkages, and (e) institu tional conventions. The findings reveal that most progress in developi ng infrastructure for service coordination in this Chicago case has gr own out of the embedded routines or ''scripts'' that give structure an d definition to the school as an institution Efforts to develop coordi nated activity that have come from outside those scripts and have atte mpted to change organizational behavior directly have been less succes sful. The importance of institutional considerations in promoting serv ice coordination is explored along with other implications for policy.