Contents -- List of Figures -- Acknowledgements -- CHAPTER ONE: STUCK IN THE MUD WITH THE WHEELS SPINNING -- CHAPTER TWO: CLEARING THE GROUND -- Laws and Scientific Method -- Game Theory Models -- CHAPTER THREE: LARGE SCALE STATISTICAL SURVEY METHODS -- Statistical Methods -- From Description to Policy -- CHAPTER FOUR: ACTION RESEARCH -- A Critique of Scientific Method -- The Implications of the Critique -- CHAPTER FIVE: POSTMODERNISM -- 'Theory' as a range of activities -- Theory as the search for abstract generalisations -- Theory as opposed to creativity -- CHAPTER SIX: GAME THEORY AND INDIVIDUAL CHOICE IN SCHOOLING -- Game Theory and Policy -- Two Person Zero Sum Games -- Games Against Nature -- Mixed Strategies -- CHAPTER SEVEN: LINEAR PROGRAMMING AND SOCIOLOGICAL LAWS -- Sociological Laws -- Planning Decisions in a School -- Attainability and Sustainability -- CHAPTER EIGHT: LINEAR PROGRAMMING AND EDUCATIONAL POLICY -- A Rule Governed Funding System -- Impact of the Rules on Different Institutions -- Overall Policy Objectives and Policy Instruments -- CHAPTER NINE: GROUP DECISION MAKING -- A Model Classroom -- Arrow's Impossibility Theorem -- Muddling Towards a Policy -- CHAPTER TEN: CHAOS AND COMPLEXITY -- Emergence and Iteration -- Feedback Loops -- Unpredictability -- Sensitivity to Initial Conditions, or The Butterfly Effect -- Complexity and Management -- Complexity and a Reassertion of Values -- CHAPTER ELEVEN: CONCLUSIONS -- Modernism -- Critique of Modernism -- Postmodernism -- Concluding Remarks -- References -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- W.