The Myth Incarnate: Recoupling Processes, Turmoil, and Inhabited Institutions in an Urban Elementary School (original) (raw)

The study of institutional myths has been central to organizational sociology, cultural sociology, and the sociology of education for thirty years. This article examines how the myth concept has been used and develops neglected possibilities by asking: What happens when myths become incarnate, and how does this happen? In other words, what happens when conformity to a rationalized cultural ideal such as “accountability” is no longer symbolic, but rather, given flesh as the myth of a tight coupling between the institutional environment and local activities is made real? Data from a two-year ethnography of an urban elementary school provide answers and reveal “recoupling” processes through which institutional myths and organizational practices that were loosely connected become tightly linked. In this case, the recoupling to accountability created a phenomenon that teachers, in their own nomenclature, labeled “turmoil.” These findings advance our understanding of the micro-sociological foundations of institutional theory by “inhabiting” institutionalism with people, their work activities, social interactions, and meaning-making processes.