Context: framing school culture Discussion of school culture in the literature on educational change commonly treats the topic in a monolithic sense, with 'the school culture' being a construct representing an overarching and collective expression of various elusive elements that gives a school a distinctive, singular and unifying quality. Similarly, the issue of 'reform', encompassing aspirations of equity and inclusion, is equally dominated by a monocultural perspective, with a reliance on concepts such as school reculturing, the development of shared vision, and the achievement of consensus towards common purpose. Study Moving beyond a monocultural to polycultural framing of 'school culture' emerged as a key point in the context of a qualitative research study undertaken in seven mainstream post-primary level schools in Ireland. All seven schools were participating in a laptops initiative for students with literacy difficulties directed at enhancing the educational provision for students with special needs in an inclusion-focused policy arena at national level. Data was gathered over a two-year period and involved site visits to each school, encompassing interviews with key personnel (i.e. learning support teachers, principals, and in-school coordinators in each school). Detailed field notes were constructed both during and after visits. Interviews were transcribed and analysed using grounded theory methodology (Glaser and Strauss, 1967; Strauss and Corbin, 1998) utilised iteratively over the course of two-year-long data gathering and data analysis process. Claims We make two key claims in this study. First, using Grounded Theory (GT) as a guide to data collection and analysis, schools' cultures, vis-à-vis special needs and inclusion, were reflected as vying ideological orientations, or sub- cultures, within any particular school. Therefore, what presents as 'the school culture', vis-à-vis ideological orientation, can be understood as the settlement of 'the school's cultures', viewed as differing ideological clusterings being in a state of equilibrium, or settlement within each school. Such a GT-deduced ontological construct invites further examination through the perspective of systems and complexity theories which, hitherto, have tended to concentrate on the interface between school and society. Taking, for example, Hoban's (2003) views on systems thinking, complemented by complexity theory; Finan and Levin's (2000) concept of "the culture of schooling" which views school culture as perpetuating societal beliefs and assumptions; Marion's (1999) idea of "social homeostasis"; and a Bourdieuian (1996) perspective on schools as instruments of the reproduction of power and privilege, education systems can be viewed as elements (Flood and Carson, 1988) of macro systems - schools as "creatures of outside forces" (Sarason, 1996: 178). Those elements that give a school its distinctive characteristics - the embedded rituals and traditions that can be characterised as 'the school culture' - are mere localised mirco-cultural nuances, or expressions, of this macro-system. Thus, from this perspective, schools are ideologically dominated and bounded by prevailing societal interests and ideologies, and must, therefore, be accepted as being intrinsically conservative. This interrogates their ability for promoting ideological aspirations of equity, egalitarianism and inclusion. Second, this research revealed such an ontological macro- perspective being mirrored within schools' cultures, with ideologically-orientated clusterings, or sub-cultures, being ultimately bounded by the centre - the dominant forces which are formed and sustained by the macro system. Discussion Highlighting the power of moving from a monocultural to a polycultural conception of 'school culture' we conclude with a discussion around how such a view of school culture is relevant given the contemporary debate on the growing influence on education of neo-liberal forces in framing school reforms across many educational jurisdictions (Lindblad and Popkewitz, 2004). Furthermore, this reframing of school culture may also assist in reconciling some to the theoretical problems of the micro-political perspective (Altrichter and Salzgeber, 2000) and in explaining why schools are so different, yet remain so much the same (Elliot, 2000). Finally, in relation to the questions of 'school development' and 'reform', it suggests a shift from naïve rationalist assumptions on structured change to a pragmatic systems-orientated view of cultural contestation and settlement. References: Altrichter, H. and Salzgeber, S. (2000). Some Elements of a micro-political theory of school development. In Altrichter, H. and Elliott, J. (eds.) (2000). Images of Educational Change. Open University Press. Buckingham. Philadelphia. Bourdieu, P. (1996). The State Nobility: Elite Schools in the Field of Power. (translated by Lauretta C. Clough). Polity Press. Cambridge. Elliott, J. (2000). Towards a synoptic vision of educational change in advanced industrial societies. 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