Education and Democratic Theory: Finding a Place for Community Participation in Public School Reform (Democracy Education (Dis))

A ground-breaking look at how access to decision making in the public schools can be extended to all, even previously excluded segments of the community.

Winner of the 2001 American Educational Studies Association Critics' Choice Award

Much has been made of the gap between public schools and the communities that they serve. This book shows how a group of teachers, parents, and community people in "Ed City" formed an educational reform group-the Project for Educational Democracy-to increase access to decision making in their school system, especially for members of the community who had previously been excluded. A combination of ethnographic research and theoretical reflection, this book addresses concepts of community, authority, representation, participation, and democracy.

A. Belden Fields is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Illinois, Urbana. He is the author of Trotskyism and Maoism: Theory and Practice in France and the United States and Student Politics in France: A Study of the Union Nationale des Étudiants de France. >Walter Feinberg is Professor of the Philosophy of Education at the University of Illinois, Champaign. He is the author of Common Schools/Uncommon Identities: National Unity and Cultural Difference and On Higher Ground: Education and the Case for Affirmative Action.