Whose Theory of Participation? School Governance Policy and Practice in South Africa

Abstract

This article analyzes South Africa's efforts to promote broader participation in educational decision-making through local school governance structures in which parents serve as majority members. We utilize the "theory of action" framework to understand both government policy and school-level actors' meanings of two dimensions of governance: participation and representation. The analysis considers policy statements, government efforts to monitor implementation, and extensive data from parents, principals, teaches and learners in six diverse schools in two provinces. The "theory-in-use" among most of the school-level actors reflects the policy signals and dominates governance discourse. School governance and participation is being defined in very narrow terms that emphasize participation for efficiency reasons, rather than for democratic purposes. Parents' participation is framed by what principals view as appropriate within the boundaries of supporting the efficient running of the school. Truly redefining roles of school level actors will require addressing power structures and conventions if it is to allow for the authentic participation of communities in the governance of schools. Introduction With the increasing decentralization of fiscal, political, and administrative responsibilities to lower-levels of government, local institutions, and communities, the notion of participation has taken on greater currency, emerging as a fundamental tenet in the promotion of the local governance of schools. Greater local participation serves the two main thrusts of the neo-liberal agenda, which appears to be driving most calls for greater decentralization, namely the promotion of "good governance" and the shrinking of the state and the expansion of private sector activity (Maclure, 2000). Many scholars have argued that masked by the language of "empowerment," the goals for greater local participation in school governance are managerialist effectiveness and financial efficiency (Gardner and Lewis, 1996). Furthermore, while there is some small-scale evidence to support the efficiency argument, the evidence for empowerment and democratization is often partial, tenuous and reliant on the rightness of the approach rather than on proof of outcomes (Cleaver, 1999).