Based on research in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, this article argues that the globally popular reform of school-based management suffers from several shortcomings and is a partial, extractive, and technocratic means of engendering parental and community participation. Ultimately, this article demonstrates that it is necessary to move beyond SBM as a…

This article was presented at the European Conference on Educational Research, September 2012 Cadiz, Spain. The article argues that community dialogue and participation is a vital dynamic in desegregation and explores the centrality of forms of empowerment which can be described as "inclusive community development" (ICD). The segregation…

About 60% of Nigerians live in rural areas with poor access roads and health facilities, near-absent communication media, unemployment, alienation and disempowerment by the political leadership. This scenario has excluded the rural Nigerian from meaningful participation in development action. A bottom-up participatory approach to…

In the United Kingdom, social enterprise is promoted as a mechanism to capture the supposed innovation and dynamism of the private sector to (amongst other things) wean "Third Sector" organisations off their dependence on grants and to offer opportunities to "empower" socially excluded communities. In this article, we place…

In 2009 AONTAS commissioned a piece of research to examine the outcomes and impact of community education in relation to the three aims that the Government has defined for it: enhancing learning; fostering empowerment, and contributing to civic society. In part, the research also responds to a need to measure the wider benefits of learning (such…

The recent hype and ascendancy in the discourse of community capacity-building has generated a lot of heated debate among development and policy experts on its applicability in various contexts. In particular, questions have been raised on the presuppositions inherent in the discourse and, more so, the tension that exists between theory and…

This essay explores Eastern Washington University's East Central Neighborhood Partnership Center project, which utilized coordinated community service-learning classes and internships to create a neighborhood revitalization plan in partnership with a neighborhood council and community-based organizations. The author explores the ways in which the…