An examination of the authority, the structure, and the activities of school councils, as revealed through relevant literature, field visits, workshops, interviews, and other channels open to the Institute for Responsive Education, reveals that most councils have little responsibility or power to affect educational decision-making, and rarely are…

The state of New South Wales (NSW) ceded the Canberra area to the Commonwealth in 1911 as the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), but maintained responsibility for education in the region until 1974, when the territory became responsible for its own educational system. ACT's Independent Education Authority came into being in large part as the…

This examination of parent and community involvement in elementary and secondary education is in two parts. The brief first section considers the historical aspects, identifies the various possible kinds of involvement and the benefits that result, as well as some of the obstacles that may be encountered. The second section is an extensive review…

This monograph discusses how to bring about changes and reforms in the area of human services. The introduction defines human services and briefly discusses some reform movements and whether or not viable change methods are available. Section I discusses the roles of various change participants including the change agent, lobbyist, ombudsman,…

This book explores how community functions in "Bremer," a small rural town in eastern Washington. Human interactions in a variety of contexts are analyzed within a framework that posits three distinct eras of social and economic organization: community-control, mass-society, and information eras. Contexts examined are farming (the…