Schools serve both to connect and separate people within society. Therefore, the landscape of school reform presents an opportunity to explicate the opposing forces of connectedness and competition that are entrenched in twenty-first century society. It can serve as a laboratory in which to study foundational social issues. This study is an…

The vitality of most Indigenous languages in North America, like minority languages in many parts of the world, is at risk due to the pressures of majority languages and cultures. The transmission of Indigenous languages through school-based programs is a wide-spread approach to maintaining and revitalizing threatened languages in Canada and the…

Article considered three political determinants that should be kept in mind when deliberating upon accountability. (Author/RK)

Answers some hard questions, such as: Does real community control diminish the professional? Whose fault is it when community involvement fails? (Author)

Analysis of report to be published by the Urban Coalition.

This report discusses the role and function of pressure groups with regard to policy formation and implementation in Australian education. It is addressed to the scholar interested in gaining further insight into the structure and operation of the political and educational systems, as well as to those engaged or involved in the whole educational…

It is very difficult to know who controls such educational agencies as the home, television, the churches, youth groups, and factories. Control of the schools shifts a little bit daily among such forces as social class, American business, the sexes, teachers, administrators, racial and ethnic groups, the citizenry, the courts, and the young. (JM)

Control of mass communication information has become a matter of increasing concern in scholarly circles. The emphasis by UNESCO in recent years on national communication policies is related to this concern. One important justification offered for focusing attention on communication policies has been their impact on development efforts. Certain…

Notes that either consciously or symbolically, most local Indian elites see and appraise government assistance and reform in terms of their own self interest. (Author)

Examines Detroit's economic development policy-making culture and assesses its impact on the formation of the community development corporation (CDC) network that dominated Empowerment Zone (EZ) planning in the initial stages. Analyzes the importance of distrust between City Hall, business interests, and community residents in consolidating CDC…

Facing declining enrollment, loss of state funds, and decreasing public confidence, the Salt Lake City Schools found several groups demanding a voice in the decision-making process. A plan for shared governance was implemented. Representatives of the teachers' association, the administrative association, and the classified employees' association…

A study was conducted to observe the potential conflict over control of education in order to hypothesize about the generality of system-community conflict phenomena. A questionnaire was administered to a randomly stratified sample of the community and to the total professional teaching population in a city school district (population 35,000) in…

Deals with a recent effort at urban reform, the movement for community control over schools in America's largest cities; putting theories into practice is as difficult as ever. (DM)

An examination of the relevant literature reveals that "policy" means different things to different people. Among the concepts that emerge when these meanings are reviewed are that policies are intentional, decision-based, goal-oriented, and conditional; they lead to results, balance facts and values, and allocate resources; and they…