School governance and the pursuit of democratic participation: Lessons from South Africa

This article examines experiences in Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provinces with devolved school governance, introduced in 1996 to promote democratic participation in education decision making. Utilizing the “theory of action” framework, this analysis is an effort to de-center the school governance debate by moving from a central government perspective to one privileging local meaning of participation and decision making in school governance. An understanding of individual local theories of governance and participation proves most powerful when seen in interaction with institutional structures and the subtle and less-than-subtle signals reinforcing established power structures and conventions and circumscribing the community's role.