DECENTRALISATION
2.6 CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2.6.3 MICRO AND MACRO CONTEXTS OF REFORM
While this framework offers useful analytical tools pertaining to the different options for community participation in education in the context of decentralisation, it should be noted that actual participation and its effect on accountability is a much more dynamic and complex process that take place in a specific context. Indeed, as De Grauwe et al. (2007) point out, proponents of decentralisation and community participation in education do not sufficiently take into account a country‟s specific context.
Ball‟s (1990, 1994) and Ball and Bowe‟s (1992) concept of a „continuous policy cycle‟ in which policy is „recontextualised‟ throughout the process, from policy-making to policy implementation, seems useful in this regard. According to these authors, such recontextualisation means that policy at all levels changes when it interacts with new contexts. They maintain that the process of policy initiation and implementation does not necessarily proceed in a linear fashion as intended
.
They argue that it is instead much more complex, suggesting that the policy process should be analysed in the following three contexts: the context of influence (in which interest groups struggle over the construction of policy discourse); the context of text production (in which texts represent policy, although they may contain inconsistencies and contradictions); and the context(s) of practice (in which policy is subject to interpretation and recreation) (Ball and Bowe 1992).Thus, Ball and Bowe (op. cit.) highlight struggles over influence, policy text, and practice. Since the present study is primarily concerned with policy as practice, the concept of the context of practice seems particularly useful. According to Ball (1993):
[Education] policies are textual interventions into practice…The point is that we cannot predict or assume how they will be acted on, what their immediate effect will be, what room for manoeuvre actors will find for themselves (Ball 1993: 12).
In other words, education policies are not simply implemented – they are enacted, interpreted and recreated by different actors in education practice in a specific context.
Following Ball and Bowe‟s (op. cit.) advice, this thesis departs from the view that policy is simply implemented as prescribed. Rather, the present study adopts an essentially sociological approach – i.e. it takes into account the point of view of the people being studied – to its enquiry into the meaning of community participation and its effects on accountability.
The sociological analysis of participation concerns the processes of participation, wherein social norms and beliefs; the values and attitudes accorded to schooling; the social hierarchy; social perceptions; and perceptions of the role of the state interact in a complex manner to shape the way in which different actors participate or do not participate in education affairs at the local level.
In this thesis, „social process‟ is defined as the constant dynamic by which both individuals and groups of individuals perceive, behave and interact; all of which take place in a particular historical, cultural, geographic and economic context. Thus, participation is understood as being deeply embedded in social processes.
Therefore, such a sociological framework does not treat the local community as an unproblematic unit of analysis. It reveals that the community is not a homogenous entity but consists of actors with multiple and frequently hierarchical relationships divided along the lines of gender, economic endowment, profession, ethnicity, and level of education. It requires an understanding of the complex micro power relations that prevail in public meetings as well as everyday social interaction between different sections of local society and other key actors subject to a decentralised education system.
Accordingly, within this framework, „social capital‟ is understood to comprise those social resources that derive from group membership, family and community connections, the amount of which a given actor can draw upon depending “on the size of the network of connections that he can effectively mobilize” (Bourdieu 1986: 249). However, social capital has been defined in various ways by various researchers, including Putnam (1995) – as discussed in section 2.5.2. Putnam adopts a more normative definition of social capital as consisting of those aspects of social organisation such as trust, norms and networks that are beneficial to the elimination of various social disorders, for example, crime. Thus, Putnam does not discuss conflicts of interest among different actors.
In contrast, Bourdieu‟s definition of social capital puts the emphasis on conflict and power, and the role played by different forms of capital in the reproduction of social inequalities through the unequal distribution of interconnected forms of „capital‟ within a society, that is, economic capital, cultural capital and social capital. Economic capital is comprised of material and financial possessions, whereas cultural capital includes the set of social practices and skills that are slowly cultivated during an individual‟s development, and demonstrate his or her membership of a particular social group or class.
In so doing, this study aims to reach beyond the analysis that can be provided by an official, institutional or administrative framework of community participation in education governance, which focuses merely on the rules and regulations, official representation criteria, and selection criteria designed for the participatory space. I believe it is more important to understand how these rules are interpreted and internalised by different participants in a particular socio-economic context. In other words, I believe that the social processes that are enacted within such a framework should be explained rather than simply assumed.
The sociological analysis of the meaning of community participation from the viewpoint of the people being studied will not be discussed in isolation from the broader macro policy contexts in which policy reform is implemented. More specifically, it will take into account centre–region relationships with regard to the practical distribution of authority and resources to different levels of the decentralised hierarchy; also an important factor that influences the actual form of participation and its effect on accountability. Thus, this study will focus on the crucial role that central government should be playing as it carries out its decentralisation policies, but which all too often has been ignored.