Biting the Hand That Feeds Them: Organizing Women on Welfare at the Grass Roots Level. By Jacqueline Pope. New York: Praeger, 1989. 161p. $39.95. - Planting the Grassroots: Structuring Citizen Participation. By Steven H. Haeberle. New York: Praeger, 1989. 151p. $38.00.

1990 ◽  
Vol 84 (4) ◽  
pp. 1405-1406
Author(s):  
Laura R. Woliver
1977 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn Gittell

The demand for community participation in education has resulted in many school systems adopting some form of decentralization. In many cases, this “participation” has been illusory. The decentralization which occurred did not result in increased decision making power being allocated to the community, but rather in merely physically decentralizing the existing school bureaucracy. The current situation in New York City provides a number of insights into what can be expected as school budgets are cut as a result of fewer resources and decreases in school enrollments. The community school boards, which had no input into the collective bargaining process, are now pitted against the professional educational establishment — the Board of Education and the United Federation of Teachers. Both in New York City and elsewhere, those who control the school bureaucracy have excluded the community from playing a significant role in the policy-making process. The governance structure of American education must be changed so that the community will have greater control over its educational institutions. Properly instituted, community control is an instrument of social change. If adequate provision is made for the technical resources to carry out this new role, citizen participation has the potential for providing new insights into our concepts of professionalism and our general theories of educational expertise.


2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-22 ◽  
Author(s):  
Enzo Falco

Citizen participation in planning as a decision-making and future-oriented activity is still in the hands of government. New advances in Information Communication Technologies and community informatics have allowed new forms of e-participation and e-planning to emerge. The article refers to theories of social psychology and digital rationality to support the use of ICTs and Web 2.0 in planning as means to deliver more meaningful and independent participatory processes. Moreover, it looks into different planning approaches to and theories of participation to argue and conclude that a digital community and plural planning approach may provide communities with a better setting to move up Arnstein's ladder of citizen participation. The article presents three different open source software and one proprietary software which can be used in practice by citizen groups to produce planning documents. Based on these findings, future research will explore the application of the approach and tools in an urban setting in close collaboration with grass-roots and citizens organizations.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document