If participation does not include an openness to the issues that are of real concern to the community and an opportunity to influence policy relating to those issues, it becomes an empty public relations gesture fostering apathy, disinterest, resistance, or counter-organization. (MB)

This annotated bibliography was compiled as a library research project at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. Part I of the listing deals with decentralization as a structural feature of the local political system. Part II examines the process of local citizen participation. Parts III and IV focus on community control in the decentralization…

Because the ultimate power to control school reform is in the hands of the superintendent or some other similarly positioned administrator, the reforms tend to benefit some student or constituency groups more than others. Judging from the personal characteristics of most superintendents and the political context of the superintendency itself, it…