TY - JFULL AU - Gaysu R. Arvind PY - 2008/9/ TI - The State, Local Community and Participatory Governance Practices: Prospects of Change T2 - International Journal of Educational and Pedagogical Sciences SP - 957 EP - 969 VL - 2 SN - 1307-6892 UR - https://publications.waset.org/pdf/3034 PU - World Academy of Science, Engineering and Technology NX - Open Science Index 20, 2008 N2 - In policy discourse of 1990s, more inclusive spaces have been constructed for realizing full and meaningful participation of common people in education. These participatory spaces provide an alternative possibility for universalizing elementary education against the backdrop of a history of entrenched forms of social and economical exclusion; inequitable education provisions; and shrinking role of the state in today-s neo-liberal times. Drawing on case-studies of bottom-up approaches to school governance, the study examines an array of innovative ways through which poor people gained a sense of identity and agency by evolving indigenous solutions to issues regarding schooling of their children. In the process, state-s institutions and practices became more accountable and responsive to educational concerns of the marginalized people. The deliberative participation emerged as an active way of experiencing deeper forms of empowerment and democracy than its passive realization as mere bearers of citizen rights. ER -