Participatory Decision Making in Russian Schools

The development of education as an open democratic state-public system on the basis of distribution of responsibilities among the agents of educational policy and raising the role of all the participants of the academic process (the learner, the educator, the parent, and the educational institution) was first formulated in the Russian Education Law in 1992 manifesting the departure from the former Soviet type command administration leadership. The adoption of this law was to ensure the democratic principles of new education leadership, the autonomy of educational institutions and freedom and pluralism in education. This pilot study is aimed at disclosing students’ and teachers’ participation in decision making, and the findings give evidence that the extent of this participation is very limited at classroom level and practically non-existent at school level. Although the pilot study involved few interviews with teachers and students and the findings are to be regarded as preliminary, the situation is similar to the current trends in higher education leadership, which follows the business model of governance replacing collegiality with the concentration of decision making at administration level. The low extent of students’ and teachers’ participation in decision making is rooted in cultural traditions and the modern context of schools’ and teachers’ accountability caused by managerialism. Further research will shed light on the main factors influencing stake holders’ participation in decision making at different institutional levels.