Towards an Understanding of the Concept of Non-Decision Making and its Manifestation in the School Sector

Abstract

Drawing on research from an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) project on ‘Benign and Malign Definitions of Conflictual Power in School Sector Decision Making: Theory and Practice’, the paper will examine the nature of non-decision making, how it is empirically operationalized and its practical realization in the school sector. Current research on school sector decision making concentrates almost exclusively on the role of decision makers and activities performed in formal decisionmaking arenas. These studies fail to consider an integral element of decision making, that is, the conscious or unconscious decision to exclude certain issues from formal locations of decision and from relevant decision makers. Reasons for non-decision making and the kind of issues which do not enter the political arena will be the focus of this paper. The impact of market forces on school decision making will also be considered.

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