A Study of Community Cohesion’s Impact on School Board Cohesion

Abstract

Much of the current literature on school boards addresses the board’s dysfunctions in different areas such as being over-bureaucratic, pandering to special interest groups, micro-managing, focusing on business instead of education, and being too political. However, with each of these failures there is a gap in the literature. The literature, in each occasion, addresses the dysfunction without accounting for the impacts community level factors have on school boards. This study seeks to fill the gap in the literature that exists and address the degree to which the community has an influence on the school board. By utilizing economic and political perspectives on community dysfunctions as the underpinnings of board dysfunction, this study will show the element that the current literature is missing. This is important to do because examining such dynamics as board failure without understanding contextual elements of the community would be ineffective in understanding why the board fails.