Comparing and Contrasting School Districts and General-Purpose Local Governments: An Agenda for Research

Abstract

The study of schools and is not exclusive domain of educationists; nor is study of politics barred to all but political scientists. In past two decades, both educationists and political scientists have been paying increased attention to what has come to be known as the politics of education. In 1968, Politics of Education Special Interest Group of American Educational Research Association was founded, and, in last decade or so, the politics of education has become a recognized subfield in discipline of political science. Notwithstanding these developments, researchers have largely ignored fertile ground for comparative research that two most numerous and important kinds of American local government, school districts and general-purpose local governments, provide.' Both Peterson (1974) and Boyd (1975-76) have pointed to merits of such research, but no one has done