SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER RECRUITMENT: THE CASE OF ONTARIO
| Pages | 42-56 |
| Published date | 01 February 1974 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb009711 |
| Date | 01 February 1974 |
| Author | PETER J. CISTONE |
| Subject Matter | Education |
THE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL ADMINISTRATION
VOLUME XII, NUMBER 2 OCTOBER, 1974
SCHOOL BOARD MEMBER RECRUITMENT:
THE CASE OF ONTARIO
PETER J. CISTONE
(A paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Americal Educational
Research Association, New Orleans, February 25 - March 1, 1973)
The paradigm of the Chinese Box Puzzle served as the analytic
framework for this study of school board member recruitment. It directed
attention to the process of selection and elimination that narrows the
population of a school system to the very few who are elected to the
school board. In terms of the paradigm, between the largest box — the
many who are governed
—
and the smallest box — the few who govern
—
are intermediate boxes that identify the social and political processes that
successively narrow the population. The study did not advance specific
hypotheses, but rather sought to trace the collective careers of sixty school
board members and to draw implications from the modal patterns. The
essential finding, that the recruitment process propels into office school
board members who are different in many respects from those whom they
represent, has important implications for educational governance.
INTRODUCTION
In any political system, the few are chosen to govern the many. As Lord
Bryce observed:
In all assemblies and groups and organized bodies of men, from a nation
down to a committee of a club, direction and decisions rest in the hands of
a small percentage, less and less in proportion to the larger size of the
body, till in a great population it becomes an infinitesimally small
proportion of the whole number. This is and always has been true of all
forms of government, though in different degrees.1
The axiom articulated by Bryce has had a long history in political analysis.
From Plato to the present,2 students of politics have exhibited an abiding
interest in the process of elite recruitment, representation, and behavior.
Although political theories express divergent conceptions of the political
system and of its structure and processes, all theories share a common
emphasis on the critical importance of elite recruitment in the maintenance
and viability of the political system. The axiom that the few are chosen to
govern the many is explicit in theoretical works as disparate as those of
PETER J. CISTONE is Associate Professor of Educational Administration at the Ontario
Institute for Studies in Education. He holds the degrees of A.B. (Muhlenberg College),
M.A. (Lehigh) and Ph.D. (Penn State). Dr. Cistone is Editor-in-Chief of Educational
Administration Abstracts and a member of the Executive Committee of the University
Council for Educational Administration.
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