ABSTRACT
Talk about authority and participation might be regarded as setting out exclusive alternatives with the implication that we have to choose either the one or the other, that educational practices must be based either on the pronouncements of authority or on some shared participatory activity. Such a view would seem to be oversimplified if not incorrect. In this chapter it will be argued that we are not presented simply with a polarity of incompatibles, but with two concepts, both of which have a proper application in an educational context, although in different ways.
