ABSTRACT
Given that the World Bank has been a major proponent of participatory approaches to governance, it is imperative to have a clear understanding of how the World Bank conceives of participation and how that conception has developed overtime. This is particularly the case with regard to education, perhaps the sector in which the World Bank has been most successful in adapting and promoting its conception of participation in development. At the same time, it is essential to have an understanding of the results of the World Bank’s participatory mechanisms in implementation. A firm grasp on each of these issues better enables one to critically engage with them. Though participation is a popular refrain in development, distilling the meaning that the World Bank gives to the term, both generally and in the education sector, is not always easy. This chapter pursues the above-identified tasks. Doing so helps to situate the governance reforms pursued in Indonesia (the focus of later chapters) in relation to the larger policy trends that have guided the World Bank’s work.
