society that the public may claim a greater intellectual stake in than public education. Not only is the process of educating the next generation (at least in public schools) undertaken at the expense of most residents, but it also concerns us in a cultural way as well - we will all have to live in the world that these children will inhabit and help to shape, regardless of whether we ourselves are parents.

And yet, despite the legitimacy of the claim that members of the general public may make to their own engagement in the process of public education, relatively few people who are not themselves parents of public-school children do become deeply involved (and relatively few of these). This does not mean, of course, that people do not have strongly held opinions about matters of educational policy.

This literature review examines two related, indeed often intermingled, sets of subjects....
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