Competing Societies and Conflicting Demands in Education Practice and Policy in India: Unravelling the relative powers of alternate interest groups an

为了理解政治在教育中的突出地位，现有的分析采用宏观政治和系统的视角，即教育系统中政治行为者的冲突意图解释了政策和实践的扭曲，特别是批评了自利官僚所占据的负面空间。因此，在提倡公民和教育提供者之间更大的问责制以尽量减少这些扭曲的过程中，一些著名的研究强调了重组教育体系的必要性，并通过权力下放和私有化促进权力向“社区”的扩散。然而，我认为这些论点很少深入研究社区内部的冲突利益，而是将“公共利益”和“社区”归类为同质领域。相比之下，社会现实远非同质化。此外，虽然这些研究对教育中的政治和问责制的基础做出了有益的贡献，但到目前为止，还没有使用相关工具来探索教育领域的关键决策者和“校长”的声音：家长。

To understand the prominence of politics in education, existing analyses adopt macropolitical and systematic perspectives, whereby the conflicting intents of political actors in the education system account for the distortion of policy and practice, particularly critiquing the negative space occupied by the self-interested bureaucrats. Thus, in advocating for greater accountability between citizens and the suppliers of education to minimise these distortions, several eminent studies emphasise on the need to reorganise the education system and facilitate a diffusion of power back to the 'community', through decentralisation and privatisation. However, I propose that these arguments rarely delve into scrutinising the conflicting interests within communities, instead grouping 'public interests' and 'communities' as homogenous domains. Social reality, in contrast, is far from homogenous. Moreover, whilst these studies have contributed instrumentally to the foundations of politics and accountability in education, related tools have thus far not been deployed to explore the voices of the key decision-makers and 'principals' in the education arena: Parents.