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Education is in a state of continual change and schools ever more diverse. People want more participation and meaning in their lives; organisations want more creativity and flexibility. Building on these trends, this timely book argues that a new paradigm is emerging in education, sowing the seeds of a self-organising system that values holistic democracy. It is an essential read for anyone (academics, policy-makers, practitioners, students, parents, school sponsors and partners) who is interested in how education can broaden its horizons

Bradley-Levine reported in her article how she created an opportunity to explore research data with the aim of examining the degree to which New Tech schools were democratic in the sense conceptualized by the notion of holistic democracy. My response is in three parts. The first sets out my understanding of the significance of the model of holistic democracy and the purpose of the framework. The second is a review of Bradley-Levine's findings, with reflections that occurred to me as I worked through these. The third comprises my conclusions. The framework has been applied, in my judgement, in a diligent and systematic way, enabling the creation of a profile of schools showing where indicators of holistic democracy are present and where critical inquiry and further research and reflective dialogue would be worthwhile. My review of Bradley-Levine's account and analysis also suggests that further work on the conceptual clarity of the framework would be helpful in improving its usefulness.

The paper builds up a conceptual picture of two types of governance - network and organic. In this process it highlights the legitimacies of co-ordination (interior authority and democracy) that lie outside Weber's typology of domination and are relatively neglected in governance literature. The exploration of interior authority, through discussion of identity and substantive liberty, reflects a perspective on human agency that acknowledges the interconnection of the social and non-social and links sociological understanding of agency with political philosophy. It is suggested that this theoretical work gives some necessary content to Weber's concept of inner distance. In turn, this also has implications for our understanding of what is involved in democratizing governance.