The article approaches the theme of participation as a continuous process of democratization of educational administration. It is structured in three parts. Initially it develops an analysis on the concept of participation in its diverse dimensions and possibilities. The second part focuses on a participatory public in Brazil with emphasis in the institutionalization of the relations between State and Civil Society. The third part concentrates on the possibilities of constructing areas of institutional innovation. Experiences indicate the existence/inexistence of a potential rupture of the existing distance, which almost always presents a centralized power and mutant and heterogeneous social realities. This puts into evidence the limits of existing mechanisms; formal, vertical, corporative and clientelistic, which were built to allow/prevent the participation of citizens in public issues. The main challenge is to strengthen deliberative areas and modernize the instruments of management and articulation. Thus, socio-institutional engineering is required based on the premise to overcome of the existing socio-institutional barriers and the necessary development within society of public policies centered on the notion of general interest. This may be promoted as the theme of citizenship and is considered very relevant towards the effective institutionalization of participation of citizens in the decision making processes of public interest within educational policies, and as well as those that are related to and intertwined with it.
State; education; citizenship; participation