This article uses a case study of rural education in Ghana to investigate an important element of the decentralisation agenda--community participation in schooling. Drawing on a theoretical framework derived from Bourdieu, it argues that schooling and community life are two distinct and differently structured fields. The research demonstrates how this acts as a severe constraint on attempts to mobilise community social capital for the improvement of the school. The position is further complicated by specific postcolonial socio-cultural conditions and a view of community that does not correspond with people's experience. The article concludes by arguing that if community participation is desirable in itself, then the state, through the school, should be active in trying to create it, rather than looking to the community to develop the school.