Youth voice, student participation

Responding to Student Voice: Insights into international practice arose from research conducted on behalf of QAA Scotland, as part of the current Enhancement Theme
(see www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/current-enhancement-theme). This research included a scan of the published literature, which found very little systematic analysis of practices concerned with feeding back to students about the changes made in response to student input. While there was some ‘grey’ literature, this tended to make claims without supporting them with evidence of the effectiveness or sustainability of initiatives. Literature tended
to be older and to blur distinctions between taking action based on student voice and communicating the action taken back to students.
We found the term ‘student voice’ being used to mean many different things in the literature and arrived at the following working definition for this report:

Student voice entails the engagement of students in shaping their studies and study contexts through expressing their views, needs and concerns. It puts students into working relationships (including, but not limited
to, partnership) with policy makers, providers, practitioners and other agencies, and challenges organisations to respond appropriately to the issues student voices raise
Primary data was collected through an online survey and Skype interviews, with informants at universities in Wales, England, Switzerland, Australia, South Africa and the USA,
and are augmented by data from a workshop with the European Students Union conducted by sparqs (student partnerships in quality Scotland). The data revealed a continuum of practices, from informing practices (such as ‘you said, we did’ posters), consultative practices (often, but not only, involving student representatives), negotiation practices (with students and staff working together in full partnership on communication initiatives) and student- initiated practices, where the action is taken (or initiated) by students. Themes which emerged from this data considered trust, institutional culture, time, and power. Concerns about reaching ‘hard to hear’ students, whose voices are often silenced or unheard, were cited and some mechanisms for reaching some of these students noted.
A table of practices follows, compiled from those detailed by our informants, together with advantages and disadvantages, and the report concludes with some considerations to bear in mind when responding to student voice, distilled from the contributions of our informants.

Greta Thunberg’s influential activism was a by-product of not only direct personal factors, but also indirect cultural factors. Urging to spark a catalyst for significant climate action, autistic 16-year-old Greta Thunberg has been protesting every Friday since August 2018. Her drive has since influenced millions of students to walk out of class and go on school climate strikes all over the world, demanding a more reliable home to be bequeathed to their generation. This essay will examine the direct and indirect causes for Greta Thunberg’s brave activism, along with their influential short-term and long-term effects.

This article examines the process of adults and students collaborating in school‐based learning communities. Drawing on interview data from youth and adults participating in student voice initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area, this study examines contexts that enable “youth‐adult partnerships” in schools, including (1) fostering trust and respect among group members, (2) creating meaningful (not equal) roles, (3) building the capacity for youth and adults to successfully fulfill their roles, and (4) establishing a group size that is not too small and not too large. The article concludes by examining how youth‐adult partnerships can help improve understanding of school‐based collaborations.

Drawing on the parallel literature on increasing student voice in the field of education and on building youth-adult partnerships in the youth development field, this article examines the place of young people in efforts to increase social justice in school settings. Through an examination of thirteen youth-adult partnership initiatives, it considers the ways in which students and adults can collaborate to examine issues of equity and injustice that they experience in their lives, in their schools, in their communities, and in broader society. The findings identify that the groups’ intended goals focused on addressing issues of equity and social justice on three levels— the system level by focusing on issues of intolerance and injustice, the organizational level by advocating for school change, and the individual level by fostering youth leadership and peer helping.

Before youth can be accepted as important players in school decision making, the concept of “student voice must gain acceptance among powerful stakeholders in the school. Using social movement theory as a lens, the paper examines the consequences of positioning a student voice effort inside or outside of school walls. The paper finds that positioning influences the legitimacy, sustainability, and scope of changes that a student voice initiative can pursue.

This article examines a student group’s two-pronged strategy to build partnerships with teachers at a U.S. high school. Through “teacher-focused” activities, students became aware of teachers’ perspectives; “student-focused” activities allowed teachers to learn from students. The article also considers the organizational contexts that enabled this symbiotic strategy to take hold.

This ethnographic study investigates one of the most robust youth-adult school governance model, which was found to distribute leadership and trigger organizational change.  Chapters highlight youth and adult leadership practices and the supporting coursework.  This book advances both the fields of student voice and distributed leadership with a thorough/extensive literature review; chapter on how to study student leadership capacity building; chapter on preparing democratic citizens; and chapters on distributed leadership. You can find this book here: http://www.amazon.com/Student-Voice-School-Governance-Distributing/dp/113885154X

This article considers the role of student voice in secondary school reform. It defines the concept of student voice within bodies of research on youth participation internationally, noting the ways the United States is distinct and lagging behind. It then looks at the broadening scope of ways that young people have become involved in change efforts. It considers ways that student voice can deepen implementation efforts and strengthen classroom practice. The paper ends with a discussion of the importance of attending to issues of power in youth-adult relationships, including ways to avoid the co-optation of young people.

This paper aims to articulate an emerging application of music therapy, drawing on data collected in a broader ongoing feminist research project. The project locates music therapy as anti-oppressive practice for young people in high school to explore gender and power. This article focuses on how young people conceptualise this approach to music therapy practice. In the last decade, several approaches have emerged in the creative arts therapies that aim to critically explore power, and challenge dominant socio-political discourses. While there has been a dedicated interest in critical, feminist approaches to practice in the music therapy discipline, empirical research into music therapy as a space for exploring gendered narratives with young people is still evolving. Furthermore, we have little sense of how anti-oppressive approaches are experienced by the people of all ages with whom we work in music therapy practice. Foregrounding the participants’ experiences and ideas, this paper attempts to develop specific terminology generated by young people themselves, highlighting whether the ways we conceptualise our role are actually apparent to and understood by them. 16 young people were asked during interviews how they would describe the role of the music therapist in the project. This paper explores the three key salient themes emerging from their responses: that this approach centres on providing a safe and therapeutic space to explore “real world issues”; that such a role involves a distinct approach to sharing power and holding space; and that this role has both emancipatory potential and complex consequences for adolescent group work.

Highlighting practical frameworks, important considerations, and real-world examples, this Guide to Meaningful Student Involvement  is all about engaging students throughout education. Recommended for anyone interested in student voice, student empowerment, student engagement, or building community in schools.

With the school graduating just over half (57%) of the students that start in ninth grade and with one-third of its teachers electing to leave each year, the Whitman High School staff saw the need for change. The school’s reform leadership team made the unusual decision of involving students in these reform efforts. Whitman began its work by narrowing its reform focus to the question: “Why are so many ninth graders struggling to pass their classes?” To gather data on this question, fourth-year teacher Amy Jackson convened student focus groups to learn from young people about the types of supports that they needed to enable them to succeed. The focus groups reflected the diverse student body, including students representing a broad range of academic achievement and a variety of social cliques.
The students and adults worked together to identify four main themes in the transcripts as the most pressing areas for reform at Whitman: (1) improving the school’s reputation, (2) increasing counseling and information resources for incoming ninth graders; (3) improving communication between students and teachers, and (4) raising the quality of teaching. The students then presented these findings to the school faculty. The student themes echoed teacher concerns but also focused their attention on student desires for stronger relationships between teachers and students and a strong student desire for school improvement.

While youth tend to have few opportunities for civic engagement, a growing body of research has examined the potential role of increasing student voice in schools. Called a variety of names including student participation, active citizenship, youth leadership, and youth empowerment (McQuillan, 2005), the concept of student voice describes the many ways in which youth have opportunities to share in the school decisions that will shape their lives and the lives of their peers (Fielding, 2001; Goodwillie, 1993; Levin, 2000). Student voice can range from the most basic level of youth sharing their opinions of problems and potential solutions; to allowing young people to collaborate with adults to address the problems in their schools; to youth taking the lead on seeking change (Mitra, 2005b). All types of student voice, from limited input to substantial leadership, are considerably different from the types of roles that students typically perform in schools (such as planning school dances and holding pep rallies). This chapter reviews the range of student voice activities present in the literature.

(English translation) This chapter is a reflection on the first three years of a student voice project where Year 9 students were positioned as co-researchers in a low socio-economic school. Three vignettes of students’ performances are explored in order to consider the significance of adopting alternative positions for reflection in individuals and schools.  We argue that student voice opens a space where students and teachers can step outside of their conventional roles, shifting the traditional ‘script’ of deficit messages in school environments. At the same time, the vignettes also point to the multiplicity of possible responses to the invitation to adopt an alternative position.

This guide is the first publication in a series that supports meaningful student involvement in school change. For more information, contact The Freechild Project, PO Box 6185, Olympia, WA 98507, call (360)753-2686, or email [email protected]. For more information on our work, see p 25.

In the aftermath of university democratisation, only one critical change in university governance has sparked nearly as much academic interest and debate: the rise of managerialism. The participation of students in university governance was the key issue in debates on university democratisation;however, in the recent debates about managerialism in universities, there is little mention of the new place of students in university governance. This dissertation revisits the general topic of student participation in university governance. It sets out to provide a theoretical and empirical perspective on the interaction between university democratisation and the rise of managerialism interms of their respective impacts on student participation in university governance. It does so in a number of ways: (i) based on a literature review of international debates and trends; (ii) by developing a theoretical framework for a governance approach applied to higher education, and; (iii) through an extended case study of student politics and transitions of university governance. In the theoretical investigation, I adapt Goran Hyden‟s theoretical conceptualisation of „governance‟ for a study of student participation in university governance. Key to the adaptation is a typology of four ideal-type regimes of student governance focused on respectively different conceptions of „student‟ involved in different justifications of the inclusion (and exclusion) of students in formal decision-making in universities. This typology and related conceptualisations of regime transitions is nested within distinct „visions‟ of the university and embedded in Hyden‟s general governance approach.

By means of a longitudinal study of student politics and transitions of governance at the University of Cape Town, I investigate the context, origins, processes and outcomes of distinct historical transitions of student governance in this case and apply the conceptual-analytical framework empirically. I find that university democratisation has proceeded in two historically distinct waves at the case university which are conceived in analytically different ways. The first wave of university democratisation conceived of „democratisation‟ as the representation of the affected interests of functionally different university constituencies and thus involved in theoretical terms a transition towards a more stakeholder-democratic regime of governance. In contrast, the distinctive contribution of the second wave was the concern with demographic representivity in university governance, which can be understood theoretically as a transition towards a more communitarian regime. The outcomes of the two waves of university democratisation interacted differently with the emergence of managerialism at this university. While the legacy of the first wave was partly diminished, the outcomes of the second wave actually facilitated managerialisation in important ways. The study demonstrates the way student participation in university governance was accommodated in a hybrid collegial-managerial regime of governance and conceptualises problems arising from this with reference to the formal role of student representatives and two different types of activist student politics: entrepreneurial and emancipatory student politics.

The aim of this paper is to investigate children's views and experiences of democracy and pupil participation in relation to everyday school life, and to let their voices be heard on these issues. The data for this paper was derived from two ethnographic research projects conducted in three elementary schools in Sweden. In the classes investigated at two of the three schools, the adults are those who make decisions about school and classroom rules. Pupils are seldom given any opportunity to create, modify or repeal formal rules through open negotiations. In contrast, at the third school, children's influence and their ability to have a say are an important explicit goal for the teachers. Nevertheless, as well as in the two other schools, even in this school with the declared goal of working with democracy in this way, we found obstacles and limitations that counteracted school democracy: (a) discontinuity, (b) the long-term interaction pattern of teacher power and pupil subordination in the school organisation, which in turned encouraged and educated compliance with authority rather than deliberative democratic participation, (c) naive trust in teachers, (d) the school process of suppressing children's voices, and (e) unfair inconsistencies constructed by teachers.

Managerial documents for the national school system in Sweden have emphasised taking students’ voices as a starting point in forming education, and several previous studies have indicated the benefits of giving students opportunities to participate in school. This study aimed to explore students’ reflections on what they would do if they were to decide how to make school the best place for learning. A total of 200 students aged 11 to 15 years from four schools (rural and urban) in two municipalities in the northern part of Sweden participated. The empirical data consisted of the students’ written reflections. The findings fall within four themes: (i) influencing educational settings; (ii) striving for reciprocity; (iii) managing time struggles; and (iv) satisfying well-being needs. Tensions between the students’ previous experiences and future visions appeared. The findings can offer direction regarding aspects of the learning environment in school that could be improved.

Socialisation theories have traditionally focused on how children are socialised in a rather unidirectional manner, according to a transmission model. However, more recent research and theories show that children are not just passive recipients, but active agents in their socialisation process. At the same time, children are subordinated to adult control. In school, they are regimented and involuntarily subjected to mass routines, discipline and control. The aim of this study was to explore and give a voice to pupils’ critical thinking about school rules and their teachers’ behaviour in relation to these rules. Ethnographic fieldwork and group interviews with students were conducted in two Swedish primary schools. The findings show that pupils criticise some school rules, distrust teachers’ explanations of particular school rules, perceive some school rules and teachers’ interventions as unfair and inconsistent, perceive no power over the construction of school rules, and express false acceptance and hidden criticism. The findings are discussed in terms of hidden curriculum, power, mentality resistance, democracy, participation and democratic citizenship education.

The aim of this study is to investigate and explain inconsistencies within the social constructions of school rules as they take shape in everyday interactions between teachers and students, and to explore how students interpret these inconsistencies. An ethnographic study is conducted in two primary schools in Sweden. According to the findings, implicit rules, i.e., unarticulated supplements or exceptions, can, at least in part, explain inconsistencies in teachers’ efforts to uphold explicit school rules to the explicit rules. Nevertheless, rule inconsistency and unarticulated implicit rules appear to create rule diffusion, which, in turn, creates a prediction loss among students. They cannot always predict what will be appropriate behaviour in particular situations, and how teachers will react to their behaviour. Furthermore, this appears to result in a negotiation loss for students. They cannot openly discuss and negotiate on rules if they are unaware of such rules.

Youth-adult partnerships are much different than the common misconception that an increase in youth leadership means that adults must simply “get out of the way” (Camino, 2005). This assumption suggests that power is a zero-sum game. Instead, research has found that the more empowered adults are, the more they can enable power in others, including youth (Camino, 2000; Ginwright, 2005; McQuillan, 2005).  Nevertheless, in instances such as the formation of youth-adult partnerships, where the imbalance of power among group members is extreme, adults often had to make explicit gestures that signaled their stepping back in order to create a space in which youth could have a shared responsibility for group decision making. Such a process does not entail handing over control to youth per se, but instead consists of creating a space in which all group members—youth and adults—could develop a common vision for their collective, could carve out an important and meaningful role for themselves in the activities, and could share responsibility for decisions and accountability for group outcomes (Mitra, 2005).

This essay addresses what it construes to be the myth of 'politically apathetic' or 'disinterested' youth. It does so by first assessing the propensity of many within academic, media, and political circles to portray youth as disinterested and apolitical individuals. It is herein argued that such portrayals are flawed and require immediate attention and change as to ensure the dispelling of this particular myth. The essay argues that in order to dispel the myth, there is a necessity, incumbent upon all within society, but especially those within academic, political, and media circles, to thoroughly investigate youth specific conceptions of the political, and to broaden our understanding of what it is the 'political' is, as well as what it means to 'participate'. In concluding, it suggests potential ways forward to ensure the eradication of the myth.

The research focuses on active personal and community citizenship, political participation,
self-organisation by generations and patterns of public and community activity in the interpretive communities
of higher education, as well as on new forms of public activity and the development of student
organisations in the new millennium. The empirical source of this article is the database resulting from
the study “Active Youth in Hungary” (Aktív fiatalok Magyarországon) (2013, N=1300). This article presents
the characteristics of the different phases in the life-cycle of higher education students’ unions as
organisations (in terms of performance, creativity, risk-taking, administration and integration). The author
analyses the institution system of students’ unions, and the underlying causes of shifts in functions and
values and their consequences by using a sociology-of-youth approach to higher educations’ historical
milestones between 2000 and 2013. The reforms introduced in Hungarian higher education in the new
millennium, in particular the introduction of the credit system, led to the transformation of the students’
collective interests which caused a shift in values, a decline of advocating function and the loss of the mass
base in the students’ union movement.

The lack of strong literacy skills and practices among students is perhaps the clearest indicator that the education system continues to leave millions of children behind. To advance the reading, writing, and speaking skills of middle and high school students, this study examines a professional development model that brought trained community-based poets into the classroom to conduct weekly writing workshops. Over the course of two years, poet-mentor educators worked alongside 30 English Language Arts and Special Education teachers, reaching over 800 students. When the literacy program entered its second year, issues of propriety and language usages unveiled deep rifts between who students were as individuals and who educators wanted them to be as learners. The literature on multiple literacies and cultural relevancy helped frame the professional development within a larger movement to bring student voices and experiences into the curriculum (

What roles are you preparing your students for throughout their lives? Consumer? Recipient? Or Creator and Leader? Does leadership only belong to special students?

With those provocative questions, world-renowned student voice expert Adam Fletcher unveils a powerful classroom program designed to teach students how to change schools. In eight modules totaling 200 hours of classroom instruction, Fletcher provides 24 detailed, practical lesson plans designed in actual classes with real students. Beginning with teaching students about schools and student voice, the curriculum then "pulls back the curtain" on education by showing students how to research schools, plan learning, teach classes, evaluate themselves and their teachers, make systemic decisions, and advocate for school improvement.

Engaging, hands-on activities are punctuated with fun worksheets, and with a comprehensive teacher's guide, there are no questions left unanswered. There are also planning guides, assessment tools, and more included. The answers to these questions and many more make the SoundOut Student Voice Curriculum the ideal program for engaging students as partners to transform our schools into what they must become: learning organizations that match the times in which we live.

Established in 1999, the Scottish Youth Parliament (SYP) is a youth led, elected body of young people aged 14-25, and are supported by youth workers from local authorities or from national voluntary youth organisations to represent and campaign on the views and issues of Scotland’s young people. This small scale research looked at the perceptions of influence the SYP has had on public policy, from a sample of respondents from three categories of people involved in the organisation. Central to the research were the respondents’ perceptions of the SYP being either a vehicle for change and influence or an exercise in tokenism. Some of the current literature and policy trends highlight some paradigm shifts in regards to youth participation over the last 20 years with the results from this study showing that the SYP has, from respondents views, grown in its ability to influence public policy but that it is ‘soft influence’ and not cause and effect. Barriers in regards to resources, power tensions and structure exist and will need to be overcome in order to enhance influence and make positive change for the future.

The notion of ‘‘student voice,’’ or a student role in the decision making and change efforts of schools, has emerged in the new millennium as a potential strategy for improving the success of school reform efforts. Yet few studies have examined this construct either theoretically or empirically. Grounded in a sociocultural perspective, this article provides some of the first empirical data on youth participation in student voice efforts by identifying how student voice opportunities appear to contribute to ‘youth development’’ outcomes in young people. The article finds that student voice activities can create meaningful experiences for youth that help to meet fundamental
developmental needs--especially for students who otherwise do not find meaning in their school experiences. Specifically, this research finds a marked consistency in the growth of agency, belonging and competence--three assets that are central to youth development. While these outcomes were consistent across the students in this study, the
data demonstrate how the structure of student voice efforts and nature of adult/student relations fundamentally influence the forms of youth development outcomes that emerge.

In efforts to transform schools, federal- and state-driven agendas often disregard students as viable producers of meaningful educational space. Some scholars have centered the experiences, actions, and voices of students in transforming their unequal education, establishing that youth play an important role in the educational decisions that shape their lives. Other scholars have focused their research on the organized ways in which students create direct impact on educational and school change, such as through civic engagement, participatory action research programs, and organizing. Similar to the aims studied by these scholars, youths’ everyday interaction with space and place may also reflect their agentive capabilities.

This study is about how four Latina student leaders at one small school in Los Angeles created and maintained spaces of social membership, meaning, and belonging. Through an ethnographic approach, I set out to answer the following research questions: How do Latina student leaders at one urban high school in Los Angeles create place? In what ways is their place-making informed by their culture, identity, community context, or history? To what extent does their place-making shape school space?

Major findings from my work indicate that students’ community context plays a role in the way they understand their actions within their meaningful school spaces. Democratic practices are created and enacted as students claim school spaces, though these spaces are more about membership, meaning, and belonging than political means and ends. Nevertheless, through the spaces they are involved in at school, Latina student leaders learn about themselves, what they can do as a collective, how to be role models, and how to gain affirmations from their interactions with other Latinas.

My research offers insights into the ways students shape school spaces and places in order to represent themselves and their communities. At both theoretical and practical levels, I provide recommendations that call on educational scholars, leaders, and educators to be attentive to issues of space and place as ways to build upon notions of democratic practices and visions occurring within schools.

Abstract. This article explores how two elementary school students responded to their teacher’s invitation in a civic classroom to make a difference to the world. We consider how the teacher framed the construct of civic efficacy, and how the students refracted these ideas in their navigation of a civic education project. Closely analyzing these students’ experiences and responses, we question what differences are made when students are encouraged to think of themselves as citizens who can make a difference. Noting dissonances and ambivalences in the students’ responses, the conceptual resources of “figured worlds” (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998) enable an analysis of the interplay of discourses, interactions, sensory experiences and material artifacts as civic identities are constituted. The two students’ differing responses are analysed in relation to other figured worlds that students and teachers daily negotiate: of compliant citizenship, productive citizenship and consumer citizenship. The overlaps, dissonances and/or divergences in discourses and artifacts from various figured worlds of citizenship may render some students more recognizable as civically “engaged” and “efficacious” than others.

The organizational improvement paradox occurs when change agents anticipate that a particular change initiative will spread to other areas of the organization, but those anticipations are never realized. That is, positive outcomes in one part of the firm may happen, but they might also fail to translate into gains elsewhere in the organization. Change agents such as youth and adult collaborators in schools often experience this improvement paradox, which also contributes to issues of sustainment. In response, this paper offers linkage theory as an analytical tool to gauge how designers of student voice work might better spread the benefits of their change initiative to other areas of the school and get others to take ownership. A multi-site qualitative case study of Youth Court is analyzed to illustrate how linkage analysis might be leveraged to proliferate change and foster sustainment in school reform efforts.

In the movement to increase equity and inclusion in schools, students are often treated as silent recipients rather than agentive participants. This brief introduces youth participatory action research (YPAR) as a powerful equity tool that centers youth perspectives and participation in school change.

The aim of this qualitative case study is to investigate how learning in “democratic participation” is constituted by the social interaction and conversation pattern in school democratic meetings in a Swedish primary school. According to the findings, a pupil control discourse and the Initiation-Response-Evaluation pattern dominates the conversations. The teacher initiates by asking a question, the pupils respond by answering the question, and then the teacher evaluates that response. The findings show no discursive shift from traditional classroom talk to democratic deliberative talk. Instead there is an emphasis on the “right answers” and subordinating authorities rather than deliberative dialogue and democratic participation, which influences pupils to adopt a naïve or a cynical attitude to democracy.

Drawing on three years of qualitative data, this article broadens the concept of distributed leadership to include “student voice” in school decision making. Specifically, the article focuses on how adults can foster youth participation and leadership in school reform efforts. In this research, adults needed to work in partnership with youth conscientiously and continuously to develop patterns of interaction that aligned with the values of equitable relations. When adults did not strike a balance between support and letting go, the youth and adults often fell back into traditional teacher-student roles. The article identifies ways in which adults helped youth to move from the periphery to the core of group interactions, especially through a collective focus on developing shared norms, language, and skills.

Abstract This article examines how power imbalances influence the formation of student voice initiatives, which are defined as school-based youth–adult partnerships that consist of youth and adults contributing to decision making processes, learning from one another, and promoting change. Using the concept of community of practice as a lens, the paper
examines the ways in which power influences the mutual engagement, shared repertoire, and joint enterprise of youth–adult partnerships. Specifically, the study finds that the following strategies can strengthen student voice initiatives: building meaningful roles based upon mutual responsibility and respect among all members; developing shared
language and norms, and developing joint enterprises aimed at fostering voices that have previously been silenced from decision making and knowledge-building processes.