Student voice is key in supporting youth engagement in schools where young people participate, lead and learn. In this article we share key discourses that we found were operating in Aotearoa schools (Charteris & Smardon, 2019a; Charteris & Smardon, 2019b) and we frame questions that could assist you and your colleagues to think about your approach to student participation and the nature of this voice.
Table 2: Learner Oriented Student Voice Discourses
What do we mean by voice? As you are aware, students have unique perspectives and can contribute to teaching and learning matters and school governance. They can be part of conversations that actively shape their own education. Student voice involves “students contributing to decision making processes and collectively influencing outcomes by putting forward their views, concerns and ideas, and actively participating in their schools, communities and the education system” (Victorian Student Representative Council, 2016, p. 4). A typology of voice in Aotearoa schools Despite all of the literature that highlights the value of democratic participation in schooling, in our research we found a strong focus on the use of student voice predominantly for systemic improvement. We suggest that this focus reflects the following 3 institutionally focused discourses (Table 1): Table 1: Managerial Student Voice Discourses Student Voice Discourse
Definition
Governmentality
– a means of organisational surveillance providing a vehicle for monitoring the effectiveness of teaching in schools.
Accountability
– where practitioners furnish visible evidence for school and public accountability purposes. They strive to meet corporate goals that are systematically determined elsewhere.
Institutional transformation and reform
– a primary focus on the transformation of schooling settings to raise student achievement (overlaps both accountability and governmentality discourses)
There are also 3 strong learner-oriented discourses (Table 2):
University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia
Student Voice Discourse
Definition
Learner agency
– where students are able to make decisions and take action.
Personalising learning
– where curriculum, teaching and learning activities are tailored to students’ needs and interests.
Radical collegiality
– where students are action-oriented individuals, tell their own stories, and have influence in education.
Decolonising voice
– students contribute to a decolonising project where race privilege is critiqued and unravelled.
(Charteris & Smardon, 2019a/ Charteris & Smardon, 2019b) How can students contribute in your school? It is fitting that we turn to a resource developed by students to think about how voice work can be authentic, meaningful and empowering for learners. Students can contribute to the development of teaching practices. They can offer input in conversations about curriculum, planning, and assessment. Students have a role in school leadership and share their experiences through ‘Teach the Teacher’ initiatives. They can contribute to approaches taken to building school pride. We developed the following resource for implementing student voice in schools from a set of initiatives created by The Victorian Student Representative Council (VicSRC). Here are some questions you can explore with your students and colleagues. These are a prompt to help you to think about how you can include student voice and participation in your ongoing work. Much of it originally pertained to the work and inclusion of student representative councils. To make the reach broader, it has been reframed here to also encompass students in general. Co-developing quality teaching How can you engage students’ input into which teaching approaches are most effective and how assessment practice can be improved? ■■ How can you develop a ‘Teach the Teacher’ approach so that there is the construction of a student-led space that can enable students and teachers to talk about how the school can develop teaching practice? ■■ How can you develop a programme where you regularly elicit student feedback on curriculum content, processes, pedagogy and assessment? ■■ How can you implement collaborative classroom/learning obser vations where students and teachers, discuss classroom practice? ■■ How can students contribute to discussions about criteria for curriculum planning and assessment, ways of collecting feedback and other data, and the meaning of results? ■■
ice in your school? Jennifer Charteris
Involving students in curriculum planning and assessment How can you establish a Student Action Team to investigate responses to data collected e.g. meaning and implications of Student Survey data? ■■ How can you gather students’ views and priorities in curriculum planning and assessment? ■■ How can you encourage students’ involvement in curriculum review structures and processes? ■■ How can you develop a programme where you regularly elicit student feedback on curriculum content, processes, pedagogy and assessment? ■■ How can you support a team of students to formally evaluate specific practices as a curricula or co-curricular initiative? ■■
Including students in school leadership ■■
Are the Student Representative Council seen as part of the
Dianne Smardon
school’s leadership team, and are they included in leadership discussions? ■■ How can you challenge students by regularly asking them to consider a broad range of important issues facing the school and make recommendations? ■■ How can you support students to run ‘Teach the Teacher’ approaches which focus on building trust, respect and relationships? ■■ How can you foster student leaders at each level of the school, including allocation of resources for training and succession planning? ■■ Are there specific positions that involve targeted teaching staff support for student voice and participation? ■■ How can you support student representatives in their leadership at each level of the school, including allocation of resources for training and succession planning so that they are competent and effective in their role as student leaders?
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Empowering students and building school pride How can you engage students in discussions about the role students can and should have within the school, and how this can happen? ■■ How can you support ‘Teach the Teacher’ approaches through which students define and highlight aspects of the school that engender pride, and aspects that need improving? ■■ How can you involve students in producing student-led media (including social media representation) about the school? ■■ How can you support a group of students to produce the school newsletter on behalf of the school? ■■
Setting expectations and promoting inclusion with students How can you engage students in discussions about expectations, behaviour, mutual respect—and their roles in this area? ■■ How can you support student-led student forums around topics of expectations, including reasons for behaviour, respect etc? ■■ How can you allocate time and resources to train and support student representatives to intervene around issues of positive behaviour? ■■ How can you support ‘Teach the Teacher’ initiatives that examine the setting of expectations and behaviour guidelines? ■■ How can you establish Student Action Teams to investigate issues of inclusion and exclusion, and of expectations? ■■ How can you challenge and invite students not otherwise engaged, to lead roles of investigation and recommendation?
Student voice work can be a means to solicit student compliance or encourage students to engage meaningfully with teachers, leaders and the school community. There can be creative approaches that locate students as knowledgeable experts with deep understandings in specific areas. Close scrutiny is required to see how these discourses are taken up in schools. Is the voice approach in your school a move to promote student agency through voice or really just the machinations of governmentality, and/or accountability and/or institutional transformation and reform? If you are interested in our student voice papers, please contact Jennifer and request the papers through Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jennifer_Charteris You can also email her directly: jcharte@une.edu.au.
■■
References Charteris, J., & Smardon, D. (2019a). The politics of student voice: unravelling the multiple discourses articulated in schools. Cambridge Journal of Education, 49(1), 93-110. Charteris, J., & Smardon, D. (2019b – forthcoming). Democratic contribution or information for reform? Prevailing and emerging discourses of student voice. Australian Journal of Teacher Education. Victorian Student Representative Council. (2016). Student Voice & the Education State: A resource for Victorian schools. Retrieved from http://www.vicsrc.org.au/uploads/files/VicSRCStudent%20 Voice%20and%20EduStateFinalcompressed.pdf.
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