Student voice
Encyclopedia
Student voice describes the distinct perspectives and actions of young people throughout schools focused on education.
"Student voice is giving students the ability to influence learning to include policies, programs, contexts and principles."

Student voice is the individual and collective perspective and actions of students within the context of learning and education. It is identified in schools as both a metaphorical practice and as a pragmatic concern.

Practice

Student voice work is premised on the following convictions:
  • Young people have unique perspectives on learning, teaching, and schooling;
  • Their insights warrant not only the attention but also the responses of adults; and
  • They should be afforded opportunities to actively shape their education.


Several typologies differentiate the practices that identify as student voice. One identifies multiple roles for students throughout the education system, including education planning, research, teaching, evaluating, decision-making and advocacy
Student activism
Student activism is work done by students to effect political, environmental, economic, or social change. It has often focused on making changes in schools, such as increasing student influence over curriculum or improving educational funding...

.

Administrative approaches

The presence and engagement of student voice has been seen as essential to the educational process since at least the time of John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...

, if not long before. In 1916 Dewey wrote extensively about the necessity of engaging student experience and perspectives in the curriculum of schools, summarizing his support by saying,:
The essence of the demand for freedom is the need of conditions which will enable an individual to make his own special contribution to a group interest, and to partake of its activities in such ways that social guidance shall be a matter of his own mental attitude, and not a mere authoritative dictation of his acts.


Today student voice is seeing a resurgence of importance as a growing body of literature increasingly identifies student voice as necessary throughout the educational process. Areas where advocates encourage actively acknowledging student voice include curriculum design
Curriculum
See also Syllabus.In formal education, a curriculum is the set of courses, and their content, offered at a school or university. As an idea, curriculum stems from the Latin word for race course, referring to the course of deeds and experiences through which children grow to become mature adults...

 and instructional methods, Educational leadership and general school reform activities, including research
Research
Research can be defined as the scientific search for knowledge, or as any systematic investigation, to establish novel facts, solve new or existing problems, prove new ideas, or develop new theories, usually using a scientific method...

 and evaluation
Evaluation
Evaluation is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards.Evaluation often is used to characterize and appraise subjects of interest in a wide range of human enterprises, including the arts, criminal justice,...

.

Curricular approaches

Specific types of activities that can specifically engage student voice include teaching
Learning by teaching
In professional education, learning by teaching designates currently the method by Jean-Pol Martin that allows pupils and students to prepare and to teach lessons, or parts of lessons...

, education decision-making, school planning, participatory action research
Participatory action research
Participatory action research – or action research – is a recognized form of experimental research that focuses on the effects of the researcher's direct actions of practice within a participatory community with the goal of improving the performance quality of the community or an area of...

, learning and teaching evaluations, educational advocacy, and student advisories for principals and superintendents
Superintendent (education)
In education in the United States, a superintendent is an individual who has executive oversight and administration rights, usually within an educational entity or organization....


Service learning

Engaging student voice is a primary objective of service learning, which commonly seeks to entwine classroom learning objectives with community service
Community service
Community service is donated service or activity that is performed by someone or a group of people for the benefit of the public or its institutions....

 opportunities. Student voice is also present in student government programs, experiential education
Experiential education
Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. The term is mistakenly used interchangeably with experiential learning...

 activities, and other forms of student-centered learning
Student-centred learning
Student-centred learning is an approach to education focusing on the needs of the students, rather than those of others involved in the educational process, such as teachers and administrators...

.

Student as education decision-makers

Engaging students as educational decision-makers is the practice of actively teaching young people
Youth
Youth is the time of life between childhood and adulthood . Definitions of the specific age range that constitutes youth vary. An individual's actual maturity may not correspond to their chronological age, as immature individuals could exist at all ages.-Usage:Around the world, the terms "youth",...

 responsibility
Moral responsibility
Moral responsibility usually refers to the idea that a person has moral obligations in certain situations. Disobeying moral obligations, then, becomes grounds for justified punishment. Deciding what justifies punishment, if anything, is a principle concern of ethics.People who have moral...

 for their education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...

 by systematically
Systematics - study of multi-term systems
Systematics is a study of systems and their application to the problem of understanding ourselves and the world, developed by John G. Bennett in the mid-twentieth century. The purpose of systematics is the understanding of organized complexity...

 engaging
Engagement
An engagement or betrothal is a promise to marry, and also the period of time between proposal and marriage which may be lengthy or trivial. During this period, a couple is said to be betrothed, affianced, engaged to be married, or simply engaged...

 them in making choices
Choice theory
This article is about choice theory in psychology and education. For choice theory in economics, see rational choice theory.The term choice theory is the work of William Glasser, MD, author of the book so named, and is the culmination of some 50 years of theory and practice in psychology and...

 about learning
Learning
Learning is acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviors, skills, values, or preferences and may involve synthesizing different types of information. The ability to learn is possessed by humans, animals and some machines. Progress over time tends to follow learning curves.Human learning...

, schooling, and the education system in areas ranging from what affects them personally to what affects an entire student body to what affects the entire school system.

Choosing curricula, calendar year planning, school building design
Building design
Building design refers to the broadly based architectural, engineering and technical applications to the design of buildings. All building projects require the services of a building designer, typically a licensed architect or structural engineer...

, teacher hiring, and many more issues are often seen as the duties of a school principal or teacher
Teacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...

s. Today those roles are increasingly seen as avenues for student voice. Students are joining boards of education
Board of education
A board of education or a school board or school committee is the title of the board of directors or board of trustees of a school, local school district or higher administrative level....

 at all levels, including local, district, and state boards. Some education agencies
State education agency
A state education agency , or state department of education, is a formal governmental label for the state-level government agencies within each U.S...

 engage students as staff in programs where they make decisions about grant making, school assessment
Standardized test
A standardized test is a test that is administered and scored in a consistent, or "standard", manner. Standardized tests are designed in such a way that the questions, conditions for administering, scoring procedures, and interpretations are consistent and are administered and scored in a...

, and other areas. Students are also participating in decision-making by establishing and enforcing codes of conduct and in personal education decision-making, such as choosing classes and deciding whether to attend school.

Worldwide examples

Education reform has long been the domain of parents, teachers, school administrators and politicians. In some nations, however, there is a trend beginning to encompass a much larger element of student participation in scholastic affairs.

Australia

The Connect journal, published in Melbourne, features dozens of examples of student voice throughout education in its bi-monthly publication.

The Victorian Student Representative Council is the umbrella or peak body of Student Councils in Victoria, Australia. It is supported with funding from the Victorian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD) and auspiced by the Youth Affairs Council of Victoria (YACVic). The VicSRC is an organisation run by secondary school students, elected by their peers.

Canada

Including student voice on district school boards was mandated by the Ontario Education Act in 1998. Students in each one of the 72 provincial school boards are represented by a 'pupil representative', commonly called "Student Trustee". They are meant to represent the needs and concerns of students in discussions with the school board administration and the province. The Ontario Student Trustees' Association, OSTA-AECO, has become Ontario's chief student stakeholder, providing professional development to its members and advocates for students' educational interests. The Society for Democratic Education is an organization in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

 that includes many aspects of heightened student inclusion in education reform policy. The Society for Democratic Education was founded in early 2005 by Bianca Wylie. It has published several essays and position papers that discuss the importance of wide-scale education reform, especially in how it applies to secondary level education and civic education.

Another Canadian organization of note is Learning for a Cause founded in 2004 by educator and poet Michael Ernest Sweet
Michael Ernest Sweet
Michael Ernest Sweet is a Canadian educator, writer and non-profit executive.Michael Sweet holds a bachelor in independent studies from St. Mary's University, a bachelor of education from Nipissing University's Schulich School of Education and a master of arts in educational philosophy from...

 Learning for a Cause which promotes student voices for social change through creative writing and publishing opportunities for Canadian students.

Provincial governments and Ministries of Education across Canada are also getting on board with student engagement and student voice. Alberta Education launched Speak Out - the Alberta Student Engagement Initiative in November 2008 and thousands of students have been sharing their ideas on how to improve how education looks and feels for them.

Ontario's SpeakUp initiative seeks students ideas on what strengthens their engagement in their learning. Over 2900 SpeakUp projects led by students have received grants. The 9 Student Voice indicators are the outcome of regional student forums held across the province. The members of the Minister's First Student Advisory Council met in May and August 2009 and have made four key recommendations. The members of the Second Minister's Student Advisory Council have been selected, and have already met in May 2010, and are to meet again in August. More information is available at SpeakUp.

The Calgary Board of Education
Calgary Board of Education
The Calgary Board of Education is the public school board in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. As a public system, the CBE is required to accept any students who meet age and residency requirements, regardless of religion.-Size:...

, in 2010, launched the Chief Superintendent's Student Advisory Council - a group of high school students with student representation from each of the Calgary Board of Education's high school programs. They meet regularly with the Calgary Board of Education's Chief Superintendent, Naomi Johnson, to discuss issues in the system and propose solutions.

Chile

A powerful example of student voice in school improvement comes from the 2006 student protests in Chile
2006 student protests in Chile
The 2006 student protests in Chile were a series of ongoing student voice protests carried out by high school students across Chile from late April to early June 2006...

. Throughout the spring of that year, public high school students from across the country began a series of protests, school takeovers, and negotiations designed to bolster support for public education improvement. After seeing the massive effect of the students, government officials met their demands and are working to support ongoing reforms as necessitated by students.

The government's failure at meeting the core student proposals triggered the biggest social protests in Chile since the return of democracy, in 2011, beginning in May and becoming increasily strong since mid-June.

United Kingdom

England has had a long history of student voice, from Robert Owen
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...

's school in New Lanark (allowing the children to direct their learning through questioning, 1816) to Neillie Dick's anarchist school in Whitechapel (set-up by her in 1908 aged 13); A.S.Neill's Summerhill School
Summerhill School
Summerhill School is an independent British boarding school that was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around...

 and Alexander Bloom's St Georges-in-the-East (1945-55). Summerhill School children and staff have been fighting for greater children's rights in schools, running training sessions, presentations and workshops for teachers and children at the House of Commons, London's City Hall, Universities and Schools. They lobbied at the UN Special Session on the Child, spoke atUNESCO and have lobbied the Select Committee on Education. Summerhill School children facilitated the first secondary school children's conference in Dover, involving some 10 schools. Tower Hamlets primary school children have learnt about Summerhill and their legal fight for their children's rights; and regularly work with their local town hall to express their views with the support of HEC Global Learning Centre, including primary conferences.

The English Secondary Student's Association
English Secondary Student's Association
The English Secondary Students' Association or ESSA is the independent representative body for secondary students in England. ESSA is run by students, for students aged 11 to 19 years old and supports young people in having a voice on issues which affect their lives at school or college.ESSA works...

 is the representative body for secondary students in England. It aims to support students in expressing their views about education by providing workshops and a network of support with other secondary school students. The National College for School Leadership provides career-long learning and development opportunities, professional and practical support for England's existing and aspiring school leaders. Their goal is to ensure that school leaders have the skills, recognition, capacity and ambition to transform the school education system into the best in the world. The Phoenix Education Trust is the organisation that helped to found ESSA and currently provides the students with administrative support. It aims to explore and support education in which children are trusted and respected and their participation in decision-making is encouraged. involver support schools to develop sustainable structures for effective student voice, school councils and participation, and work with teachers and pupils in primary, secondary and special schools. involver provides training, resources, ongoing support and access to a large UK network of schools. The Organizing Bureau of European School Students Unions is the umbrella organisation for secondary school student organisations in European. Some state schools are also pushing student Voice internally and independently across the UK. Schools like Quintin Kynaston School
Quintin Kynaston School
Quintin Kynaston is a local comprehensive secondary school in the St John's Wood area of north London. It became a Specialist Technology College in 2001. The school intends to become an academy in September 2011.-Admissions:...

 are now recognised for having one of the largest and most active Student Voice 'faculties' in the country.

Ireland

In Ireland, the Irish Second-Level Students' Union (ISSU) is the national umbrella body for second-level school Student Councils.

United States

SoundOut is the only nonprofit education program in the US solely focused on engaging student voice throughout education. SoundOut works with students, educators, administrators, policy-makers, and academics to raise the profile, substance, and effect of student voice in K-12 settings across the country. The National Youth Rights Association
National Youth Rights Association
The National Youth Rights Association is the largest youth-led civil rights organization in the United States promoting youth rights, with approximately ten thousand members...

 advocates for increased recognition for student rights in schools, including the right to privacy, student access to records, and student representation throughout the education system. What Kids Can Do shares stories of student voice throughout the educational process, both within the school system and throughout the community. Their highlights emphasize exceptional learning, belonging, and engagement of students in a variety of capacities for a variety of purposes, the greatest of which is in order to promote student voice. WKCD has authored several books about student voice, primarily written by Kathleen Cushman working with high school students, including Fires in the Bathroom: Advice from high schools students for teachers and Sent to the Principal's Office. Education|Evolving integrates student voices with current major topics in education policy and maintains an online clearinghouse of student voices on education policy. Their website also has students describing the learning experiences on video. The High School Survey of Student Engagement works with high schools across the country to capture students' beliefs and experiences, and strengthen student engagement in schools.

Outcomes

Student voice is increasingly identified as a pillar of successful school reform, as educational researchers, academic institutions, and educational support organizations around the world increasingly advocate for the inclusion of students in the reform process after identifying student voice as a vital element of student engagement
Student engagement
Student engagement occurs when "students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success , but in understanding the material and incorporating or internalizing it in their lives." It is...

.

Criticism

Critical educators including bell hooks
Bell hooks
Gloria Jean Watkins , better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an American author, feminist, and social activist....

, Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...

, and Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux, born September 18, 1943, in Providence, Rhode Island, is an American cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies,...

 have voiced concern with the singular notion of a student voice. Another expert has written about this over-simplification, saying that:
It is not enough to simply listen to student voice. Educators have an ethical imperative to do something with students, and that is why meaningful student involvement is vital to school improvement.

See also

  • Youth voice
    Youth voice
    Youth voice refers to the distinct ideas, opinions, attitudes, knowledge, and actions of young people as a collective body. The term youth voice often groups together a diversity of perspectives and experiences, regardless of backgrounds, identities, and cultural differences...

  • Student engagement
    Student engagement
    Student engagement occurs when "students make a psychological investment in learning. They try hard to learn what school offers. They take pride not simply in earning the formal indicators of success , but in understanding the material and incorporating or internalizing it in their lives." It is...

  • Teaching for social justice
    Teaching for social justice
    Teaching for social justice is an educational philosophy designed to promote socioeconomic equality in the learning environment and instill these values in students. Educators may employ social justice instruction to promote unity on campus, as well as mitigate boundaries to the general curriculum...

  • Student-centered learning
  • Student activism
    Student activism
    Student activism is work done by students to effect political, environmental, economic, or social change. It has often focused on making changes in schools, such as increasing student influence over curriculum or improving educational funding...

  • Collaborative learning
    Collaborative learning
    Collaborative learning is a situation in which two or more people learn or attempt to learn something together. Unlike individual learning, people engaged in collaborative learning capitalize on one another’s resources and skills...

  • Democratic school
    Democratic school
    This is a comprehensive list of current and former democratic schools. Most of these were modeled on the Summerhill School, the oldest existing democratic school founded in 1921...

  • Service learning
  • Experiential learning
    Experiential learning
    Experiential learning is the process of making meaning from direct experience. Simply put, Experiential Learning is learning from experience. The experience can be staged or left open. Aristotle once said, "For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them." David A...

  • Project-based learning
    Project-based learning
    Project-based learning, or PBL, is the use of in-depth and rigorous classroom projects to facilitate learning and assess student competence . Students use technology and inquiry to respond to a complex issue, problem or challenge...

  • Anarchistic free school
  • Unschool
  • Educational progressivism
    Educational progressivism
    Progressive education is a pedagogical movement that began in the late nineteenth century and has persisted in various forms to the present. More recently, it has been viewed as an alternative to the test-oriented instruction legislated by the No Child Left Behind educational funding act...

  • Personal learning environments
  • Inquiry education
    Inquiry education
    Inquiry education is a student-centered method of education focused on asking questions. Students are encouraged to ask questions which are meaningful to them, and which do not necessarily have easy answers; teachers are encouraged to avoid giving answers when this is possible, and in any case to...

  • Learning by teaching
    Learning by teaching
    In professional education, learning by teaching designates currently the method by Jean-Pol Martin that allows pupils and students to prepare and to teach lessons, or parts of lessons...

     (LdL)
  • Youth-adult partnerships
  • Intergenerational equity
    Intergenerational equity
    Intergenerational equity in economic, psychological, and sociological contexts, is the concept or idea of fairness or justice in relationships between children, youth, adults and seniors, particularly in terms of treatment and interactions. It has been studied in environmental and sociological...

  • Minimally Invasive Education
    Minimally Invasive Education
    Minimally Invasive Education is a term used to describe how children learn in unsupervised environments. It was derived from an experiment done by Sugata Mitra while at NIIT in 1999 often called The Hole in the Wall....


School examples

  • St Augustine's School
  • Quintin Kynaston School
    Quintin Kynaston School
    Quintin Kynaston is a local comprehensive secondary school in the St John's Wood area of north London. It became a Specialist Technology College in 2001. The school intends to become an academy in September 2011.-Admissions:...

     (UK)
  • Avalon Charter School, St. Paul, Minnesota
  • Community High School (Ann Arbor, Michigan)
  • The Nova Project (Seattle, Washington)
  • Summerhill School
    Summerhill School
    Summerhill School is an independent British boarding school that was founded in 1921 by Alexander Sutherland Neill with the belief that the school should be made to fit the child, rather than the other way around...

     (UK)
  • Kirkdale School
    Kirkdale School
    Kirkdale School was a small, independent free school located at 186 Kirkdale Road, Sydenham, London, England. During the entirety of the school's existence it was run as a parent/teacher co-operative....

     (UK)
  • Sudbury-style schools
    Sudbury school
    A Sudbury school is a school that practices a form of democratic education in which students individually decide what to do with their time, and learn as a by-product of ordinary experience rather than adopting a descriptive educational syllabus or standardized instruction by classes following a...

     (US)
  • Coalition of Essential Schools
    Coalition of Essential Schools
    The Coalition of Essential Schools is an organization created to further a type of whole-school reform originally envisioned by founder Ted Sizer in his book, Horace's Compromise. CES began in 1984 with twelve schools; it currently has 600 formal members.-Horace's Compromise:Horace's Compromise...

  • Jane Addams School for Democracy
    Jane Addams School for Democracy
    - The School : Located in West Side Saint Paul, Minnesota at Baker Center, the Jane Addams School for Democracy is an organization dedicated to the ideals of democracy and citizenship. In an environment that seeks to embody the principles of democratic education, recent immigrants and college...

  • Goddard College
    Goddard College
    Goddard College is a private, liberal arts college located in Plainfield, Vermont, offering undergraduate and graduate degree programs. Goddard College currently operates on an intensive low-residency model...

  • The Evergreen State College
    The Evergreen State College
    The Evergreen State College is an accredited public liberal arts college and a member of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges. It is located in Olympia, Washington, USA. Founded in 1967, Evergreen was formed to be an experimental and non-traditional college...

  • Overseas Family School
    Overseas Family School
    Overseas Family School is a privately owned Pre K-12 International school, providing education in the English language medium for overseas families living in Singapore. It started in 1991 with roughly 50 students, today Overseas Family School has 3550 students from 74 nationalities...

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