The critique of whose interests student voice initiatives serve has focused the student voice agenda on the purposes for which student voice is utilised (Fielding, 2010). These purposes can be examined from two perspectives: 1) student voice purposes of teachers and schools and 2) student voice purposes of students themselves.
The multiple purposes that underpin student voice research projects within school- based student voice initiatives are made explicit in the seminal typology devised by Lodge (2005). She identified four purposes for student involvement in student voice projects:
1. Quality control – students give ‘consumer feedback’ for evaluative purposes;
2. Students as a source of information – passive consultation of students for the purposes of school improvement;
3. Compliance and control – views of students are taken account of but can be manipulated to address institutional aims or utilised tokenistically e.g. student quotations in school brochures; and
4. Dialogue – student/teacher mutual exploration of learning about learning that could not occur by one party alone.
(Summarised from Lodge, 2005, pp. 132-134)
To minimise exploitative student voice activities, Lodge promotes a dialogic approach to student voice where students and teachers collaborate around matters of learning, curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. Collaboration generates rich learning for both students and teachers.
Enquiry into curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and learning undertaken collaboratively by a small group of teachers together with young people is an exceptionally rich form of learning for each. (Lodge, 2005, p. 136)
Problematising the purposes underpinning particular student voice activities is necessary to resist the potential of student voice research to entrench and make worse existing inequalities around students’ positioning within these initiatives
(Cook-Sather, 2007). Lodge (2008) contends “there are some very tame,
reductive, and exploitative notions of student voice in the UK” (p. 3). She argued this was in part due to agenda control - what students are allowed to contest and discuss within school improvement projects, for instance litter rather than changes to school uniform.
In addition to what students are allowed to contest, caution has been raised about whether involving students in critiquing matters of teaching and learning positions them as surveillance partners in processes of teacher accountability as was
outlined in section 2.1. From this perspective the student/teacher alliance is distorted as “a way to discipline teachers as much as to provide students with real choice” (Bragg, 2007b, p. 351) through their involvement.
However Fielding (2001b, 2004a) argues that although current co-option of student voice to an accountability agenda may narrow the focus of student voice, it does mean that student perspectives are taken account of through required consultation around the quality of learning and teaching. Teachers also indicate that receiving feedback from their students is “a move towards a dialogic, reflective model of professionalism, forged in alliance with students” (Bragg, 2007b, p. 351).
The second perspective for examining the purposes that underpin student voice is that of students themselves. When asked during student voice research initiatives, students report that they appreciate having a say in decisions around their learning and their lives (Mitra, 2006a). In Northern Ireland Lundy (2007) conducted research on children’s educational experiences as part of a larger audit of
children’s rights against UNCRC provisions. The most significant finding of the research that involved 1064 school children from 27 schools was that “not having a say in the decisions made about them was the single most important issue to the children in Northern Ireland” (p. 929).
Summarising her experience in many student voice research projects over time Rudduck (2007) collated category ‘clusters’ that represented the influence
students say they want in their schooling at four levels: (1) individual autonomy – that they are able to contribute; (2) pedagogy – they want teaching and learning that is relevant to their present and future aspirations, involves intellectual challenge and involves them in a variety of experiences; (3) social – they want
respect from their teachers and their peers and they want influence over the conditions that impact their learning; and (4) institutional – they want more responsibility and involvement in decisions at a school level (summarised from pp. 591-592).
New Zealand research Kane, Maw, and Chimwayange (2006) found that students and teachers hold similar conceptions of learning and perspectives on the
conditions that support learning to flourish.
Both students and teachers identified respectful relationships, relevance of subject and objectives, appropriate preparation, clear and open communication, and supportive classroom environments as essential to student learning. (Kane et al., 2006, p. 2)
These student perspectives might not be new knowledge to teachers, but Bishop and Pflaum (2005b) argue “the extent to which students are aware of their own engagement requirements, however, may be revelatory for some” (p. 5). Although a burgeoning literature reporting student voice consultation research exists, Morgan (2009) argues that research that explores students’ experiences of being consulted is sparse. In her UK research Morgan (2011) followed four teachers as they worked to consult their students in different ways within their classroom practice. The key findings noted that,
(1) Pupil consultation was marginal and low in priority for three of the four teachers who participated; (2) a commitment to pupil consultation at the whole- school level was not necessarily translated into teachers’ classroom practices; and (3) pupils welcomed consultation and had much to say about the benefits of consultation for their learning and their teachers’ teaching (p. 446).
Morgan also worked with 75 Year Eight students who were consulted within the larger study. These students volunteered to share their perspectives on being consulted through semi-structured interviews. Summarising the students’ perspectives Morgan noted “all pupils said they approved of consultation and suggested it was better for teachers to do it than not” (p. 400). She noted that students had modest expectations of consultation, they appreciated feedback on how their participation influenced teachers’ practice and thinking, and that effects from consultation in terms of conditions for their learning depended on particular
teachers and their uptake. Students in this research also expressed a concern that they did not want to offend their teachers by sharing viewpoints that might upset them and consequently come back to impact on them negatively. In this respect anonymity was identified as a key student concern.
However Hyde (1992a) writing in the Australian context, and reporting her work with students around sharing power through negotiating classroom curriculum and decision-making identified a more nuanced student response to being involved in consultation and negotiation. Hyde identified four typical student reactions to being involved in negotiation:
1. Thankful and amazed; 2. Suspicious;
3. Dismayed; and 4. Contemptuous.
Students who expressed thanks and amazement interpreted an invitation to negotiate with the teacher as an indicator that they were respected by the teacher for their expertise and capability to make sound decisions related to their own learning. Students who expressed suspicion said they would like to trust the teacher’s intention to include them in decisions of significance but their
experience with teachers led them to feel ‘conned’ when offered opportunities to negotiate. Students who expressed dismay at being involved in negotiating curriculum and conditions of their learning were worried primarily about how they would learn without the teacher telling them what to do. Finally the students who expressed contempt for being included in negotiation took the position that by including students in decision-making, the teachers was ‘shirking’ their responsibilities as the professional educator (summarised from Hyde, 1992a, pp. 53-55).
In sum, schools engage in student voice initiatives for diverse purposes,
influenced by macro-level and school-level policy agendas. Within school-based student voice projects the agendas that students are supported to contest are delimited by educators. It appears also that students welcome opportunities to advocate for their own interests, be heard by adults and participate in educational decision-making alongside teachers and be made aware the impact their
in this section also indicate student awareness of the multiple influences acting within educational contexts to constrain and enable their participation
possibilities. These include teacher/student and institutional power dynamics as well as established perceptions around the role of the teacher and role of the student.
2.5 Locating Student Voice in the Teacher/Student Pedagogical