This section draws the threads of the chapter together to propose the definition and orientation to student voice adopted for this research. In this section I propose the notion of student/teacher classroom governance partnerships as the
conceptualisation of student voice that addresses criteria for ongoing dialogic student voice (Fielding, 2001b; Lodge, 2005, 2008) into an approach for enacting influential student positioning within the student/teacher pedagogical relationship. From this section on I flip the teacher/student binary, describing student/teacher governance partnerships. I do this to foreground increased student influence and status as an intention embedded in this co-governance notion.
Students are increasingly involved in governance level consultation as part of a student voice agenda (Thomson & Gunter, 2007). However whilst they are increasingly positioned as agents of change within schools producing knowledge from their particular standpoint (Thomson & Gunter, 2007) student involvement in co-constructing pedagogy with teachers remains rare (Thomson, 2011). Flutter (2007) reviewing a collaborative teacher and student classroom initiative, noted that even though teachers and students worked together the focus of student consultation was on how children learn. From this data teachers could then adjust their teaching. Students were not asked directly about teachers’ performance or to give lesson feedback.
Student voice activity is often an add-on rather than a ‘mainstream curricular activity’, with “significant underdevelopment of classroom pedagogies which encourage everyday dialogue between students and teachers, and … evaluative discussions with teachers” (Thomson, 2012, p. 96). Classroom-based student voice research focused on pedagogy is called for by teachers themselves. Teachers participating in a New Zealand study (Roberts & Bolstad, 2010)
for a shift of student voice into the classroom. In their reflections on students’ perceptions of opportunities for their involvement in educational design, one teacher commented “we’ve done lots of talking about 21st century learning and lifelong learning and it seems ‘out there’ but what does it mean in the classroom?” (Teacher One, Roberts & Bolstad, 2010, p. 36). Teachers also signalled that they wanted to shift from students presenting their perspectives to engaging in dialogue with them.
Research on how teachers learn from students is under-addressed in student voice initiatives (B. Morgan, 2011; Pedder & McIntyre, 2006). Pedder and McIntyre (2006) note that “research into the impact of pupil consultation on teachers’ classroom practices and, in particular, teachers’ use of pupils’ ideas, remains in its infancy” (p. 145). Even in student voice research aimed at improving teaching practice, student perceptions of effective teaching are seldom sought directly (for an exception see Bragg, 2007b). More commonly studies explore students’ conceptions of learning in order to infer implications for teaching practice (Kane & Maw, 2005; Kroeger et al., 2004; Lodge, 2008).
One notable exception is Frost (2007) taught a class of Year Three students research skills over six weeks as the students engaged in action research projects. At the end of the research the students were invited directly to give her feedback on her teaching and their learning.
Change of this nature is difficult for teachers to achieve in practice because it requires them to do things very differently if they are to reposition students more powerfully as pedagogical partners (Smyth, 2007). In enacting student/teacher governance partnerships, teachers’ learning is linked to how they might represent and engage with the complexities of students’ voices, perspectives, experiences and identities (Cook-Sather, 2007) and research designs need to include strong scaffolds and support for teachers if they are to succeed (Hall, Leat, Wall, Higgins, & Edwards, 2006; Hipkins, 2010). One such scaffold is to link teacher learning with their work in the classroom (Downes et al., 2010; Putnam & Borko, 2000).
An important aspect of governance partnerships is the notion of ongoing dialogue. Ongoing student/teacher dialogue is advocated as a way to generate new hybrid student/teacher discourses within ‘official’ classroom spaces (Gutierrez, Rymes,
& Larson, 1995; Lodge, 2005). Gutirrez, Rymes and Larson (1995) argue power is embedded within the multiple teacher and student discourses and social
relationships. Often teachers communicate using official authoritative discourse (Scott, Mortimer, & Aguiar, 2006). Students’ either comply with or contest these authoritative discourses with dialogic discourse, discourse that develops amongst students (Scott et al., 2006). When teacher and student discourses genuinely intermingle they produce an ‘interanimated’ discourse (Seymour & Lehrer, 2006) relevant to both teachers and students and their context.
Safe spaces are needed for student voice that integrate students and their perspectives into classroom dialogue as an “integral part of school discourse rather than an attempt to undermine authority” (Lundy, 2007, p. 934) and protect students from potential sanctions related to the views they share. Safe spaces for student voice imply student/teacher relationships where teachers are open to student perspectives and are willing to learn from, rather than filter, student experiences of learning, schooling and conditions for engagement.
Increased student participation in classroom pedagogical decision-making within invokes the issue of agenda control. Some issues are welcomed onto the agenda for student/teacher negotiation, others are not, and in some cases agenda control boundaries are difficult to identify in action. For example Cox and Robinson-Pant (2008) conducted action research with nine teachers in six UK primary schools to improve student participation in classroom decision making processes using visual data generation methods. Whilst the children involved in the study did experience an expanded opportunity for their real participation in classroom decision making, to a large extent their teachers decided the kinds and scope of decisions the students could make. The teachers themselves were also constrained in the kinds of decisions they could allow the students to make, or the decision- making agenda, by contextual influences on their own practice. For instance, time to fully explore decisions in the busy classroom was truncated, teachers still held to their role as professionals to act as final decision-makers in the classroom, teachers sometimes judged the focus of children’s attention to be trivial and educationally suspect, and teachers mediated tensions between their children’s intended focus and what they had to get done within their broader institutional constraints. These findings highlight the sometimes illusory aspects of student voice as participation in pedagogical decision-making within institutional
constraints of classrooms (Raby, 2008; Thornberg, 2010). As Frost (2007) noted in similar research, “we appeared to be consulting pupils yet denying them any real power to change anything because of an intricate web of institutional imperatives” (p. 442).
With the caveats I have explored in this section I draw on Thomson and Gunter’s (2007) governance notion to conceptualise student voice in this thesis as
student/teacher governance partnerships. These governance partnerships as I conceptualise them, extend the student voice agenda to include students co-
constructing matters of pedagogy not traditionally afforded students, with teachers in classrooms, through ongoing dialogic interaction.