There have been a growing number of authors who have affirmed the need for research with children to include the children’s input and for research not merely be conducted on the children (Fielding and Bragg, 2003; Leitch and Mitchell, 2007).
Pupil voice in its widest sense can be defined as ‘every way in which pupils are allowed or encouraged to voice their views and preferences’ (Cheminais, 2008, p. 6).
Use of pupil voice has been at the forefront of the development of participatory research methods with school pupils and has the potential to be used in research with pupils labelled BESD and within their PE lessons.
Pupil voice has developed out of a growing number of legislation and guidelines which have been important in the development of the concept of voice within pupil populations. The first of these documents, and possibly the most frequently cited, is the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child [UNCRC] (UN, 1989). It is within this document that articles 12 and 13 refer to the value of listening to and respecting the rights of the child. Article 12 states that the children must have the right to express their views freely on all matters affecting them (United Nations, 1989).
The UNCRC, ratified by the UK government in 1991, enshrines an important number of rights for the child (Alderson, 2008). Article 13 concerns the rights of the child to have freedom of expression regardless of barriers and through any medium of the child’s choice. Arising from this document, there has been guidance from the UK
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Government (DfES, 2001) together with advice from such bodies as the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust and National College of School Leaders encouraging schools to consult with pupils.
In the forward to the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) (2008) Working Together: Listening to the Voices of Children and Young Children, the then minister stated that giving:
children and young people a say in decisions that affect them can improve engagement in learning, help develop a more inclusive school environment and improve behaviour and attendance. Through effective pupil
participation, schools give young people the opportunity to develop critical thinking, advocacy and influencing skills, helping every child to fulfil their potential (p 1).
The UNCRC (United Nations, 1989) is cited by many as being the cornerstone of the idea that children should participate in discussions regarding decisions that affect them. The Convention provides a focus around which pupil voice and participatory research have been developed in schools. It would be wrong to assume that because the UN Convention provided a framework for the use of pupil voice that it became an approach adopted by schools. As Rudduck and Fielding (2006) noted there are dangers in the ‘simplistic surface compliance’ that has arisen from the rapid uptake of the Convention. Other authors (Lundy, 2007) have noted that Article 12 offers a much wider perspective than the mere use of pupil voice; it offers the opportunity for the development of the individual human rights of the child. This interpretation of the Convention has the implication that it is not simply a matter of listening to the child but rather allowing the child to become a full participant in all discussions that are pertinent to the child. These rights were recognised by Huddleston (2007) when he described what he called the normative argument, that children are participants with rights. Bron and Veugelers (2014). Kirshner and Pozzoboni (2011) described rationales for pupil voice work which included the normative argument made by Huddleston. These five rationales were: normative, developmental, political, educational and relevance.
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The normative argument stated that pupils were entitled to participate in decision making in their education ‘both from the perspective of children’s rights as well as the perspective of being citizen in their own right instead of a citizen-in-waiting’ (Bron and Veugelers, 2014, p. 128). They further stated that pupil voice overlapped with pupil participation in that it had ‘the potential to promote democratic attitude through education’(Bron and Veugelers, 2014, p. 128). Pupil voice has become much more important since the ratification of UNCRC and schools have been urged to find creative ways to provide pupils with opportunities for active citizenship and participation. All the developments in pupil voice share the common view as expressed by Thiessen and Cook-Sather (2007, p. 7) that pupils are:
knowledgeable and collaborative actors whose insights into and expertise in their own ideas, comments, and actions are critical to the full understanding of what transpires and changes at school.
The developmental argument argued that pupils within school frequently assume more responsibility and autonomy outside school than they were allowed within. Bron and Veugelers (2014) contended that young people today have ‘increased economic powers, social maturity, access to information and knowledge derived from the ever-increasing media culture’ (p. 129). Yet many schools still provide few opportunities for pupils to be ‘knowledgeable and collaborative actors’ (Thiessen and Cook-Sather, 2007).
The political argument noted that children were often seen as a homogeneous group, but in fact they were not (Bron and Veugelers, 2014). Thomson (2011) describes a conceptual problem of voice: ‘the singularity of voice, as if there were only one voice instead of many’(Bron and Veugelers, 2014, p 130). Davey, Burke and Shaw (2010) made the distinction between involved and not involved youth. McIntyre, Pedder and Rudduck (2005) stated that, in their experience, teachers noted that although some pupils’ responses were thoughtful and constructive, it was difficult to access the views of the pupils who were not involved. This was especially difficult for pupils with SEN who historically have not had their views heard possibly due to the teachers’ perception of their learning difficulty.
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The educational argument for the use of pupil voice centred around the
development of opportunities which might lead to the development of numerous participative and democratic skills (Bron and Veugelers, 2014). These included knowledge, skills, attitudes and sense of belonging which schools find to be a ‘challenging task’ (Bron and Veugelers, 2014, p. 132). Dykes, Furdyk and Corriero (2013) noted that the implementation of pupil voice might:
improve learning by bridging the gap between how students live and how they learn, thus making education more relevant in the learner’s world and encouraging the skills needed to adapt to changing global conditions (Bron and Veugelers, 2014, p. 133) citing Dykes, Furdyk and Corriero (2013).
The relevance argument is the importance of pupils being involved in curriculum design rather than the curriculum being the product of a fixed set of requirements. Several authors have emphasised the dynamic character of a live or enacted curriculum where teachers and pupils engage together in developing meaningful activities (Joseph, 2010).
These are the underpinning theoretical arguments for the incorporation of pupil voice into schools. Pupil voice was seen by Fielding (2007) as being about much more than an openness to hearing pupils’ perspectives but rather that pupil voice was about reconfiguring schooling and education such that they come to model and mirror democracy itself. Flutter and Rudduck (2004) noted that:
the school becomes a community of participants engaged in the common endeavour of learning. Where pupil voice is attended to, learning comes to be seen as a more holistic process with broad aims rather than a
progression through a sequence of narrowly focused performance targets (2004. P. 135).
This quotation from 2004 still has echoes today in the contribution pupil voice may make to present day schools. The development of pupil voice in schools has rightly involved pupils not only being asked for their views on a variety of topics but also their involvement in forms of research within their school.
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Rudduck and Fielding (2006) commented that pupils had a low expectation of school managers listening and valuing their experiences, even within a ‘School Council’, a regular forum where elected pupils meet with a specified member of the teaching staff to discuss school issues. If these issues were seen by pupils, as Lodge (2005) stated, to be related to ‘comfort’ issues, this could lead to frustration and ultimately scepticism on the part of pupils. It is what MacPhail (2010) labelled as ‘a tokenistic approach to consultation, where pupils’ contributions are directed and structured by the teachers’ (p. 9). A further negative aspect from the perspective of the school was that the School Council might raise issues that schools were not willing to take onboard. This raised the important issue of power relationships between teachers and pupils. Pearce and Wood (2019) stated that power in the traditional classroom was not shared evenly since not only did teachers exert coercive power, but they also exerted power through their position as experts. This power was not something that could be given away or shared so attempts to empower pupils might result in pupil voice taking on the role of ‘tokenistic
intervention’ (Taylor and Robinson, 2009, p. 166). This did not mean that schools should not implement strategies to enable the voice of pupils to be heard, but that all participants should possess the critical tools needed to allow them to examine their relative positions (Taylor and Robinson, 2009).
Clearly, if there is to be pupil participation in school improvement, then it depends to a large degree on teachers being able to acknowledge and give credence to pupil voice. Both teachers and pupils have much to contribute but, as reported by
Rudduck and Fielding (2006), each have their own views on their own contributions and those of others. Pupils have much to contribute since they are on the receiving end of the teaching and learning, but it is often unclear how their views might be solicited or in which forum. On the other hand, teachers might find the whole process difficult since they might be anxious about what pupils might say about their professional skills. Pupils could also be anxious since they might feel that talking about teachers is ‘rude’ and ‘wrong’, with older pupils being concerned about possible retaliation (Rudduck and Fielding 2006). The use of pupil voice in schools is often ‘highly managed by adults who hold a disproportionate amount of
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power’ (Groundwater-Smith, Dockett and Bottrell, 2015, p55-74). As previously stated, some teachers find the process of giving pupils a voice involves the
relinquishing of something of their power in the classroom (Bragg, 2007). Teachers are accustomed to not only evaluating pupils’ work but also the pupils themselves. When Bragg (2007) observed pupils producing report cards not only regarding the teaching but also giving targets, she observed that this was ‘pupil voice turning things on their head ‘ (Bragg, 2007, p. 513). If pupils are to be involved in research then it would involve:
a sensitivity to power differentials in order to engage in planning roles and also enactment …. but whilst there is an effort to establish a parity of esteem there are power differentials that need to be acknowledged and understood (Groundwater-Smith and Mockler, 2015, p.166).
Cook-Sather (2002) acknowledged that the value of the views of pupils would involve changes in mindset as well as a change in the structure of educational relationships. However, pupil voice advocates have noted apparent
‘inconsistencies’ (Robinson, 2014, p.9) and ‘contradictions’ (Rudduck and Fielding, 2006, p. 223) as schools attempt to employ pupil voice as a reform strategy (Mayes, 2018, p.2). Taylor and Robinson (2009) noted the difference between the ideals of pupil voice and actual practice in schools. Schools have found that strategies that make the most of pupil voice difficult to put into practice. Cremin, Mason and Busher (2011) provide a reason for this difficulty:
In an educational climate where the degree of central control over what happens in school on a day-to-day basis has reached unprecedented levels, is there really a political and professional will to hear what young people have to say? (p. 587).
There is an increasing amount of government control over education with the result that teachers have less control over what they teach and therefore perhaps a decreasing ability to introduce methods that take pupil voice into account. However, Cook-Sather (2006) asserted the vital importance of listening to pupil
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voice, noting that when this was done effectively, it led to useful collaboration between staff/pupils and the development of pupil agency. Mitra (2007) further noted that without pupil voice, schools were denying themselves access to data that could not be obtained elsewhere.
Pupil voice in schools provides a way in which the pupils involved are able to take greater responsibility for their learning and, as indicated by Groundwater-Smith and Mockler (2015), pupils were beginning to own their learning. If the process involves the pupils undertaking research this raises the issue of who ‘owns’ the research. This issue of ownership needs to be considered by addressing the continuum of types of research involving pupils. At one level the use of pupil voice might be what has been previously described as ‘tokenistic’, merely asking for the views of the pupils. Beyond this is a continuum of pupil experience and degree of involvement where pupils actively research a topic and, in conjunction with the adults of the school, the research may then be actioned. A further scenario is pupils actively using their voice and researching a topic that has been provided by an agency outside of school, such as a university or national project. In this latter case,
Eilertsen, Gustafson and Salo (2008) note that in this case the micro-politics of the school are ignored as researchers build their case. They point to the issues of politics involving outside researchers with headteachers and teachers. Jones and Stanley (2008) pointed out the additional balancing act which was required when the voices of pupils are involved. This is emphasised further when researchers wish to give voice to vulnerable, marginalised or disenfranchised pupils. The issue of ownership is clearly the core issue when it comes to matters of the voices of children as participants in studies and will need to be given due consideration in all research involving pupil voice. Cook-Sather noted that there are ‘particular
methodological and epistemological challenges to pupil voice research with very young children’ (Cook-Sather, 2014, p. 135). In order to reach these pupils, researchers have employed participatory and visual methods (Clark, 2011; Rizvi, 2011).
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It is also interesting when discussing pupil voice to consider pupils’ silence in the face of opportunities to contribute their views. Many factors might contribute to this e.g. fear, stubbornness, not knowing what to say, and not being willing to be part of a dialogue (Cook-Sather, 2006).