The importance of speaking

up the student voice

The active and authentic involvement of students has been identied as a key
factor in creating safe and supportive schools. A signicant body of national and
international research suggests that student voice:
should involve young peoples active participation in shared decision-making;
is one avenue through which students can explore and construct their own
learning and develop higher order skills;
is a key to personalising learning;
is a perspective of distributed leadership that is often overlooked;
is not always authentic in actual practice; and
can be tokenistic where young people appear to have a meaningful voice but in
fact dont.
Ranson (2000) argues for pedagogy of voice which enables children and young
people to explore self and identity, develop self-understanding and self-respect and
improve agency, capability and potential. Studies suggest that when young people
are listened to, involved in meaningful decision-making processes and supported
in expressing their views, they are more likely to feel confdent in speaking up
when issues of bullying and harassment occur. They are also more likely to have
developed a range of skills, strategies and behaviours that assist them in managing
difcult or challenging situations.
Fielding and Ruddock (2004) show that when schools engage student voice they
create opportunities to facilitate a stronger sense of:
membership, so that students feel more positive about school;
respect and self-worth, so that students feel positive about themselves;
self as learner, so that students are better able to manager their own process in
learning; and
agency, so that students realise that they can have impact on things that matter to
them in school.
Student voice is identifed as a key component of personalised learning both in
Australia and overseas. The Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 (PoLT) in
Victoria include the importance of teachers canvassing student opinions and
ensuring that class discussions are not dominated by the teachers voice.
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Research
article
July 2009
Studies suggest that when young people
are listened to, involved in meaningful
decision-making processes and supported
in expressing their views, they are more
likely to feel confdent in speaking up when
issues of bullying and harassment occur.
Fieldings framework for evaluating
conditions for student voice (2001) seeks
to determine whether student voice
is authentic. It identies a number of
questions that can be asked including:
Who is allowed to speak?
Who listens?
What kind of organisational culture needs
to be developed to enable student voice
to thrive?
What are some of the key considerations
to take into account in helping student
voice to be and become a signicant part
of the process of communal renewal?
Personalised learning includes a safe and secure environment where students learn
and have problems dealt with effectively. It also involves students having a real say
about what they are learning. David Hargreaves (2004) identifes student voice as
the most powerful gateway for personalising learning as students are encouraged
to provide feedback on their learning and contribute to their curriculum.
In 2008, students from Victorian primary school student councils voted on a range
of issues through a formal congress or parliamentary-style debate (Holdsworth
2009). The majority of motions put to congress related to bullying in schools.
Students concerns included the ideas that: ignoring the bullying doesnt work; if
people dont tell anybody theyre more likely to be bullied; some people might feel
uncomfortable talking to adults; some people dont who what to do there needs
to be more information. Congress also identied the need for students to develop
assertiveness skills and to be able to attend anti-bullying programs.
The prominence and persistence of the issue of bullying to students, parents,
schools and the community conrms its importance as a fundamental issue
affecting personal autonomy and well-being. It resonates with ongoing community
issues of violence and social harm. The identication of bullying as a key concern
is a strong example of both students capacity and need for an effective voice in
addressing this issue in their learning environment.
Studies show that schools are a major social learning environment for children and
young people. However, school cultures are often tacit, automatically accepted and
unconscious. Major features of everyday functioning, even adverse ones such as
bullying, can become normalised and invisible. The challenge for positive change
in any culture is to achieve genuine critical self-refection. To promote a real student
voice schools need to consider how:
current support structures and networks develop and model social and civic trust,
inclusion and tolerance of diversity;
democratic decision-making and empowerment are promoted;
the management and resolution of conficts are embedded in school practice;
staff and other adults are modelling and teaching the behaviours and skills
needed to create safe and supportive environments.
Hargreaves (2004) suggests that student voice fourishes in a particular kind of
school culture. In turn, it helps to replenish such a culture one that refects and
sustains the school as a community of learners involving teachers, student and
school leaders.
Using the idea of community signals that student voice is fundamentally linked
to the concept of civics and citizenship. Currently, researchers are considering
how young people make sense of their place in communities, develop a sense of
identity and legitimacy, and how their sense of citizenship is shaped. Challenges
for education systems means supporting young people to explore these issues,
and viewing the development of civic values as a complex, evolving process
which extends beyond taught programs of responsibility, conformity and
appropriate behaviour.
Haynes (2009) suggests that school communities should model what their civics
classes teach and thus avoid prohibiting students from practising civic habits of
the hearts and exercising their freedom of conscience:
We want to inspire students to follow their conscience not in spite of what we
teach and do in our schools, but because of what we teach and do.
Current international research is exploring whether schools need to move away
from instrumental programs for creating good citizens towards promotion of new
concepts that support development of a sense of citizenship. Schools can use the
questions in the box to achieve effective self-refection about their own practices in
this area.
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Schools can ask themselves the following
questions:
Are our children and young people
being given genuine opportunities to be
heard and to participate in collaborative
decision-making on issues that are
important to them?
Whose voice, views and opinions are
being heard and valued, and whose are
being ignored?
How are students contributing
collaboratively and constructively to
peers, family, school and the wider
community?
How does our schools culture help or
hinder our students when issues bullying
and harassment arise?
Who speaks?
A research report from the Department
of Education and Early Childhood
Development, Victoria (Manefeld et al.
2007) explores student voice from a
historical perspective and consider new
directions. It reports that:
Student voice is not simply about the
opportunity to communicate ideas and
opinions; it is about having the power to
infuence change.
Some young people are more willing to
speak than others, while those who are
perhaps least served by schools are less
willing to speak.
Often students are not able to speak to
those who have the power to change what
happens in schools.
The subjects that students are
encouraged to speak about are often of
low level importance, while important
matters are not addressed.
The most disengaged are least likely to
raise their voices.
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The concept of school culture is at the heart of any effective school refection on
student voice. It can be addressed through analytical questions to determine
aspects of school culture affecting the empowerment of students, adult modelling
and tacit norms about learning, human relationships and behaviour:
are all students developing skills in assertiveness and confict resolution?
do all students feel that their voice is heard and respected by peers and adults?
are students developing individual goals aimed at improving the social/emotional
environment?
do all students know what to say and do when bullying occurs?
how are students assisted in establishing and maintaining a range of positive
social relationships?
how are students taught to manage interpersonal diffculties and refrain from
hurting others?
A measure of the effect of responding to these questions could be asking this
additional question: Is the student voice and socially responsible actions thriving
where it matters most wherever and whenever adults are not present?
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This article was developed by the Research
Branch, Department of Education and
Early Childhood Development.
Further information about the Research
Branch is available at: http://www.
education.vic.gov.au/researchinnovation/
default.htm
To contact the Research Branch email:
research@edumail.vic.gov.au
An earlier version of this article appeared in
Shine ( July 2009; Issue 06).