Bryn Mawr College

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2020

Student voice across contexts: Fostering student agency in

today’s schools
Alison Cook-Sather

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Running head: STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 1

Student Voice across Contexts: Fostering Student Agency in Today’s Schools

STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 2

Abstract

Student voice is a concept and a set of approaches that position students alongside credentialed
educators as critics and creators of educational practice. Student voice and student agency are
closely linked when school stakeholders connect the sound of students speaking with students
having the power to influence analyses of, decisions about, and practices in schools. In this
article I present an overview of forms of student voice work that support cultivating student
agency in school spaces, in research on teaching and learning in those spaces, and in authoring
publications about teaching and learning in those spaces. Drawing on empirical studies
conducted in a range of contexts, the examples refer to students, teachers, administrators, and
researchers working together to: analyze teaching and learning in ways that inform classroom
practices; employ a wide variety of methodologies to engage in research that leads to action; and
author and co-author analyses of practice and research that are guided by students’ own
interpretative frames as well as filled with their own words. Implications of this discussion
include suggestions for teachers, school principals, teacher educators, and researchers regarding
how to support student voice such that it fosters the developent of student agency.
Keywords: student voice, agency, partnership
STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 3

Student Voice across Contexts: Fostering Student Agency in Today’s Schools

Student voice has evolved as both a concept and a set of practices since the 1990s and
2000s when the term first became widely used (Fielding, 2001; Levin, 2000; Rudduck & Flutter,
2004; SooHoo, 1993). Most scholars agree in theory that genuine student voice work entails
positioning students to “identify and analyze issues related to their schools and their learning that
they see as significant” (Fielding & Bragg, 2003, p. 4) and feel empowered to “speak and act
alongside credentialed educators as critics and creators of educational practice” (Cook-Sather,
2018, p. 17). What student voice means in practice depends on the relationship that exists in a
particular context between “voice” and “agency” or “action” (Holdsworth, 2000, p. 357). If there
is a gap between voice and agency—understood as students’ ability to exert influence in their
learning context, to transform their own and others’ learning experiences, and to expand
learning—then Lundy’s (2007) critique that “voice” is not enough holds true. If, however, voice
and agency are closely linked, as I argue it should be, then school stakeholders “connect the
sound of students speaking not only with those students experiencing meaningful, acknowledged
presence but also with their having the power to influence analyses of, decisions about, and
practices in schools” (Cook-Sather, 2006, p. 363).
In this article I offer an argument for why student voice matters and present an overview
of forms of student voice work in practice and research. My purpose is to offer approaches to
conceptualizing how student agency can be cultivated in school spaces and approaches to
ensuring that student voices inform deliberations on and practices of learning and teaching.
Drawing on empirical studies conducted in a range of contexts, these examples point to how
students, teachers, administrators, and others can work together to: analyze teaching and learning
in ways that inform classroom practices; employ a wide variety of methodologies to engage in
research that leads to action; and author and co-author analyses of such work that are guided by
students’ own interpretative frames as well as filled with their own words. Implications of this
discussion include suggestions for teachers, administrators, and teacher educators regarding how
to support student voice such that it fosters the developent of student agency.

Why does student voice matter?

STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 4

The developent of student agency includes creating mechanisms through which students
are included in meaningful processes of analyzing teaching and learning such that their voices
and perspectives inform classroom practices. It also includes creating opportunities for research
that leads to action, such as youth-led participatory action research (Cammarota & Fine, 2008;
Mitra & McCormick, 2017; Rodríguez & Brown, 2009) and collaborative action research. These
forms of research see young people as “social actors and experts on their own lives” (Cowie &
Khoo, 2017; Nelson, 2015), and institutions of secondary and tertiary education can collaborate
to teach youth how to engage in such research (see Fine et al., 2004), And finally, the developent
of student agency includes inviting students to author and co-author analyses of teaching and
learning—claiming agency and capacity to name what they know and present it to a wider
audience. Student voice and agency in schools—their ability to exert influence in their learning
context, to transform their own and others’ learning experiences, and to expand learning—does
not aim to replace the presence and power of seasoned practitioners and certified professionals
but rather “to legitimate alongside those experts the experiences, perspectives, and expertise of
students” (Cook-Sather, 2014).
All of these developments require a shift in mindset and a sharing of power (Cook-
Sather, 2006; Mayes et al., 2017). They require the recognition of students as those with essential
perspectives on learning and the creation of conditions under which the power and responsibility
for educational practice and research are shared. As Berryman, Eley, and Copeland (2017) assert:
By sharing power with students, by listening to them and seeking to follow their
advice, we have learned that educators, researchers and policy makers are more
likely to promote contexts through which the voiceless have voice, the powerless
have power and from such spaces hope can emerge (Freire, 1994) (p. 491).
When students “speak and act alongside credentialed educators as critics and creators of
educational practice” (Cook-Sather, 2018, p. 17), the relationship between “voice” and “agency”
or “action” (Holdsworth, 2000, p. 357) is strong. As a growing number of researchers argue,
student voice has the potential to open up spaces and capacities “for racial and ethnic historically
marginalized youth to play key roles in school change and hybrid learning spaces” (Gonzalez,
Hernandez-Saca, & Artiles, 2017); support more socially just school environments (Mansfield,
2014; Salisbury et al., 2019; Taines, 2014), ensure that disenfranchised youth are included in
decision-making processes (Ginwright & Cammarota, 2006; Cammarota & Romero, 2010;
STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 5

Salisbury et al., 2019), and foster positive youth development around agency and civic
engagement (Brasof & Spector, 2016; Mitra & Serriere, 2012).
Approaches to Student Voice in Analyses Classroom Practice
While the earliest efforts to involve students in analyses of classroom practice took place
in the United Kingdom and, to a lesser degree, in Canada (e.g., Levin, 2000) and the United
States (e.g., Oldfather, 1995), efforts in these and other countries have proliferated. Thiessen and
Cook-Sather (2007) published a collection of chapters featuring studies of students’ perspectives
on their experiences of school in Afghanistan, Australia, Canada, England, Ghana, Ireland,
Pakistan, and the United States. Czerniawski and Kidd (2011) collected chapters from authors
working on five different continents who explored the relationships between student voice and
action research, citizenship, democratic education, and students-as-researchers. And a recent
collection co-edited by Bourke and Loveridge (2018) includes chapters documenting student
voice efforts in Aotearoa New Zealand focused on partnering with students of both Māori and
European descent.
All of these collections provide examples of student voice practices that link voice and
agency. For example, at the primary level, one of the chapters in Thiessen and Cook-Sather’s
collection reported on a study of the ways two 8-year-old students participated in their science
classroom, which revealed the nuance and complexity of these students’ interpretations of what
and how they learn. Such student interpretations informed their classroom teacher’s approach to
developing curriculum that was “responsive to children’s idea’s” (Ballenger, 2007, p. 112). At
the more systematic level, student insights can inform how standards are enacted. Bourke and
Loveridge (2018) invited 8- and 12-year-old students in New Zealand primary schools to analyze
their learning experiences under the new National Standards. The students noted a disconnect
between “learning as it is assessed and learning as they experience it” (p. 143), an insight that
supports the embrace of an achievement rather than a measurement agenda.
One of the most wide-reaching and enduring models of student voice that transforms
students’ own and others’ learning experiences at the secondary level is the “Youth and Adults
Transforming Schools Together” (YATST) organization in Vermont, created by Helen Beattie
and now under the umbrella of “UP for Learning.” Through this organization, secondary students
and teachers are trained to work together to analyze and revise educational approaches. Since
2008, nearly 2,700 youth have taken on active leadership roles in at least one of UP’s initiatives.
STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 6

In addition, UP has worked with 44% of Vermont middle schools and 95% of Vermont high
schools in all 14 counties; trained student leaders through 334 programs in a total of 113
Vermont schools, and supported 110 educators in completing an UP graduate course.
Examples of action that has resulted from the student agency supported by YATST
include student-led faculty meetings to introduce the 4-Rs framework (rigor, relevance,
relationships, and shared responsibility) and analyze school data; the development of a mid-
semester feedback system that provides all students an opportunity to offer feedback on
classroom instruction; and monthly, student-led Principal Roundtables to engage students in
school decisions (examples from https://www.upforlearning.org/initiatives/yatst/; for discussions
of this program, see Beattie 2012; Beattie, Rich, & Evans 2015; Biddle 2017; Biddle & Mitra
2015). Cleveland High School, one of Seattle’s historically most under-resourced public schools,
has facilitated a number of relationships and practices focused on student voice (see
aimcenterseattle.org) and offered a YATST workshop (“A Motivational Lens on Transformative
Youth-Adult Partnership Experiences”) in Vermont to share some of its practices. (See Chopra,
2014, for a discussion of this work.)
These student voice efforts are examples of primary and secondary students’ ability both
to exert influence in their own learning contexts and to inform understandings of the broader
learning context. By offering their perspectives on their learning experiences and having those
perspectives heeded, in the case of the primary students, and by working in partnership with
teachers, school leaders, and consultants, in the case of YATST, students experience and develop
a sense of agency.
Approaches to Student Voice in Research
In the realm of research with students, different methodologies support student
participation and leadership. In conducting student voice research it is important to consult with
young people who have engaged or will engage with the methods: “Without such consultation,
there is the risk that methods—however novel or well-intended—promote tokenistic, rather than
genuine, participation” (Groundwater-Smith et al., 2014, p. 132).
For the youngest students, for instance, the existential-phenomenological method (open-
minded, contextual, and relational observations and interviews) has been used to access 5–7
year-old Finnish children’s analyses of their experiences of day care as those experiences appear
to the children themselves (Kyronlampi-Kylmanen & Maatta, 2012; see also Groundwater-Smith
STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 7

et al, 2014; Wall, 2017). The ethics of research with young people are particularly delicate,
especially when working across cultures. Bourke at al. (2017) advise “maintaining open-ended
processes and attitudes so as to develop an understanding of the particular cultural,
socioeconomic, familial and community contexts in which the research is being conducted” (p.
269). Research methodologies for working with young students need to be particularly attentive
to those students’ contexts and to their individual vulnerability because of their age.
For older students, methods such as interviews (Quinn & Owen, 2016) and action
research (Smit, 2013) position students to analyze educational practices, make recommendations,
and effect change in schools. Interactive research methodologies can access the perspectives of
young people on a variety of issues (Kiragu, Swartz, Chikovore, Lukalo, & Oduro, 2012), and
youth-led participatory action research (Cammarota & Fine, 2008; Mitra & McCormick, 2017;
Rodríguez & Brown, 2009) and collaborative action research sees young people as “social actors
and experts on their own lives” (Cowie & Khoo, 2017, p. 234) and affords teachers opportunities
to learn from students about and enact effective pedagogy (Nelson, 2015).
While student-informed research is important for students of all identities and in all
contexts, it is particularly important for students who have been underrepresented in and
underserved by schools. For instance, little research on culturally responsive teaching practices
in elementary schools has examined African-American “students’ perceptions and interpretations
of these pedagogical practices” (Howard, 2001, p. 131). Like YATST work in the United States
(Beattie, Rich, & Evans 2015; Chopra, 2014), the work of Merry Berryman and her colleagues in
Aotearoa New Zealand provides an example of dedicated student voice research that strives to
transform the experiences of Māori youth, who have been consistently undervalued in and
underserved by their schools.
Building on her early classroom-focused student voice research (Bishop & Berryman,
2006), Berryman’s more recent research presents the voices and perspectives of Māori youth
regarding the disparities and inequities that remain in their schools, despite the secondary school
reform initiative sponsored by the New Zealand Ministry of Education aimed at ensuring that
“Māori students enjoy and achieve educational success” (Berryman & Eley, 2017, p. 93).
Through a series of research projects that spanned many years and supported conversations
between 12- to 15-year-old students, principals, teachers, and whānau (extended family
members) from five secondary school communities, teachers in these communities were able to
STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 8

develop a relational, then culturally responsive, and finally reciprocally dialogic pedagogy that
better supported Māori success in school. As Berryman, Eley, and Copeland (2017) explain: “By
altering the power relationships and pedagogies within classrooms, teachers found that the
students’ cultural values could enhance cognitive engagement and subsequent achievement” (p.
483).
Through deliberately creating a “research stance where establishing respectful
relationships with participants was central to both human dignity and the research” (Berryman,
SooHoo, & Nevin et al., 2013, p.1), Berryman and her colleagues were able to create the
conditions under which student voice was closely linked with student agency. As they explain:
“Students were moved to take direct and collective action where they saw Māori students being
under-served”; in one school community, “rangatahi Māori initiated a national petition to require
schools to include within their curriculum” matters pertaining to a period of New Zealand’s
colonial history that was marked by armed invasion by British militia and subsequent widespread
confiscation of Māori land (Berryman, Eley, & Copeland, 2017, p. 489).
Actively engaging students in investigations of and interventions into social problems
that affect their lives (Rodríguez & Brown, 2009) not only ensures that adult educators,
researchers, administrators, and policy makers are better informed, it affords youth an
opportunity to experience empowerment and agency and be part of necessary change.
Approaches to Student Voice in Authorship
Even the best intentions in the realm of student voice work can reify the power dynamics
that are structured into most educational systems and school practices. Groundwater-Smith and
colleagues (2014) highlighted the “ethical and political nature of decisions concerning children
and young people’s participation in publication and dissemination” (p. 160) of educational
research. They recommend careful consideration of: Who may speak and to whom; alternative
formats to traditional paper publications, such as “Speak- outs” and performance/theatre, arts
exhibitions; online or hard copy reports in the form of youth brochures, magazines, comics or
posters; and the consequences of dissemination and publication, both positive and negative
(p.160; see also Fine, Roberts, Torre, Bloom, Burns, Chajet, Guishard, Payne, Perkins-Munn,
2004).
Several publications include student-authored chapters and articles and co-authored
pieces, enacting a form of student agency in relation to representations of their schooling
STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 9

experiences. For instance, for nearly 40 years, Roger Holdsworth has published the
newsletter/magazine Connect, with support from the Youth Research Centre, The University of
Melbourne, Australia. Connect aims to: document student participation approaches and
initiatives, support reflective practices, and develop and share resources
(http://research.acer.edu.au/connect/). An edited volume, In Our Own Words: Students’
Perspectives on School (Shultz & Cook-Sather, 2001), includes eight chapters, each co-authored
by secondary students and adults on issues such as why students cut class, implementing an
innovative math program, and equity issues in schools. Finally, a new peer-reviewed, open
access, e-journal, the International Journal of Student Voice, was created, as the website
explains, to feature examples of “ways in which students co-lead their schools and communities
by collaborating with teachers, administrators, and community stakeholders to define problems
and develop potential solutions and/or take the lead on making change in their schools and
communities” (https://ijsv.psu.edu/).
Rather than writing about students, as used to be the case in virtually all educational
research, these and other publications have students fill the pages with their voices not to “prove”
or support researcher claims but rather to make claims of their own. These venues support
students’ assertion “nothing about us without us,” a slogan embraced by the International
Journal of Student Voice that was originally created, along with an image depicting the concept,
for the Learner Voice Conference in Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin, Ireland
(2015, June 26-27). These examples of students experiencing agency in realms outside of school
can inform the sense of agency they feel in school.
Implications
There are implications of this work for teachers, administrators, teacher educators, and
educational researchers. Teachers can develop strategies that allow them to gain a deeper
understanding of teaching and learning processes and to change the way they think about
students and their learning (Cook-Sather, 2009; Flutter, 2007). They can develop ways to expand
students’ active participation in school, casting teachers as co-learners and facilitating student-
teacher ‘border crossings,’ and redistributing power among teachers and students (Bahou, 2012).
And they can participate in the development of district-wide efforts to “create spaces for
marginalized youth to collectively learn about social injustices and develop common, and
individual, voices to disrupt these injustices” (Salisbury, Collins, Lang, & Spikes, 2019).
STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 10

School administrators can initiate partnerships with colleges, universities, or departments

of teacher education; integrate such partnerships into the culture of the school; and recruit and
reward teachers committed to student voice and engagement. The ways that they can integrate
partnerships into the culture of the school include:
• issuing school-wide invitations to participate and creating a sense of seriousness, even
competition, in which teachers and students will be selected to participate;
• making time and providing support for orientation to the student-faculty-staff
collaboration that constitutes and enables this work through sponsoring a day-long or
half-day orientation on site at which participants discuss the rationale and premises of the
collaboration, invite past participants to share their insights and advice, and generally
create continuity across years of participation;
• integrating opportunities for participation into the regular school schedule (as opposed to
having them squeezed after school between classes and sports or clubs) and, by
extension, into the curriculum;
• planning professional development days around student input and lessons from the
collaboration and around what teachers learn through their participation in student voice
efforts and having teachers and students co-present at these events; and
• inviting student and teacher participants to share their insights at faculty, school board,
and PTA meetings or in other forums of school-wide and district-wide discussion. (See
Cook-Sather, 2007, for an extended discussion of these and other approaches).
Finally, teacher educators can develop programs that position students as teacher
educators (Cook-Sather & Curl, 2016; Youens, 2009). Through positioning secondary students in
semester-long partnerships with undergraduate pre-service teachers, for instance, the Teaching
and Learning Together program develops in prospective teachers the capacity to learn with
students to consistently improve practice; supports the empowerment of high school students
who, positioned as teacher educators, develop confidence and take ownership over their own
learning; and fosters strong student-teacher relationships among those participating in the project
(Cook-Sather & Curl, 2016).
Teachers, school leaders, and teacher educators can all seek and support opportunities for
students to publish their experiences, perspectives, and calls for change. Newsletters and journals
such as Connect and the International Journal of Student Voice and edited volumes that feature
STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 11

chapters authored and co-authored by students afford students’ agency beyond their school
contexts.
Conclusion
Action can take many forms: implementing immediate changes in pedagogical practice;
working for a shift in mindset that will affect evolving schooling practices; repositioning
students such that they continue to have voice and agency. Such action has implications for all
students, but again, it is particularly important that students who have been traditionally
underrepresented and underserved have a voice and a role in today’s schools. Through
supporting the development of a sense of agency, we support the development of students who
are engaged in school, feel recognized and valued for their contributions, and are prepared to
participate in civic life.
STUDENT VOICE ACROSS CONTEXTS 12

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Additional Resources for Classroom Use

1. SpeakUp website http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/students/speakup/

One of several projects through the Ontario Student Voice initiative, initiated by the Ministry of
Education in Ontario, Canada, through which thousands of students in grades 7–12 have actively
led or participated in more than 10,000 projects in hundreds of schools. Student Voice aims to
promote student engagement and success in Ontario's schools by listening to and learning from
students. Student Voice provides students with a variety of ways to share their ideas with their
school, the education community and the ministry about what would help support their
engagement in their learning. Student Voice can help students take action to shape their learning
environment while they build their skills.

2. Up for Learning website https://www.upforlearning.org/

UP for Learning is a nonprofit organization in Vermont, USA, dedicated to amplifying the role
of youth as partners and agents of change in education to ensure that youth: own their learning;
participate actively in school change; have personal power and purpose; possess leadership
skills, and are civically engaged. In pursuit of these outcomes, UP for Learning crafts innovative,
student-centered education initiatives and supports schools with customized training, coaching,
graduate courses, professional development, and online resources.

3. SoundOut website https://soundout.org/

Based in Olympia, Washington, USA, SoundOut works with K-12 schools to provide expert
services focused on student voice, student engagement and meaningful student involvement.
Founded by Adam Fletcher, SoundOut has worked with more than 300 schools in 20 states
across the United States, several Canadian provinces, and many other countries internationally.
They are hired by school districts, state agencies, and education-focused nonprofits, and their
website provides a wide variety of resources.