A Typology of Student Voice in School Reform: From Listening to Leadership

Assistant Professor Dana Mitra with Mr William Frick Pennsylvania State University & Pine Grove Area School District Pennsylvania, USA

 

The concept of ‘student voice’ has increasingly been discussed in the school reform literature as a way for young people to become involved in making changes in their schools, yet the term has been used to define a wide range of youth involvement.

This paper draws on five years of previous research to offer a typology of student voice activities - Listening, Collaboration, and Leadership. In the most common form of student voice activity, adults listento student opinions. At the middle level, students and adults collaborate in making decisions, but most often adults have the final word. The least common form of student voice consists of opportunities for youth to take the lead on making changes happen in their schools

The paper considers the benefits of the different types of student voice, both in terms of school change and changes in the youth participating in their endeavors. It also considers the challenges that each type of student voice opportunity creates, for the schools and the young people involved. It finds that student roles vary across the typology in expectations about youth capacity and with the desire to foster student leadership, rather than just to improve the implementation of changes for the school.

The Question of Ownership

A core issue missing in the discussion of school reform is the question of ownership—that is, who gets to define what the problems of a school are, and who gets to try to improve them? Student voice describes the many ways in which youth might have the opportunity to actively participate in school decisions that will shape their lives and the lives of their peers (Fielding, 2001; Goodwillie, 1993; Levin, 2000). Yet the meaning of student voice has stood for a range of student involvement activities. When placed into practice, ‘student voice’ can consist, on the most basic level, of youth sharing their opinions of problems and potential solutions. It could also entail young people collaborating with adults to actually address the problems in their schools or youth taking the lead on seeking change.
All types of student voice, from limited input to substantial leadership, are considerably different from the types of roles that students typically perform in US schools, such as planning school dances and holding pep rallies. Yet the roles vary in expectations about youth capacity and with the desire to foster student leadership versus solely to improve the implementation of changes for the school. This section of the paper seeks to clarify what student voice looks like in practice by offering a typology of ways in which schools engage students in school reform. It also considers the potential benefits of the different forms of student voice, both in terms of school change and changes in the youth participating in the endeavors.

Types of Student Voice in Present-Day Schools

I propose that youth in student voice initiatives most often assume one of three roles—Listening, Collaboration, or Leadership. A visual typology of Listening, Collaboration, and Leadership consists of a pyramid. The bottom of the pyramid indicates a minimal form of involvement by students—adults listening to students through interviews and surveys. Teachers and other school personnel then interpret the data. Moving up the pyramid, students in some instances engage in collaboration with adults, most often on research. In such situations, students and teachers work together to conduct research and, at times, to seek changes at the classroom or school-wide level. Decisions are shared at this level, but most often adults have the final say. In the least common form of student voice, the tip of the pyramid, students have greatest control over the reform process, since the work is comprised of leadership initiatives, in which youth seek to make changes in their schools and communities. In the leadership category, youth assume the majority of the responsibility for making changes happen and they take the lead in making decisions. Adults in such situations provide a support role, offering information and assistance to youth as needed.

Three Concepts of Student Voice

The remainder of this paper describes these three concepts in detail. In doing so, it demonstrates another significance of the shape of the typology - the greater the agency and leadership of youth in an organisation, the harder it is to maintain because the group must continually push against counter-normative forces that define the traditional roles of students and teachers.

Listening: Eliciting Student Perspectives as Data

Listening to students is the most common form of gathering student voice reported in the research. When gathering student information, this ‘listening’ level of student voice consists of adults seeking student perspectives and then interpreting the meaning of the student data. The importance of learning from student voices stems from the belief that students themselves are often neglected sources of useful information. Through focus groups, surveys, interviews and shadowing, listening to students is a key data collection strategy for learning about student experiences and ways to improve schools.

Asking students’ opinions remin ds teachers that students possess unique knowledge and perspectives about their schools that adults cannot fully replicate (Kushman, 1997; Levin, 2000; Rudduck, Day, & Wallace, 1997). Most often, researchers and practitioners have sought student perspectives on learning, pedagogy, curriculum and school reform ( Cushman, 2000; Daniels, Deborah, & McCombs, 2001; Lynch & Lodge, 2002; Nicholls, 1993; Phelan, Davidson, & Cao, 1992; Pope, 1999; Poplin & Weeres, 1992; Powell, Farrar, & Cohen; 1985; Turley, 1994; Yonezawa & Jones, 2003), including students’ opinions teaching and learning and what should be changed in schools. A common theme across these studies was the students’ desires for positive, strong relationships with their teachers, as opposed to the isolation and lack of respect and appreciation that students reported that often feel.

In my own research, I have found that schools working on reform benefit greatly from listening to student experiences and impressions of alienated and struggling students (Mitra, 2001). For example, the teachers and administration at Seacrest High School acquired grant funding to examine the question of why a large percentage of ninth and tenth grade students in their school were failing classes. Considering what data would be most informative for deciding how to improve their school, Seacrest teachers and administrators decided that asking failing students why they believed they were unsuccessful was a critical step to understand how to reach these youth. They invited students who, in the previous year, had received at least three Ds or Fs, to participate in a focus group during a summer staff-training.

The students were asked to speak truthfully to help their teachers understand how they might make the school a better place to learn. When given the chance, these students who were at-risk of dropping out of school, spoke articulately and compassionately about what prevents them from succeeding at school. A teacher present at the focus groups described the student responses as: ‘. . . very honest, very serious, about their chance to contribute. They were careful to say what they really felt. They were not trying to mislead us. They weren’t saying what we thought we wanted them to say. I was in awe’.

Not only does conducting research on, and with, students provide richer data for understanding schools and communities, it also provides a distinctly different kind of data for consideration. Adults tended to blame problem behaviors on a lack of motivation or neglectful parenting; the youth instead talked of wanting respect from adults and supportive opportunities to learn and gain responsibility (Heath & McLaughlin, 1993). When not involving students, and particularly those who are failing subjects or rarely attending school, it is easy to shift the blame of failure to these students, rather than looking at problems with the school’s structure and culture (Fine, 1991; Kelley, 1997; Stevenson & Ellsworth, 1993; Wehlage, Rutter, Smith, Lesko, & Fernandez, 1989). As a result of this difference in perspective, students and teachers often blame each other, rather than working together to improve teaching and learning.

My research at Seacrest High School supports this paradox. When Seacrest compared teacher survey response to what they learned during their student focus groups, the faculty was shocked at the differences in opinion. According to teachers, the top two reasons for student failure were motivation (30% of responses) and attendance (16.5%). In focus groups, students of all backgrounds and academic tracks pointed to specific problems with the school as the basis of the failure of many classmates, rather than locating their difficulties in themselves or their neighborhoods, as did many of their teachers. When asked to explain why some students do not succeed in school, the students in their own words talked about differences in learning styles, needing additional counseling and tutoring, and having a sense of mutual respect between teachers and students. Their responses provided teachers with specific reform issues to target in the upcoming year.

Student concerns - such as building adult-student relations, creating a sense of collaboration in schools, and respecting and valuing students - are often not at the forefront of current reform efforts. Partnering with students allows for an understanding of the causes of student failure in secondary schools to emerge from the students themselves. Consequently, t he limitations of information gathering strategies stem from not involving students in the interpretation of the data. Efforts to listen to students usually rely upon adult researchers to transform their responses into analytic themes and to draw conclusions from their reflections. This strategy is particularly problematic when adult researchers attempt to fit youth responses into preset categories.

Collaboration: Adults and Youth Partnering to Conduct Research and Effect Change

To truly have authentic voice and to keep students empowered in the process, rather than powerless, students need to be involved as co-researchers, or to research themselves rather than just being researched (Fielding, 2004). When adults and youth collaborate, they share in the planning and decision-making of their endeavors. The adults, however, tend to initiate the relationship and ultimately bear responsibility and the final say on group activities and decisions.

My research examining student voice efforts at Whitman High School illuminates this concern (Mitra, 2001, 2003). A school reform initiative at Whitman High School asked students what needed to be improved in the school in order for them to be successful. Rather than the teachers interpreting the students’ comments, students themselves reviewed the transcripts.

While initially intending to solely ‘listen’ to students, as the process unfolded they decided to involve students in data analysis, as well being the source of data collection. The reform leadership at Whitman was struck by the difference it made to have students interpret the focus group data, rather than adults alone. They noticed that when adults analysed the data, they translated ‘student speak’ into adult words, which often swayed from the intentions behind the students’ words. Having Whitman students at the table preserved the integrity of the student voices, by ensuring that the adults understood the issues that students felt were most important. For example, adult and student interpretation varied greatly on the interpretation of student conversations about cutting classes. The adults could not understand why Latina students, in particular, would keep cutting classes even though they expressed in the focus groups that they wanted to do better in school. The students explained that the Latina students were saying that they felt embarrassed and ashamed when they returned from absences. The teachers seemed hostile and angry with them for missing class. It was easier for these students to not discuss with the teacher the reasons for their absence, and to learn about the work that they missed, than to engage in a potentially hostile interaction. Having this information helped to inform future teacher interactions with Latina students.

Leadership: Youth-Led Initiatives to Seek School-Wide Change

Unlike collaboration efforts, one of the goals of the ‘leadership’ form of student voice is explicitly to increase student authority and decision-making power. Adults must relinquish much of their power in the interaction and work to build a tone of trust among adults and students (Cervone, 2002).Often this shift in student role, to assume more leadership, is as important a task of the group as the reforms that they are trying to achieve.

The student voice effort at Whitman High School (Mitra, 2003) shifted to an example of student voice leadership, when the students who participated in the focus groups wanted to find ways to address the problems that they identified in their analyses. With a fourth-year English teacher as the group sponsor, the students chose to focus on the issue of improving communication and partnership between students and teachers. The group Student Forum developed two complementary strategies for building communication between students and teachers, classifying some activities as ‘teacher-focused’ and others as ‘student- focused’. In teacher-focused activities, students joined in the school’s reform work, including participating in staff training on inquiry-based research and research groups on reading strategies.

During these activities, students served as ‘experts’ of their classroom experience, by providing teachers with feedback on how students might receive new pedagogical strategies. The students also shared their own experiences, including both positive and negative experiences in Whitman classrooms. In addition to teachers benefiting from student input, the youth gained a greater understanding of teacher perspectives and school policies.

The group also developed ‘student-focused’ activities, in which the group helped teachers to gain a better understanding of student perspectives. Pairs of students took teachers on tours of their neighborhood and showed them where they lived, worked, and socialised with friends. The student tour guides pointed out the gang territories and safe zones where they could find support from community agencies and friends.

Improving the School’s Reputation

In an effort to address the school’s reputation - a pressing concern raised by students during the first days of the focus groups - the group also hosted student and teacher discussion on the issue. These focus groups were called ‘Ghetto Forums’. The group found that students used the ‘ghetto’ as a source of identification and pride amongst their peers but viewed it as a derogatory term when used by people who did not live in their neighborhood. Other students and teachers viewed the term ‘ghetto’ as a state of mind that lowered expectations for themselves and for others.

As a result of the student-led activities, group members noticed many changes in teacher perspectives. The student-led tour and the Ghetto Forums helped to reduce tension between teachers and students, to increase informality, and to help teacher and students to identify one another as individuals, rather than as stereotypes. In addition to students seeing shifts in teacher perspectives about youth, the group’s work inspired some teachers to partner with students to make changes in classroom pedagogy. Working with Student Forum members during professional development sessions and reading research groups encouraged teachers to continue to involve students as they returned to their classrooms to implement what they had learned. Adults who participated the most in student voice efforts seemed to develop a stronger belief in the value of partnering with students.

The biggest struggle of fostering leadership is how to engage students as active partners in school change. Scholars who have examined how adults go about empowering youth and relinquishing their power emphasise that true engagement requires a ‘rupture of the ordinary’ (Fielding, 2004). The greater the agency and leadership of youth in an organisation, the harder it is to maintain because the group must continually push against counter-normative forces that define traditional roles of students and teachers (Gamson, 1992; Milofsky, 1998; Mitra, forthcoming). Adults must work in partnership with youth conscientiously and continuously to develop patterns of interaction that align with the values of equitable relations. When adults do not keep an intentional focus on group process, the youth and adults often fall back into traditional teacher-student roles (Mitra, forthcoming). Keeping a focus on group process includes a collective process on developing shared norms, language, and skills.

The Role of Adults

Adults must actively help youth to move from the periphery to the core of the group’s interactions, especially through a collective focus on developing counter-intuitive shared norms, language, and skills, which can be unfamiliar, and possibly uncomfortable, at first.

Student voice can support democratic activity, but only when an intentional focus is given to the power relationships between adults and youth. A lack of effort in attending to power dynamics can result in problematic situations, rather than promising opportunities for youth. In such instances, student voice privileges advantaged students, rather than offering an opportunity for all voices to be heard (Fielding, 2004; Holdsworth & Thomson, 2002; Silva, 2003). In such cases, student voice is a façade of participation and consultation. Thus, attention must be paid not only to having student voice heard, but also to paying attention to which voices are being heard when given the opportunity.

The Challenges and Benefits of Student Voice Strategies

The contrasting approaches to student voice at the listening, collaboration and leadership levels offer differing benefits and challenges. Referring back to my typology, the higher one moves on the pyramid of student voice, the more challenging the work of developing the student voice initiative. My research has found that gathering data from students is decidedly simpler than determining how to embolden youth to assume the leadership of an initiative that seeks to change a school (Mitra, 2003; Mitra, forthcoming). And perhaps for schools just beginning to explore ways to increase student voice, listening to students is a natural first step. It is the least threatening form of student voice and it still offers great rewards in terms of encouraging school personnel to challenge their current assumptions about the problems and solutions available to them.

Yet my research, and the research of others (deCharms, 1976; Earl & Lee, 2000; Johnson, 1991; Lee & Zimmerman, 2001; Mitra, 2004), suggests that, for the students themselves, the higher students can participate on the pyramid of involvement, the greater the rewards in terms of youth development and overall growth. Overall, the student voice activities at Whitman helped to meet the fundamental developmental needs of students - especially youth who otherwise did not find meaning in their school experiences (Mitra, 2004). The youth who sought reforms at Whitman High School demonstrated a growth of agency, belonging and competence - three assets that are central to youth development.

Solely listening to students does not present youth with the opportunity to learn from the researchers or to learn about the adults in their school. Students do not gain any individual benefits, such as having the opportunity to experiment with adult roles and to contribute their insights and knowledge to the studies being conducted. The more students can assume agency in the initiatives, the more opportunities they have to learn and grow. Thus, perhaps when considering embarking on a student voice endeavour, schools must examine their intentions. If their goal is to have a better informed process of reform, perhaps listening, or even better - collaborating, with students is sufficient. But if a goal of the student voice initiative is to increase youth development opportunities for students, and to help them grow, then schools must aim high and take a risk to offer opportunities to build adult-youth partnerships that seek changes in the school.

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Dana L. Mitra is Assistant Professor of Education in the Department of Education Policy Studies, at the Pennsylvania State University, in the USA. Her research interests include school reform, student voice, school-community collaboration, civic education, youth development, and social policy. She recently published an article in Teachers College Record entitled, ‘The Significance of Students: Can increasing “student voice” in schools lead to gains in youth development?’ and has an article forthcoming in Education Administration Quarterly entitled, ‘Adults Advising Youth: Leading while getting out of the way’.

Mr William Frick is Director of Secondary Curriculum & Instruction for the Pine Grove Area School District, Pennsylvania and a doctoral candidate in the department of Education Policy Studies at the Pennsylvania State University. He previously served as a public school building level administrator, school counselor, and teacher.

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