An in-service training programme was used as an accelerator that scaffolded teachers in four school units in Lappeenranta, Finland, the aim being to find a shared understanding and shared practices, or 'praxis', in terms of promoting student participation. In this study we examine the practices that either supported or prevented participation from…

This study aimed to explore the principal's perceptions about, and strategies for, increasing students' active participation in the day-to-day affairs and decision-making at a secondary school located in a rural, mountainous region of Pakistan. By exploring the principal's leadership practices, this study aims to answer the question, 'how can…

Improvement in education has been one of the strategies of the government of Chile to reduce economic inequality. To that end, it recently established a system of Second Opportunity Centers that enroll out-of-school youth who have not completed high school. The system is modeled on so-called alternative schools operating in Europe and the United…

Current approaches to the regulation of schools in most jurisdictions tend to combine elements of external inspection with systems of internal self-evaluation. An increasingly important aspect of the theory and practice of both, but particularly the latter, revolves around the role of other actors, primarily parents and students, in the process.…

The understanding of youth participation in the current article relates to ideas of citizenship and active involvement in global concerns. In this understanding of the term, schools are important agents for education for global citizenship, and play a role in the developing engagement of young people. Using data from focus groups with teachers (n…

In the new national core curriculum for Finnish preschool and basic education, rationales for supporting pupil participation are framed by the goal of developing school communities by listening to pupils' perspectives, the social nature of teaching and learning and pupils' participatory role in planning, implementing and evaluating their own…

This article sets out to explore how young people understand and experience the notions of democracy and participation in their secondary schools. We draw on their own words to examine their perspective on "participation" in everyday life at school to understand what kind of democratic education they are participating in. The article…

The work we present is a qualitative study of the school experience and its repercussions on the current lives of ex-students from Mallorca. The work has two purposes: (a) to learn about the school's influence on the identity development of the students and (b) to incorporate the voices of former students regarding their reflection on the present…

As curricular development in Scotland espoused the importance of pupil participation, the extent to which this has been embedded across teachers' pedagogy into assessment and reporting practices warranted investigation. This article reports a mixed-methods study with parents, pupils and teachers from three Scottish primary schools that examined…

This article applies theoretical understandings of power relations within student voice work to two empirical examples of school-based student voice projects. The article builds on and refines theoretical understandings of power and participation developed in previous articles written by the authors. The first article argued that at the heart of…

This is the first in a series of articles which will examine the results of a qualitative, longitudinal study of school improvement initiatives from the perspective of school stakeholders. The article captures the responses of students from a low socio-economic status school in NSW, Australia to a school initiative that restructured the learning…

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989), which applies to all children under the age of 18, established the overarching principles guiding pupil participation. In most European states, signatories to the Convention have enacted policies to promote the voice of the child or young person in decisions that affect them. In…

This article explores the varied ways in which schools can respond to students who present with challenging behaviours and who are at risk of disengagement from learning. It sets out a typology of school responses and reflects on the philosophies which underpin each approach. In an effort to rethink the use of suspensions within schools, which…

Recent research has highlighted the merits of consulting children in both primary and secondary schools about their teaching and learning. This article looks at the effectiveness of pupil voice in not only maximizing the potential of pupils and students but also the consequences for helping teachers in turn--and especially newly qualified…

This article argues that accessing and taking note of the voice of pupils is critical in working towards removing barriers to effective learning. Pupil voice was accessed using an innovative form of group interview incorporating an Ishikawa or fishbone tool and card sorting exercise. The data were collected from 132 pupils, from Years 7 to 9 (aged…