Assessment and student participation: ‘choice and voice’ in school principal accounts of schooling territories

Schooling territories are bounded spaces where policies, bodies, practices, and discourses meet and collide. It is well documented in assessment literature that students who are active decision-makers understand their learning processes and have the necessary wherewithal to access support across schooling spaces. These spaces are co-produced through interrelationships, where youth participation is associated with power, voice, democratic citizenship, legal entitlement, empowerment, motivation and self-confidence. Recognising the growing pedagogical emphasis on locating students as responsible for their own learning, we consider how assessment practices constitute enabling and constraining schooling territories. Assessment for learning (AfL) can be linked with emancipatory practices in schooling territories where learner agency is co-produced through socio-material classroom relations. We use principal comments to map a range of interrelated schooling territories as a relational cartography of spatialised practices and student participation in AfL. Mostly, these territories are teacher imagined and defined, constructed through schooling and policy frameworks, and determined through the use of student achievement and student voice data. These conceptualised schooling spaces are interrogated to consider the positionality of students within AfL-related territories. While choice and participation may seem emancipatory, we reveal that AfL practices can serve a rarely acknowledged process of affirming territorial power.     

Feeling voice: The emotional politics of ‘student voice’ for teachers

In recent years, student voice has become a popular school reform strategy, with the promise of generating relations of trust, respect, belonging and student empowerment. However, when student voice practices are taken up by schools, student voice may also be associated with less affirmative feelings: it is often accounted for in terms of teacher ‘fear’, ‘resistance’ or ‘uncertainty’ about altered power relations. Such explanations risk individualising and pathologising teachers’ responses, rather than recognising the complexities of the institutional conditions of student voice. This article considers the affective politics of student voice: that is, the contestations that attend who gets to name how student voice feels in schools. Working with data from an evaluation study of three Australian primary schools who engage in ‘exemplary’ student voice practices, we listen to school leaders and facilitating teachers’ accounts about the responses of other teachers at their schools to student voice. Parallels are drawn between the construction of some teachers as reluctant, and previous analyses of ‘silenced’ student voices in schools. We argue that, in order to analyse the enactment of student voice in more nuanced tones, it is necessary to consider the profoundly emotional experience of teaching and learning, the ambivalences of teachers’ experiences of student voice and contemporary reconstitutions of teacher subjectivities.     

Northern Ireland beginning teachers' experiences of induction: the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’

The induction of beginning teachers continues to occupy a significant position on educational policy agendas as a crucial dimension in the formation of a teacher and one upon which an emergent career is built. Whilst there is growing impetus to establish an induction model that constitutes a relevant, fulfilling experience, current arrangements continue to vary throughout the UK. This paper describes induction as it affected a sample of beginning teachers in Northern Ireland, where there is a dearth of permanent positions for those newly qualified. Highly contrasting experiences of the induction year emerged between graduates in permanent and one‐year temporary positions, and those who were short‐term temporary and supply teachers. The former completed a meaningful induction whereas the latter, because of sporadic, fragmented employment, did not. A flexible model of induction is proposed, with collaborative involvement of the higher education institutions, the schools and the local education authorities.     

Uncovering ‘unwelcome truths’ through student voice: teacher inquiry into agency and student assessment literacy

Learner agency is often seen unproblematically as an integral aspect of ‘twenty-first century lifelong learning’. Agency and instrumentalist forms of teacher professional development are problematised through this qualitative case study that explores a teacher’s inquiry into assessment for learning practices. This article illustrates how Teaching as Inquiry can be located as either a process that is purely technicist or replete with potential for teachers to engage with ‘unwelcome truths’. Student voice data that reveal ‘unwelcome truths’ can provide a catalyst for teacher reflection on student positioning in learning relationships. Findings focus on practices of assessment for learning, assessment literacy, agency as a neoliberal construction and the need to interrogate power relations in the classroom for student agency to flourish. Issues around student voice and the democratic participation of students in schooling improvement are discussed. Teaching as Inquiry, that explicitly targets wider non-instrumental goals associated with teacher learning, can be a critical process that addresses the growth of assessment literacy and learner agency in classrooms. It can transcend a linear obsession with easily measured quantifiable shifts in student achievement data.     

Emergence and maintenance of student teachers' ‘interest’ within the context of two‐hour lectures: an actual genetic perspective

The study investigates the actual genetic development of student teachers' interest in lectures given in a postgraduate language teacher education programme. Students recorded the nature and level of interest at various points of the lecture. The results show that students go through diverse patterns of interest trajectories and that, for the majority, interest development fluctuates between gain and loss. Four types of factors are proposed: triggering, holding, preventing and losing factors. The prospective and retrospective effects of these factors are also examined. For interest to be maintained over a longer period within a two‐hour lecture, students must experience a combination of factors. In case of regression, if students demonstrate awareness of the source or solution to the problem, the loss is temporary, tending to recover at the next interval. Some factors, such as use of tasks and interesting specific topics, also help regenerate interest after a loss of interest has occurred.     

‘Sitting alone in the staffroom contemplating my future’: communities of practice,legitimate peripheral participation and student teachers’ experiences of problematic school placements as guests

A recent Review of Teacher Education in Scotland reports that 23% of respondents (n = 2381) encountered variable or very poor school placement experiences. This paper uses Lave and Wenger’s ideas concerning Communities of Practice (1998) and Legitimate Peripheral Participation (1991) as analytical tools with which to understand the nature and impact of student teachers’ problematic experiences of school placement. A total of 14 Professional Graduate Diploma in Education students on a one-year Secondary English course were followed through the practice elements of their Initial Teacher Education programme and data were constructed from learning logs and semi-structured interviews. Analysis provided a nuanced account of the student teachers’ difficulties in attaining member status as Legitimate Peripheral Participants in communities of practising teachers, with the concepts ‘joint enterprise’, ‘mutual engagement’ and ‘shared repertoire’ being found to be useful in explaining these difficulties. Limitations in the theoretical framework were also discovered and these are highlighted and developed in the paper.     

‘Teacher leadership’: values and voice

This article focuses on teacher leadership, an important dimension of the work of the Leadership for Learning network which is the focus of this special issue. More specifically, the article focuses on the launch of a journal – Teacher Leadership – as a strategy for promoting key values: shared leadership, teachers’ leadership of development work, teachers’ knowledge building and teachers’ voice. Material published in the first two issues of this new journal is used to illustrate how these values are realised in action enabling teachers to lead innovation and contribute to the development of professional knowledge. The article begins with an exploration of the place of teacher leadership within the wider context of shared or distributed leadership.     

Improving higher education practice through student evaluation systems: is the student voice being heard?

Many higher education institutions use student evaluation systems as a way of highlighting course and lecturer strengths and areas for improvement. Globally, the student voice has been increasing in volume, and capitalising on student feedback has been proposed as a means to benefit teacher professional development. This paper examines the student evaluations at a university in Trinidad and Tobago in an effort to determine whether the student voice is being heard. The research focused on students’ responses to the question, ‘How do you think this course could be improved?’ Student evaluations were gathered from five purposefully selected courses taught at the university during 2011–2012 and then again one year later, in 2012–2013. This allowed for an analysis of the selected courses. Whilst the literature suggested that student evaluation systems are a valuable aid to lecturer improvement, this research found little evidence that these evaluations actually led to any real significant changes in lecturers’ practice.     

‘I like being a lab Rat’: student experiences of research participation

Undergraduate students are often expected to be participants in academic research. However, decisions relating to student participation in research are typically based on speculation or educator assumptions rather than a solid research base. We conducted three studies to investigate student experiences of research participation. These included online surveys (Study 1), semi-structured interviews (Study 2), and analysis of reflective essays (Study 3). A range of pedagogic and ethical issues were considered including motivation to participate, distress, and the educational value of participation. Findings suggest that the experience provides students with important opportunities to learn about research methodology and ethical issues which inform their own research practice. Further, students cite additional non-academic benefits of research participation such as self-discovery and networking opportunities. Negative experiences typically consisted of nervousness prior to the first laboratory study or boredom, though for some students (e.g. those uncomfortable in social situations) engagement in research may lead to anxiety. We conclude that participation in research has pedagogic value to students, and educators should promote those elements of the research experience (e.g. critiquing studies, networking with researchers) that are most beneficial. However, researchers and educators should also actively work to reduce apprehension and minimise potential distress.     

Singapore’s educational policy through the prism of student voice: recasting students as co-agents of educational change and ‘disrupting’ the status quo?

This paper examines the implementation of Singapore’s landmark policy, ‘Thinking Schools, learning Nation’ (TSLN), in developing ‘thinking students’ through the prism of student voice. In the context of twenty-first century education and the growing importance of student voice in education, this paper argues that the time might be right to ‘disrupt’ Singapore’s education status quo and incorporate meaningful student voice in education policies. Instead of perceiving students as mere subjects of educational policy enactment, and seeing policy as something that is done to them, it should be reconceptualised as something which is done with them; importantly, students should be recast as key co-agents of educational change, consistent with TSLN’s reconceptualization of learners as ‘thinking students’. Basing its arguments on findings from a qualitative case study of students’ perceptions and schooling experiences of critical thinking in TSLN, this paper considers the case for the inclusion of significant student voice in Singapore’s educational policy reforms. It fills gaps in research on student voices in Singapore’s educational reforms and TSLN’s research from students’ perspective. The paper suggests that the inclusion of student voice in educational reform might be the next landmark step in ‘disrupting’ its educational landscape after the ‘big bang’ of TSLN.     

Prioritising student voice: ‘Tween’ children's perspectives on school success

This paper presents the findings of a study of the perspectives of Australian, English and New Zealand ‘tweens’ in response to one question, ‘what makes people muck up at school?’ Arguing for the increased prioritisation of children's voices in educational planning and provision, this paper provides, in children's own words, their perspectives on school success and classroom dynamics.     

Expectations and experiences: the voice of a first‐generation first‐year college student and the question of student persistence

This single case study takes a phenomenological approach using the voice centered analysis to analyze qualitative interview data so that the voice of this first‐generation college student is brought forward. It is a poignant voice filled with conflicting emotional responses to the desire for college success, for family stability, for meaningful friendships, and for understanding the self. In combination with other research calling for an expansion of the dominant theory of persistence, this research raises the importance of elevating family relationships in the student persistence model.     

Narrative inquiry and the problem of representation: ‘giving voice’, making meaning

In this article, the author argues that the exploration of alternative forms of research representation can result in new possibilities for making meaning in educational research. Narrative inquiry as a methodology has become established as an approach in education but remains contested in many ways. How we come to an understanding of such research findings and in particular how the issues of voice and representation are resolved are subject to much debate. Here, the author proposes that using fictive methods of representation of research, particularly poetry, can have implications for the ways in which meaning is made and therefore the possible meanings that can be made. Further, this article argues that the poetic form allows for the inclusion of many voices and stories in a non-hierarchical manner, making the author's influence explicit without it being dominant. Researchers have argued for poetic representations of research data as a means to evoke the participants' experience whilst making the author's influence explicit; here, it is argued that poetry can be utilized to provide a fuller representation of the research, placing the voice of the participants, the researcher and the literature on an equal level within the whole story of the research project. This article first details narrative inquiry as a methodological approach and its particular application to educational research before discussing the issues surrounding voice and representation. Subsequently, fictive forms of representation are explored as a means of addressing these issues.     

Complicating ‘student behaviour’: exploring the discursive constitution of ‘learner subjectivities’

When educators consider ‘student behaviour’, they usually think about ‘problem behaviour’ such as disruption or defiance. This limited and limiting view of ‘student behaviour’ not only fails to acknowledge children as educational actors in a wider sense, but also narrowly positions educators as either in control or out of control of their classroom. Mainstream educational psychology’s responses to ‘challenging behaviour’ point educators to numerous ways to prevent its occurrence, through, for example, changing their disciplining approaches and techniques. However, much of the advice directed at improving student behaviour fails to interrogate the core notion of ‘student behaviour’ itself, as well as the conceptual baggage that it carries. The focus is squarely on eliminating ‘problem behaviour’ and often resorts to a pathologisation of students. Meanwhile, when considering ‘student behaviour’ through a Foucauldian post-structuralist optic, behaviour emerges as something highly complex – as spatialised, embodied action within/against governing discourses. In this opening up, it becomes both possible and critical to defamiliarise oneself with the categorisation of ‘challenging behaviour’ and to interrogate the discourses and subject positionings at play. In this paper, we pursue this task by asking: what happens with the notion of ‘behaviour’ if we change focus from ‘fixing problems’ to looking at the discursive constitution of ‘learner subjectivities’? What does it become possible to see, think, feel and do? In this exploration, we theorise ‘behaviour’ as learning and illustrate the constitution of ‘learner subjectivities’. Drawing on two case scenarios, we explore how children accomplish themselves as learners and how this accomplishment links the production of subjectivity and embodied action, and illustrate how ‘student/child behaviour’ appears significantly different to what mainstream educational psychology would have us see.     

Family learning and the socio-spatial practice of ‘supportive’ power

Family learning has been an important mode of education deployed by governments in the United Kingdom over the past 20 years, and is positioned at the nexus of various social policy areas whose focus stretch beyond education. Drawing on qualitative research exploring mothers’ participation in seven different family learning programmes across West London, this paper looks at how this type of education is mobilised; that is, how mothers are ‘encouraged’ to participate and benefit from this type of programme. Framed by a neo-liberal policy climate and Foucauldian writings on governmentality and surveillance, we explore how participating mothers are carefully ‘targeted’ for this type of learning through their children and through school/ nursery spaces, and how programmes themselves then operate as a supportive social space aimed at facilitating social networks, friendship and personal development linked to positions of gender, ethnicity, class and migrant status. It is the socio-spatial workings of ‘supportive’ power and power relations that enable family learning to be mobilised that ensures its popularity as a social policy initiative.     

‘Supportive’, ‘real’, and ‘low-cost’: implicit comparisons and universal assumptions in the construction of the prospective college-based HE student

This paper first argues for the importance of continued analysis of marketising discourses in Higher Education (HE), both despite and because of their ubiquity. Secondly, the paper looks specifically at college-based HE provision in English Further Education (FE). Using the ‘possible selves’ concept alongside critical discourse analysis, the paper analyses the representations of prospective students on marketing web pages for HE provision in FE colleges. Arguing that the web pages reveal more than just the limited language of HE marketing strategy, the paper highlights common representations of the college-based HE student across policy, research and marketing sources. By exploring both the celebratory and the limiting nature of these representations, the paper therefore asks what the pages’ projections of future or prospective students can tell us about current understandings of English college-based HE.     

‘Let's go outside’: Icelandic teachers' views of using the outdoors

This article discusses the views of 25 Icelandic preschool and compulsory school teachers who were interviewed on the role of the outdoor environment in children's learning. The teachers reported not being afraid to take children outside. These teachers valued the learning potentials of the outdoors more than they feared the possible risks. They believed that the outdoors could provide opportunities for (a) enhancing children's play and learning (b) promoting children's health, well-being, and courage, and (c) affecting children's views, knowledge, and actions towards sustainability.     

Educational practice,student experience,and the purpose of education—a critique of ‘Pedagogy in Practice’

The focus of the present paper is a critical discussion of the recently developed concept Pedagogy in Practice (PiP) with the intention of improving the concept for future research. PiP aims to understand ongoing educational practice from the students’ perspective by interviewing groups of students about their understanding of learning. By emphasising ‘pedagogy’ and ‘practice’ and drawing from a theoretical foundation that takes practice and action as key concepts, PiP is an appealing alternative to research in student voice, to which it is closely related. However, a critical analysis of PiP in relation to its stated theoretical sources (Bourdieu, Bernstein, Dewey) shows that the approach contradicts these sources in key areas. In PiP students’ understanding of learning is taken as basic for improving educational practice, however, PiP is developed without an explicit notion of what education is for. This paper introduces a specific formulation of the purpose and functions of education based on the work of Gert Biesta, and outlines how a revised version of PiP might contribute to future empirical research in education.     

‘Impact’, educational influence and the practice of shared expertise

This paper argues that participants and locals should be seen as at the centre of all development, including international and health development work. Consequently, in contexts of health and wellbeing, patients should be seen as active participants, which also implies the need for the independence and freedom of all and the development of dialogical spaces in which all may negotiate what counts as a life worth living. ‘Impact’, on this view, should be seen from a lifeworld perspective of evaluating the effects of dynamic evolving practices where all are seen potentially as donors and beneficiaries within contexts of mutually negotiated reciprocal relationships. Data drawn from extensive fieldwork with local trauma surgeons, midwives and healthcare personnel in rural Cambodia provide the basis of new perceptions about processes of ‘passing on’ knowledge and expertise. The ideas presented have potential implications for normative understandings of the social organisation of healthcare in domestic and international settings.     

‘It's the bread and butter of our practice’: experiencing the Early Years Foundation Stage

This article presents the experiences of nursery and primary head teachers (n=12) on the English Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) after its first year of implementation in 2010. Findings are drawn from a subset of data (head teachers of primary and nursery schools) which forms part of a larger Department for Children, Schools and Families funded project entitled Practitioners' Experiences of the EYFS. To reflect a breadth of experience, interviews were conducted in six geographical regions in England. The results suggest that the EYFS served to validate the existing child-led early years approach adopted by most schools. Nonetheless, a pedagogic tension was noted in reception classes between the child-led play based EYFS approach and the knowledge-led National Curriculum. Additionally, a perceived lack of consistency was noted in the quality provided within and between the PVI (private, voluntary and independent) sector and maintained sector staff. Despite these shortcomings, several primary head teachers are extending the principles of the EYFS into Key Stage One.