Educators’ experiences with student voice: how teachers understand, solicit, and use student voice in their classrooms

ABSTRACT

As interest in student voice has grown over the past two decades, questions have emerged about how teachers conceive of and engage with student voice, the extent to which they do so, and how these practices vary across different school and district policy contexts. This study explores these questions, using survey data collected from U.S. teachers in two urban and two suburban districts. The findings reveal that while many educators see student voice as synonymous with students’ input into classroom or school decision-making, a comparable number equate student voice with student opinions in general. This difference highlights the need for shared understanding so that educators, administrators, policymakers, and researchers can unite around a common conception and set of practices and so that the field can become more cohesive. The study also finds that those educators who define student voice as students’ input into school or classroom decision-making use a range of techniques for soliciting student voice in order to inform their instruction, empower students, and build strong student-teacher relationships. Implications for further research, teacher training, professional development, and policy are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Student voice
• teacher attitudes
• instructional improvement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jerusha O. Conner

Jerusha O. Conner is Professor of Education at Villanova University. Her research focuses on student voice, youth organizing for educational change, and youth activism.