Transformative approaches to student voice: theoretical underpinnings, recalcitrant realities

Abstract

This article explores some of the theoretical underpinnings of radical approaches to student voice and examines a number of practical issues we need to address if we wish to move towards a more transformative future. The framework within which the notion of voice is explored and critiqued falls primarily into two categories. The first, Deconstructing the presumptions of the present, explores the largely ignored problematic of much student voice work. (1) ‘Problems of speaking about others’, (2) ‘Problems of speaking for others’, and problems of (3) ‘Getting heard’ reveal a range of issues that need to be better understood and acknowledged. The second, On the necessity of dialogue, attempts a resolution, exploring the possibility of (4) ‘Speaking about/for others in supportive ways’ before offering the preferred (5) ‘Dialogic alternative: speaking with rather than for’ and further developing that line of enquiry through (6) ‘Students as co/researchers’. Finally, (7) ‘Recalcitrant realities, new opportunities’ offers some ambivalent, but still hopeful thoughts about current ­realities and future possibilities.

Notes

* Centre for Educational Innovation, Institute of Education, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RG, UK. Email [email protected]

The writers on whom I have drawn couch their arguments in terms of ‘the oppressed’. Whilst many of them do not write about school students, I have taken the spirit and the substance of what they have to say and applied it to the context of student voice work. Some might argue that to suggest students are ‘oppressed’ in an equivalent way to those whose ethnic, class or gender background is subordinate to those in power is to overstate the case. Whilst I understand this perspective I nonetheless think there is a legitimate case to be made. Certainly, the libertarian tradition in education would argue vehemently in support. Also, much of the data emerging from contemporary student voice work in the UK points unremittingly to students as the objects of earnest, but often misplaced, government and teacher zeal that grants young people no significant agency, no appropriately or genuinely shared responsibility, and little hope of a future that bears their mark or their commitment. In the words of one of Leora Cruddas’s students, ‘Some teachers don’t listen because they think we’re young and don’t know anything. I know that’s not true’ (Cruddas, 2001, p. 63). See also the recent work by Andrew Pollard and Pat Triggs (Pollard & Triggs, 2001; Fielding, 2003) on the experience of young people in primary school between 1989 and 1999.

In suggesting it is legitimate to see young people as in some meaningful sense ‘oppressed’ I am not, however, denying other dimensions to their experience in the world. Nor am I valorizing them in an unthinking way. As I suggest later in this article, young people are as affected by the more pernicious aspects of contemporary schooling as the rest of us and are currently in danger of being co‐opted into the service of performativity.

My point is not to query external involvement. Quite the reverse. There is substantial data from all over the world that external involvement is very important. My concern is with approaches that place too heavy reliance on an external dynamic, often at the expense of ­internal commitment.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Michael Fielding *

* Centre for Educational Innovation, Institute of Education, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RG, UK. Email [email protected]