Navigating the ambiguous policy landscape of student participation

ABSTRACT

Student participation at school is receiving heightened attention through international evidence connecting it to a range of benefits including student learning, engagement, citizenship and wellbeing, as well as to overall school improvement. Yet the notion of student participation remains an ambiguous concept, and one that challenges many deeply entrenched norms of traditional schooling.

Informed by understandings of ‘participation’ linked to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, this article takes the Australian state of New South Wales (NSW) as a case study to explore how student participation is currently articulated in educational policy. It reports the findings of an analysis of 142 state and federal government policy-related documents, along with qualitative interview data from nine policy personnel. The findings suggest that students are conceptualised within these policies in contradictory ways, interpretations of participation are diverse yet frequently instrumentalist, and there is little conceptual coherence across the educational policy landscape in NSW in relation to ‘student participation’. The findings are discussed in light of international interest around student participation. The analytical framework used in this analysis is proposed as a possible tool for critically examining the place and purpose of student participation at school, regardless of jurisdiction.

Abbrevations: NSW = the Australian state of New South Wales; UNCRC = United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child; SRC = Student Representative Council

KEYWORDS:

• Student participation
• student voice
• children’s rights
• policy analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by an Australian Research Council Linkage grant [No. LP140100540] and the following ‘Linkage’ partners: Catholic Schools Office, Lismore; NSW Department of Education; and the NSW Advocate for Children and Young People.

Notes on contributors

Anne Graham

Anne Graham is Professor of Childhood Studies and Director of the Centre for Children and Young People (CCYP) at Southern Cross University. She also holds a Conjoint Professorial appointment at the University of New South Wales. Anne has led over 60 research projects focused primarily on children’s rights and wellbeing, teacher learning, and ethical issues in research involving children.

Sharon Bessell

Sharon Bessell is Associate Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy and director of the Children’s Policy Centre, a research unit based at the Crawford School of Public Policy. Sharon’s research interests revolve around issues of social justice and human rights, with a focus on social policy (particularly as it pertains to children’s lives) and gendered and generational dimensions of poverty.

Elizabeth Adamson

Elizabeth Adamson is a Research Fellow at the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC), University of New South Wales. Her research interests cross broad comparative care and family policy including: early childhood education and care (ECEC), the social and political economy of formal and informal care, and gender, migration and care.

Julia Truscott

Julia Truscott is a research assistant with the Centre for Children and Young People at Southern Cross University and founding Director of the Children and Youth Research Assistance (CYRA) Service. She has a broad interest in the experience of modern childhood and children’s wellbeing and works across a range of research initiatives.

Catharine Simmons

Catharine Simmons is the Project Officer at the Centre for Children and Young People, Southern Cross University. She has a social science background with a Childhood Studies focus, and key interests in the cultures of childhood, imaginative play, popular culture, qualitative research and ethnography.

Nigel Thomas

Nigel Thomas is Professor Emeritus of Childhood and Youth and is Associate Director and co-founder of The Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation. He is a visiting Professor in the Centre for Children and Young People at Southern Cross University, New South Wales, and an Honorary Professor in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning at Aberystwyth University. Nigel’s research with children and young people includes child welfare, children’s rights and theories of childhood, with a particular focus on children and young people’s participation.

Lyn Gardon

Lyn Gardon has a PhD in Behavioural Science and a MSc in Psychology. She is a Learning and Wellbeing Coordinator with the NSW Department of Education. Lyn developed a scale to measure student behaviour at school and support a strengths based planning approach. She is a psychologist, educator and researcher with a keen interest in child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing and developing enabling, safe and supportive school systems.

Andrew Johnson

Andrew Johnson was appointed as the New South Wales Advocate for Children and Young People in 2015, following over 20 years of working in senior leadership positions for NGOs and international intergovernmental organisations; including Plan International, Save the Children, ChildFund Alliance, UNICEF, UNCHR and the Australia Council of Social Service. Andrew’s role as Advocate is to work to improve the safety, welfare and wellbeing of all children and young people in NSW aged 0-24 years, giving priority to the needs of vulnerable and disadvantaged children and young people; and to promote the participation of children and young people in the decisions that affect their lives.