Making children’s and students’ voices heard
Schools have a key role in upholding this principle. At the same time, students need to be aware of both their rights and responsibilities.
Learning about human rights and democracy is a fundamental first step for becoming an informed and responsible citizen.
Students also need to participate in activities such as debating and community work. Skills, knowledge and critical understanding must be coupled with the attitudes and values that form part of a democratic culture. All this should be promoted through a whole-school approach.
Facts & figures
While students make up approximately 92% of any given school’s population, the decisions in school are routinely made by the remaining 8% who are adults.[1]
Students learn better when they are engaged partners throughout the educational process.[2]
What is student voice?
Student voice is the right of students to have a say in matters that affect them in their schools, and to have their views and opinions taken seriously. It encompasses all aspects of school life and decision-making where young learners are able to make a meaningful contribution, adapted to their age and stage of development. It stretches from informal situations in which students express an opinion to their peers or staff members to participation in democratic structures or mechanisms, such as student parliaments and consultations.
Student voice can vary from simple self-expression to taking on a leadership role in an aspect of school life. It can be characterised according to a 6-fold typology of increasing complexity and responsibility:
- Expression – voice an opinion
- Consultation – asked for an opinion
- Participation – attend and preferably play an active role in a meeting
- Partnership – have a formal role in decision-making
- Activism – identify a problem, propose a solution, and advocate its adoption
- Leadership – plan and make decisions
Given that the relevant activities are age-appropriate, student voice can be expressed anywhere in the school community, in and out of lessons, e.g., through inviting students to comment on teaching approaches and techniques, suggest topics for class discussion, participate in school policy committees and/or consultations, or just join in a casual conversation on school matters with a teacher or other staff member in their free time.
Why is student voice important at school?
Student voice is rooted in the concept of children’s rights and human rights. In particular, Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) establishes the right of every child to have a say in matters which affect them, whether in or out of school, as well as to be involved in decisions that affect them. More generally, the UNCRC includes other articles that seek to increase students’ voice, including the right to seek and receive information, to express their own views and to associate with others.
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: Article 12
“Parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.”[3]
Student voice can have many benefits both for schools and the wider society – for example:
- Participation in school decision-making fosters a sense of citizenship in young learners, helping them to develop important competences, e.g. co-operation and communication skills, self-efficacy, responsibility, civic-mindedness and respect for the value of democracy – all of which lie at the heart of the Council of Europe Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (RFCDC).
- Contributing to their school community gives young learners a sense of belonging, develops self-esteem and can lead to more respectful relationships. This has a positive influence on school discipline and helps to reduce the incidence of problems such as drop-out, bullying, substance abuse and radicalisation.
- Engaging students in active learning activities in class has a positive effect not only on the classroom atmosphere, but also on the educational achievements of students and their peers.
What are the challenges?
There are a number of major areas of challenge facing the development of student voice in schools.
The first relates to the attitudes of other school stakeholders. Parents, teachers school leaders and others who have traditional views of schooling sometimes feel that children and young people should be ‘seen and not heard’ in school. They think respect for others and for authority are best developed in a culture of deference. To counteract attitudes of this kind school leaders need to introduce elements of student voice gradually, explaining the process clearly to school stakeholders and sharing the successes with them when they take place.
Some stakeholders may see empowering young learners through student voice as undermining their own power or position of authority in the school. Teachers may sometimes feel that students have more rights than they have. This merely underlines the importance of developing a whole-school culture in which all stakeholders feel safe to express their opinions freely and openly, and to have their opinions taken seriously. Student voice goes hand in hand, therefore, with the creation of a general culture of democracy and human rights in school.
The second major area of challenge is ensuring that student participation is genuine participation and not tokenism or ‘window-dressing’. This means giving students opportunities to make a real difference to their lives and the lives of other school stakeholders, and helping staff to be more open to sharing their decision-making with young learners.
The Ladder of Children’s Participation
Roger Hart, in the book Children's Participation: The Theory And Practice Of Involving Young Citizens In Community Development And Environmental Care, developed the concept of a ‘ladder of participation’ which can be applied to student voice. He suggested eight different levels or degrees of student voice, from the simplest - which is little more than the manipulation of students for the school’s benefit - to activities where decision-making is genuinely shared between adults and young learners.
A third area of challenge is the difficulty of making opportunities for student voice equally open to all students. The problem arises to some extent on account of the perception that student voice applies only to formal school structures, like pupil parliaments. For stakeholders with more traditional attitudes towards teaching and learning it can be difficult to see student voice as integral to, rather than separate from the learning process in classrooms. Another aspect of this problem is that it is the more confident and out-going students who are prepared to voice their opinions openly or stand in class or school council elections. How to integrate student voice into learning and to involve a wider range of students in the process is a whole-school responsibility and needs to be taken seriously as an area of whole-school planning and as an important topic for teacher professional development.
How can schools get active?
There are a number of ways in which schools can develop more opportunities for student voice. These include:
- Encouraging teaching staff to consider how they can involve students in the learning process in the classroom, e.g., by creating more opportunities for students to express their own opinions, debate issues, make suggestions or draw up classroom rules;
- Creating mechanisms for student consultation on issues affecting school life, e.g., through questionnaires, suggestion boxes, surveys or focus groups;
- Establishing formal bodies or procedures, e.g., pupil parliaments, student committees and commissions, or ‘circle time’;
- Inviting students to sit on school policy-development committees, e.g., on gender equality, pupil safety or health and well-being;
- Teaching young learners the skills of public speaking and debate, e.g., discussion skills, active listening or argumentation;
- Providing opportunities for peer-led activities, e.g., peer education, peer assessment or peer counselling.
[1] https://soundout.org/why-student-voice-a-research-summary/
[2] https://soundout.org/why-student-voice-a-research-summary/ ; Beaudoin, N. (2005). Elevating student voice: How to enhance participation, citizenship, and leadership. Larchmont, NY: Eye on Education
[3] UN General Assembly, Convention on the Rights of the Child, 20 November 1989, United Nations
Resources on Making children’s and students’ voices heard
Multimedia
Official texts
Policy documents
Studies
Higher education for democratic innovation (Council of Europe Higher Education Series No. 21) (2016)
Tools
Related schools projects
Address: Via Toscana n.10/a - Parma
Country: Italy
Project: The Human Rights: from the Declaration to the peer education in school
Working language during the project:
- Italian
Themes of the Council of Europe campaign “FREE to SPEAK, SAFE to LEARN - Democratic Schools for All” covered:
- Making children’s and students’ voices heard
- Preventing violence and bullying
- Tackling discrimination
- Improving well-being at school
Competences from the Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture (CDC) addressed and where / how they were integrated:
- Valuing human issues and human rights
Human rights were studied and their effective importance was considered in real life and in different contexts. - Co-operation skills
Students learnt to work together and to share their work with other students. They also learnt to communicate in an appropriate way (language and empathy). - Knowledge and critical understanding of the world
Students demonstrated their knowledge of the different meanings attributed to human rights throughout the world and they tried to understand connections between these differences and different cultures.
Target group age range:
- 15 - 19
Level of education:
- Upper secondary education
Short description of the project:
This is the general description of the project written by a student who participated in it:
“The project represents a long and demanding journey, which owes its roots to the Bertolucci Scientific High School in Parma. Each year the school presents different volunteer projects to students of each class, various charitable activities which bring together for peace purposes a group of young people composed of new and former high school students, and in so doing, create a moment of union and solidarity.
This strong spirit of solidarity has inspired our class to commit itself to deepen its knowledge of the UN Declaration of Human Rights in honour of its 70th anniversary, starting with Article 19 on freedom of opinion and expression. This was made possible thanks to the school’s membership of the "rights and responsibilities" programme promoted by the National Coordination of Local Authorities for Peace and Human Rights, by the Human Rights Center of the University of Padua, by the National Network of Schools for Peace and from the Table of Peace in collaboration with the Directorate General for Students, Integration and participation at the Ministry of Higher Education and Research (Ministero dell’istruzione dell’università et della ricerca - MIUR), under the Memorandum of Understanding of 28 April 2016. These associations are committed to keeping alive the importance of " education and training in human rights ". The invitation to celebrate the 70th anniversary and to remember the importance of the Declaration was extended to several schools.
Our first task was to understand Article 19 from a variety of angles, analysing it above all from a social point of view. This was the beginning of our learning process with regards to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We read it, studied it and above all understood it with the help of our teachers. Following this study, we investigated the topic of "denied human rights", as we realised that the freedom we were investigating was not necessarily respected the world all over and sometimes not even close to home.
This analysis resulted in several presentations on various topics from freedom of opinion to censorship, from neo-colonialism to globalisation, from harassment and cyberbullying to cyber-harassment, from rights denied to the right to life.
Our work, however, had a clear objective: to be shared and made widespread. We were invited therefore to present our work to some of the classes over the two-year period as part of the peer teaching method, which consists of the exchange of ideas and notions between students. The school relies heavily on this type of teaching because it leads to two important advantages: the lessons become lighter and more pleasant because the students recognise themselves in their peer educators, creating a climate of mutual collaboration. The students also learn how to give presentations and to express themselves clearly.
Once we had learned the theory, we needed to put it into practice. We were looking for a conclusion to our project that could allow us to demonstrate what we had learned. As a result, we participated in the Perugia-Assisi peace march because we wanted to make our own contribution and make it known that in some countries of the world human rights are often still denied. It is much easier to violate a right than to respect it. We are frequently the first to take their value for granted as they are considered inviolable by our country. This is not always the case in other parts of the world. It is important to know what really happens, to be able to improve the situation. We must open our eyes to those who have become anaesthetised by our safe and secure daily life and remember that elsewhere others find it difficult to say what they think. With this in mind, we welcomed the idea of participating in the March, which was to be held from 5 to 7 October 2018, from Perugia to Assisi, and would also invite you to participate in similar great gestures of solidarity.
Finally, we would like to offer you a brief résumé of this journey by showing you two videos that show clearly what we produced.
The realisation of this long but important project has opened our eyes and thanks to this study we were able to become "active and aware citizens" interested in the events concerning all women and men and what is around them.”
Aims/objectives
The objectives of the project are:
- Acquisition of greater awareness of the concept of peace and rights;
- Development of one's own critical reflection linked to the theme of identity and the complex relationship between us and them;
- Acquisition of skills for reflecting on the complexity of contemporary global scenarios;
- Ability to understand the different issues connected to the denial of human rights in some areas of the globe;
- Awareness of the problem of cyber bullying and harassment;
- Ability to present the problems analysed to younger students;
- Appropriate general skills for dealing with work in the class.
Expected results/outcomes
Organisation and participation in the Schools for Peace Network of Parma, at a training linked to education for peace and citizenship and to the denial of the right to life, starting with a viewing of the documentary film "Human flow" by Ai Weiwei, which was followed by speeches by agencies dealing with the rights of refugees and migrants.
Work on the Project “Rights and Responsibilities” promoted by the Italian Coordination of Peace Organizations with reference to the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Participation in in-depth studies on the issue of cyber bullying and harassment.
Research and production of presentations on topics related to the two events mentioned above, in particular colonialism, neo-colonialism, case study on Sankara, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, globalization and glocalization, specific analysis of Article 19 of the Declaration (denial of this article: harassment, cyber bullying, restrictions on freedom of opinion and expression).
Presentation of the path developed in peer education to students from six different school classes .
Presentation on 10 December 2018 in an institute assembly (70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) to all school students of the work carried out on this project.
Outcomes: documents on the studies carried out on the Declaration, Article 19, the denial of human rights in different ways (e.g. cyberbullying); videos of the presentations given; videos on topics of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Changes
Thanks to the interest and commitment of the students involved, the project has grown considerably compared to its original design. In particular, peer education, implemented in the classes at two different times, took on a new direction that proved to be very educational.
Challenges you faced
The organisation of the various activities was very complex and multifaceted, and this represented a real challenge. In the end, however, the entire course was successful and the logistical difficulties that occurred during the course were resolved without too much worry.
Time-frame of the project:
March 2018 - December 2018.
Council of Europe materials on citizenship and human rights education used while preparing or implementing your practice:
- Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture
- All Different – All Equal
- Human Rights and Democracy Start with Us – Charter for All
- Freedom(s) - Learning activities for secondary schools on the case law of the European Court of Human Rights
