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: Rua da Guiné - Bairro dos CTT, 1675-468 Caneças
Country: Portugal
Project: Digital Citizenship Education for Democratic Participation
Working language during the project:
- Portuguese
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
- Addressing controversial issues
- Preventing violence and bullying
- Dealing with propaganda, misinformation and fake news
- 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:
- Linguistic, communicative and plurilingual skills and Knowledge and critical understanding of language and communication
Through the production of a school newspaper (printed since 2016, and online in 2020), and the production of TV news services (since 2018) - Knowledge and critical understanding of the world: politics, law, human rights, culture, cultures, religions, history, media, economies, environment, sustainability
Apart from communication, the project is now focused on problem-based learning through STEAM activities (focused on preschool children). Developed activities aimed building multiple literacies, citizenship, analytical and critical thinking, resilience and creative thinking. - Co-operation skills
Activities (planned by teachers and researchers, having in mind the children interests) involve school staff, parents, other relatives and members/entities from the local community.
Target group age range:
- 5 - 11
Level of education:
- Primary education & Preschool education
Short description of the project:
The project Digital Citizenship Education for Democratic Participation (‘Educação para a Cidadania Digital e Participação Democrática’) began in 2015, and currently involves around 200 kindergarten and primary school children, their families, teachers and other members of the Caneças educational community, a neighbourhood in Odivelas, Lisbon. The project’s methodology is action research, its objective is to understand how a coordinated action by a school, families and the community contributes to enabling 3- to 9-year old children to become active digital citizens.
From 2015 to 2018, at the field level, the project was organised in five phases:
- Production and validation of data collection instruments (2015);
- In-service teacher training course in Digital Citizenship Education (Jan-Feb 2016);
- Longitudinal study with teachers who volunteered after the training course (Mar 2016-Feb 2018);
- Data collection from parents, children and out-of-school entities (Apr-Jun 2016);
- Share results with participants and involve them on a digital citizenship education intervention plan (Sep 2016-Feb 2018).
Between January and February 2016, the researchers conducted a training course for the teachers on using media to organise and implement social participation activities, involving pupils, families and the community.Afterwards, eight teachers in a school in Caneças, attended by about 200 kindergarten and primary school pupils, accepted to be part of a community intervention project. Researchers characterize this context so as to define an intervention strategy.
In September 2016, at a meeting between lecturers and researchers, it was decided to create a printed school newspaper with four main goals in mind: i) reinforce the link between the school, the families and the community; ii) ensure that children have the opportunity to express their opinion through the media; iii) reinforce their critical sense in relation to the media and to social issues; iv) foster democracy at school and in the community.
Aware of the contradiction of having a project on Education for Media Citizenship based on traditional printed media, the project team nevertheless decided to implement the project, as this was the only way to overcome the limitations of its context. The first step was to select the name and logo for the newspaper by means of a contest, open to all pupils. The name most voted was ‘O Cusco’ (The Busybody). The first edition was published in December 2016, and the next (8th) edition will be published in December 2020.
It had two main outcomes. On the one hand, it increased children’s participation and social intervention, thus contributing to the development of their citizenship skills. On the other, it became a sustainable project, taken on by the school, which has continued to develop digital citizenship skills, by continuing to publish the school newspaper, nowadays considered the newspaper of the school and educational community, where it is distributed for free.
Children’s social participation has increased in and outside the school, in collaboration with the teachers, the families and the community. According to the teachers’ perceptions, interaction in formal, non-formal and informal contexts has contributed to shaping the children’s practices as citizens. However, they participate mostly through traditional printed media, which has gradually changed to digital media, with the production of a video news broadcast.
This situation can be explained due to the lack of equipment and to teachers’ limited skills in digital media production. To overcome this problem, a new phase (Oct 2019 – Sept 2022), funded by Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, is being implemented, aiming to develop STEAM activities, to implement the online newspaper edition and the production of TV News services. It involves the local government, the school grouping and a private university in Lisbon.
Aims/objectives
The project’s main objective was to understand how coordinated action by a school, families and the community, contributes to enabling 3 to 9-year-old children to become active digital citizens. It also aimed to contribute to identifying best practices in all contexts, to influence public policies, and to integrate digital citizenship education in the curricula. Finally, it was intended to be replicable in Portugal or abroad.
Objectives of the new phase (2019-2022) are focused on the development of competences related to communication and problem solving.
Expected results/outcomes
Empowering digital citizens at preschool and primary school levels and involving the local community, implementing a “whole school approach” strategy.
Changes
Children’s social participation has increased in and outside the school, in collaboration with the teachers, the families and the community. According to the teachers’ perceptions, interaction in formal, non-formal and informal contexts has contributed to shaping the children’s practices as citizens.
Challenges you faced
Therefore, although adults and children are active and frequent users of digital media, this does not mean that they are ready to produce (more complex forms of) media content. Even when producing material for traditional media, for the newspaper to become a reality, it was crucial that the intervention methodology was action research, with support given to the teachers by the researchers. This is evidence that these kinds of projects must include frequent and significant support provided to the schools or institutions they are being developed in.
The projects must also have the support of the Group’s School board (Agrupamento de Escolas), which was essential in this case. At least one teacher must coordinate the project in the school (in this case, it was the school coordinator) and, if possible, one media professional should be included, who can assist teachers and pupils in producing media content, as was the case in this project. Moreover, this project is not complete, as a second stage is necessary that will involve more researchers and media professionals who can train children to deconstruct and analyse media content, as well as produce content with consideration given to the adequacy of the techniques and ethical and deontological aspects.
Time-frame of the project:
2015-2022
Council of Europe materials on citizenship and human rights education used while preparing or implementing your practice:
- Reference Framework of Competences for Democratic Culture
- Compass
- Compasito
