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Student voice: bringing about change in primary schools

Student voice: bringing about change in primary schools
Student voice: bringing about change in primary schools
This paper focuses on an exploration of the use of participatory approaches for facilitating change in schools. Lesson observations, fieldnotes from meetings, and interviews with teachers and children were collected in a study that aimed at exploring how inclusion can be promoted through an engagement with student voice in primary (elementary) schools (5-11-year-olds), in one city in the South of England, U.K. Data analysis highlighted how participatory approaches and methods (student researchers, sticky notes with unfinished sentences, visual methods and observations) allowed students to be actively involved in the research process and led to changes in their schools. We argue that participatory methods can be a powerful means for change, only if they are used in ways that enable sustained dialogues between teachers and students in schools. Of all the methods that we explore, we highlight observation as important in facilitating such efforts.
school change, dialogue, student researchers, Participatory methods, student voice
0951-8398
Messiou, Kyriaki
6b3cb19d-a4de-4380-9326-80167b2dda7c
de los Reyes, Elizer Jay
24bed502-d1a7-460b-9657-6d24a7ffa4c5
Potnis, Chinmaya
77ed6a0e-76ec-472a-88d5-83174f90b6fb
Dong, Ping
c57860f4-e717-460d-ac0a-d6e78b278137
Rwang, Vivienne Kachollom
2a30344f-53cd-4af1-8073-121882cfa1fe
Messiou, Kyriaki
6b3cb19d-a4de-4380-9326-80167b2dda7c
de los Reyes, Elizer Jay
24bed502-d1a7-460b-9657-6d24a7ffa4c5
Potnis, Chinmaya
77ed6a0e-76ec-472a-88d5-83174f90b6fb
Dong, Ping
c57860f4-e717-460d-ac0a-d6e78b278137
Rwang, Vivienne Kachollom
2a30344f-53cd-4af1-8073-121882cfa1fe

Messiou, Kyriaki, de los Reyes, Elizer Jay, Potnis, Chinmaya, Dong, Ping and Rwang, Vivienne Kachollom (2025) Student voice: bringing about change in primary schools. International journal of qualitative studies in education. (doi:10.1080/09518398.2025.2455982).

Record type: Article

Abstract

This paper focuses on an exploration of the use of participatory approaches for facilitating change in schools. Lesson observations, fieldnotes from meetings, and interviews with teachers and children were collected in a study that aimed at exploring how inclusion can be promoted through an engagement with student voice in primary (elementary) schools (5-11-year-olds), in one city in the South of England, U.K. Data analysis highlighted how participatory approaches and methods (student researchers, sticky notes with unfinished sentences, visual methods and observations) allowed students to be actively involved in the research process and led to changes in their schools. We argue that participatory methods can be a powerful means for change, only if they are used in ways that enable sustained dialogues between teachers and students in schools. Of all the methods that we explore, we highlight observation as important in facilitating such efforts.

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More information

Accepted/In Press date: 16 January 2025
e-pub ahead of print date: 28 January 2025
Published date: 28 January 2025
Keywords: school change, dialogue, student researchers, Participatory methods, student voice

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 498416
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/498416
ISSN: 0951-8398
PURE UUID: aeb2eba2-0f41-4f6b-8ae4-1caaf365d91d
ORCID for Kyriaki Messiou: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-3412-3108
ORCID for Elizer Jay de los Reyes: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3609-127X
ORCID for Chinmaya Potnis: ORCID iD orcid.org/0009-0007-4806-4088
ORCID for Ping Dong: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-1387-6274
ORCID for Vivienne Kachollom Rwang: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0003-0852-3589

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 18 Feb 2025 17:36
Last modified: 14 May 2025 02:07

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Contributors

Author: Kyriaki Messiou ORCID iD
Author: Elizer Jay de los Reyes ORCID iD
Author: Chinmaya Potnis ORCID iD
Author: Ping Dong ORCID iD
Author: Vivienne Kachollom Rwang ORCID iD

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