• Implement participatory decision-making processes in the classroom, school, and broader educational community;
• Carry out self-assessment and reflexive exercises to critically evaluate the level of power and influence within the different manifestations of student voice;
• Design activities that foster student agency, encouraging learners to express their perspectives, ask questions, and shape their educational experience.

• Describe the theoretical justification for empowering student voice in schools;
• Critically evaluate the ideologies that gave birth to the concept of ‘student voice’: children’s rights, democracy in schools, citizenship education, person-centred education, radical education, transformative education, postmodernist formulations of power and school evaluation;
• Highlight the key elements of Hart’s (1992) Ladder of Participation and the practical implications of his theory;
• Consider the ethical dilemmas related to empowering student voice, including issues of consent, confidentiality, power dynamics, and cultural sensitivity.

• Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of learner-centred pedagogical approaches and theories, including constructivism, inquiry-based learning, and cooperative learning, and their implications for empowering student voice in the classroom;
• Foster effective communication and active listening skills which are essential to enable students to express their opinions, concerns, and ideas freely;
• Analyse one’s positionality on the power balance between the self as an educator and the student;
• Explore and apply different practical ways how to empower student voice, balancing institutional constraints with meaningful participation.

This module will be assessed through: Assignment; Presentation.

Core Reading List

1. Brascof, M. Levitan, J., & Ground-water Smith, S. (2022). Student voice research: Theory, Methods, and innovations from the field. Teachers’ College Press.
2. Orner, M. (2014). Interrupting the calls for student voice in “liberatory” education: A feminist poststructuralist perspective. In Feminisms and critical pedagogy(pp. 74-89). Routledge.
3. Osler, A. (2010). Students’ perspectives on schooling. Open University Press.
4. Quaglia, R .J., & Corso, M. J. (2014). Student voice: The instrument of change.

Supplementary Reading List

1. Benner, M., Brown, C., & Jeffrey, A. (2019). Elevating student voice in education. CAP. https://www.americanprogress.org/article/elevating-student-voice-education/
2. Chappell, S. (2021) Student Voice in School Improvement: A Principal in the Nuevo South Reflects on a Student-Centered Practitioner Inquiry. Educational Policy, 36(1), 208-219. https://doi.org/10.1177/08959048211059473
3. Hart, R. A., (1992) Children’s participation: from tokenism to citizenship, UNICEF International Child Development Centre, Spedale degli Innocenti, Florence, Italy. http://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/childrens_participation.pdf
4. Mayes, E., Finneran, R., & Black, R. (2019). The challenges of student voice in primary schools: Students ‘having a voice’ and
5. ‘speaking for’ others. Australian Journal of Education, 63(1), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1177/0004944119859445
6. Mitra, D.(2018). Student voice in secondary schools: the possibility for deeper change. Journal of Education Administration. 56(5), 473-487. https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-01-2018-0007
7. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment. (2025). Student Voice. https://ncca.ie/en/about-ncca/collaborations-and-partnerships/student-voice/
8. John, K., & Briel, L. (2017) Student voice: A growing movement within education that benefits students and teachers. Topical paper, Center on Transition Innovations. https://centerontransition.org/publications/download.cfm?id=61