Student Voice at School: Participative Research as Apprenticeship, School Students as Co-researchers

Abstract

As the first of two chapters drawing upon extended case studies of practice this chapter turns to a four year project involving young people in a given school acting as co-researchers investigating features of the working of classrooms, teachers and the curriculum. It positions the students as research apprentices but is not sanguine about the extent of their power and agency. The chapter identifies a series of key critical moments where the varying perspectives of students and their teachers were at times aligned and at other times at odds with each other. The chapter represents the work as ‘risky business’ and recognizes the ‘realpolitik’ of the school in terms of power, material conditions and teachers’ predispositions. It raises, but does not resolve, matters of sustainability.