This paper focuses on knowledge and practices that can emerge through research that actively involves school students, and the potentials that this can have for transforming learning contexts and valuing diversity.  Using illustrative examples from two international studies that involved both primary and secondary schools in five countries (Austria, Denmark, England, Portugal, Spain), the paper will argue that collaborative action research can be a way for fostering student diversity in school contexts.

Research involving schools is usually dominated by perspectives explored and brought to the surface by either university researchers, or those that are co-constructed between researchers and teachers.  What is less common is having students in schools being part of such processes (Hadfield and Haw, 2001).  This paper focuses on knowledge and practices that can emerge through research that actively involves primary and secondary school students, and the potentials that this can have for transforming contexts.  In line with this Network’s Call, the paper will illustrate how involving school students in research can promote valuing student diversity within schools. Drawing examples from two interconnected international collaborative action research studies, the paper will address the following questions:

• How can students be actively involved in research in schools?
• How can such approaches promote valuing of diversity?
• What kinds of knowledge and practices emerge through such research?

Students’ voices, have been given a prominent role in research and in education, especially since the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989).However,Thiessen (2007) points out that a range of earlier educators and scholars had set the foundations for such a focus on students’ experiences, such as Pestalozzi in 1912, Dewey in 1916 and Montessori in 1966. 

Nowadays, the term student voice is mostly associated with expressions of views, either through verbal or non-verbal means (Thomson, 2008). Mazzei (2009) argues that it is impossible to have voice fully captured in research, whilst St Pierre (2009) points out that participants’ voices in qualitative research may have been burdened with too much weight.At the same time, student voice has been linked to active and meaningful participation, and having an active role in decision-making processes (Cook-Sather, 2006).

Such involvement can be the result of initiatives where students have taken the role of student researchers, which in practice closely link to Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR)principles: “(1) the collective investigation of a problem that directly addresses the needs of youth involved, (2) the reliance on marginalized youth knowledge that validates and incorporates their lived experiences, and (3) the desire to take collective action to improve the lives of oppressed youth.” (Desai, 2019, p.127).

Within such collective actions, the notion of dialogue can be a strong feature, between children and young people and their classmates, but also between adults (teachers) and students, which is the position adopted in this paper.  In using the term dialogue, the definition of Lodge (2005) is adopted, who argues that this “…is more than conversation, it is the building of shared narrative. Dialogue is about engagement with others through talk to arrive at a point one would not get to alone” (p. 134).  In other words, both teachers and students can arrive at decisions together, through engagement with different views and collaborative ways of working.

Collaborative action research was the methodology employed in the two interconnected studies (Author & another Author, 2015; Author et al, 2016; Author and another author, 2020), from which the examples of this paper are drawn. The discussion will focus on how collaborative action research involving researchers, teachers and school students can facilitate the development of inclusive thinking and practices.   

The studies involved university researchers working collaboratively with teachers and children in 30 primary schools and eight secondary schools. Collaborative action research involves “different stakeholders functioning as co-researchers’ (p. 345, Mitchell, Reilly, & Logue, 2009). In this case, both teachers and school students took the role of co-researchers, using a specific approach: Inclusive Inquiry. Inclusive inquiry involves three phases: Plan, Teach and Analyse, and a series of twelve steps included in a Levels of Use instrument. In practice, trios of teachers cooperated with students in their classes to find ways of including all children in their lessons, particularly those who are seen as ‘hard to reach’ in some ways (e.g. migrants, those having special educational needs, or others who are marginalised in schools). These students received training to become researchers, learning how to use research techniques to gather the views of their classmates. Following the training, the student researchers collected and analysed their classmates’ views. The teachers then worked with these students to design a lesson, taking into account the views of all the children. The lesson was taught by one of the teachers, whilst the other teachers and children researchers observed, with a focus on the responses of class members. This was followed by a discussion to refine the lesson in the light of the observers’ comments and all children’s views who took part in the lesson. The process was repeated three times and at the end implications for practice were identified. Dialogues amongst teachers and their students about how to make lessons more inclusive are a key feature of the approach. This dialogue uses differences of views amongst students and teachers, to challenge existing thinking and practices in ways that are intended to overcome barriers that are limiting the engagement of some learners. Detailed lesson observations, interviews with the student researchers and discussions during the planning of the lessons, as well as after the lessons, between teachers and students were analysed collaboratively by the researchers, teachers and student researchers. ‘Group interpretive processes’ (Ainscow, Booth and Dyson, 2006) were used for analysis and interpretation. These processes established trustworthiness, using the member check approach recommended by Lincoln and Guba (1985). In addition, accounts of practice (a total of 783 pages) that were prepared collaboratively between researchers and teachers were analysed thematically.

Analysis of data highlighted how Inclusive Inquiry allowed students to be actively involved and take part in decision making in schools. At the same time, the approach facilitated teachers’ professional learning and transformation of practices within school contexts. Finally, through Inclusive Inquiry, different perspectives (those of adults and of school students) came together through a process of dialogue. This led to a better understanding of diverse perspectives, valuing diversity and the transformation of existing thinking and practices. However, such approaches are demanding and require transformation of existing thinking and practices. As Fielding (2004) argues, “Transformation requires a rupture of the ordinary and this demands as much of teachers as it does of students. Indeed, it requires a transformation of what it means to be a student; what it means to be a teacher. In effect, it requires the intermingling and interdependence of both.” (p. 296). We know from earlier research that teachers may be sometimes reluctant to engage with the views of students (e.g. Kaplan, 2008; Author and another author, 2015), not accepting their ideas as being valid or worthy of attention. It could also be argued that much of the research relating to student voice runs the risk of marginalising certain voices, such as those of adults, in an effort to give weight to students’ views that have been traditionally marginalised. This has implications about how research is done, by whom and whom it benefits. It will be argued that through collaborative action research we can explore future ways of working in schools and in research, and directly benefit potentially marginalised students, such as those from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, those defined as having special educational needs, Travellers, etc.. At the same time, through such approaches we can facilitate efforts towards valuing diversity in research and in schools.

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