Sustaining and spreading students' voice experiences. A research study in the Community of Cantabria, Spain
Author(s):
Ignacio Haya (submitting) Teresa Susinos (presenting)
Carlos Rodríguez Hoyos (presenting)
Conference:
ECER 2012
Network:
04. Inclusive Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

04 SES 04 A, Experience of Immigrant (Youth) in Education I

Parallel Paper Session

Time:
2012-09-19
09:00-10:30
Room:
FFL - Aula 16
Chair:
Liz Todd

Contribution

This paper refers to the research we are carrying out at the University of Cantabria as part of a research project we have been running (“Analysis of the processes of educational inclusion/exclusion in compulsory education. Development of local projects for school change and improvement” Director: Teresa Susinos,  EDU2008-06511-C02-02/EDUC) and which is being continued in a new project recently approved by the Ministry of Education  at the latest I+R+i call.

The aim of this project is to encourage and assess the setting up of students’ voice experiences in the participating schools and to analyse the processes of change and stabilisation of these innovations carried out in each school. The idea is for the centres to use ad hoc designed students voice experiences as tools for change and institutional improvement in an attempt to accomplish more inclusive and democratic schools.

The whole project is based on the Student Voice Movement (Fielding, 2007; Susinos, 2009; Rudduck y Flutter, 2007) that converges with the line of work our research group has been carrying out on educational inclusion/exclusion (Susinos y Parrilla, 2008; Susinos, 2007) and more specifically with the theoretical assumptions of inclusion and school improvement that regard the centre as unit of change taking as a starting point the analysis of its own needs (Stoll y Fink, 1999; Ainscow, 2005) and an active commitment to increasing student participation.

Method

From the methodological standpoint, the research is carried out with qualitative-collaborative research approach (Cochran-Smith, 2009) in such a way that in each school the experience is carried out by a mixed team consisting of teachers from the school, the school counsellor and one or two of the university research team members. This permits the possibility of combining in a fruitful way the theoretical and practical knowledge through a much more horizontal model of research. Likewise, the research is very much backed up by educational ethnography and uses processes and tools of compilation, analysis and interpretation of the data that come from ethnographical knowledge. All this experience carried out over two years of research represents Stage 1 or the Entrance and implementation in the schools. In this, the students’ voice initiatives undertaken have been instilled in a limited group of teachers who have worked like communities of practice in their schools (Wenger, 1998). From thereon the research advances towards a Stage 2 of stabilization and dissemination of the experiences undergone. This second phase has two objectives in mind: to extend and stabilise the experience in the participating centres based on the experience of these seeding communities of practice. The second objective is to disseminate the experience among other centres in the Community of Cantabria.

Expected Outcomes

The results expected in the Project reside in 4 areas: what the students have learned, mainly being able to chiefly benefit from an active learning of citizenship and the inherent values; what the teachers have learned taking on new roles that are closer to accompanying and facilitating, and that will lead them to new forms of teaching professionalism (Hargreaves, 2003) and towards an intergenerational learning model (Fielding, 2011); what the centres have learned and what changes will be verified in the school culture related to participation and democratic management of the common, and finally, what this research teaches us about change and improvement in schools, as to the possibilities of stabilisation and the sustainability of the changes and the spreading of Students’ Voice experiences. All these results will be evaluated and documented by means of purposefully designed tools, taking into account the points of view of all participants.

References

AINSCOW, M. (2005). El desarrollo de sistemas educativos inclusivos: ¿Cuáles son las palancas de cambio?. J. Educational Change (6), 109-1024. COCHRAN-SMITH, M. et al. (2009). Good and just teaching: the case for social justice in teacher education, American Journal of Education, 115, pp. 347-377. FIELDING, M. (2007) “On the necessity of Radical State Education: democracy and the common school”. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(4), 539-557. HARGREAVES, A. (2003). Enseñar en la sociedad del conocimiento (La educación en la era de la inventiva). Barcelona (España): Ediciones Octaedro MILES, S. y AINSCOW, M. (2010) Responding to diversity in schools. N. York. Routledge. RUDDUCK, J. y FLUTTER, J. (2007). Cómo mejorar tu centro escolar dando la voz al alumnado. Madrid: Morata. STOLL, L. y FINK, D. (1999). Para cambiar nuestras escuelas: reunir la eficacia y la mejora de las escuelas. Barcelona: Octaedro. SUSINOS T. Y PARRILLA, A. (2008). “Dar la voz en la investigación inclusiva. Debates sobre inclusión y exclusión desde un enfoque biográfico-narrativo”. REICE Revista Electrónica Iberoamericana sobre calidad, eficacia y cambio en educación, 6(2), 157-171. SUSINOS, T. (2007). “Tell me in your own words: disabling barriers and social exclusions in young persons.” Disability and society, 22 (2). WENGER, E. (1998) Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge University Press.

Author Information

Ignacio Haya (submitting)
University of Cantabria
Education
Santander
Teresa Susinos (presenting)
University of cantabria
Department of education
Santander
Carlos Rodríguez Hoyos (presenting)
Universidad de Cantabria
Educación
Santander

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