Young people as co-researchers: enabling student participation in educational practice

Abstract

In line with changing views on childhood, citizenship and educational goals, the last decades have shown a growing interest in student participation. More and more, it became felt desirable and necessary for student voices to be heard and really listened to and for students to be consulted on educational matters that affect them. The attention for these issues led to a increasing number of participatory initiatives and also has evolved into a plea for developing and applying more intensive and higher level forms of student participation, for instance a form in which students act as co-researchers. By implication, a more equal position of teachers and students in educational decision-making is advocated. Furthermore, it is acknowledged that both students and teachers can benefit and learn from such an approach. However, participatory practices require teachers and schools to change, and often daily educational practices appear to have a stubborn character. In this article, the student participation form 'students as co-researchers' is explored on the basis of a case in The Netherlands: an action research project conducted by teams of teachers, students, and museum educators. First, the characteristics and the intensity of the student participation in this case are described along six dimensions of participation as distinguished by Kirby et al. (2003). Next, the implications for the learning and professional development of teachers who participated in the project are explored. The four domains of the teacher professional growth model as distinguished by Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002) serve as the structuring framework.