As a head teacher embarking upon research into students as researchers (SAR), I have been reflecting on the theoretical context in which my research sits.

It is possible to see a pathway where SAR has grown from a branch of student voice, which in turn grew from a branch of pupil participation, which itself was a branch of citizen participation (for an illustrative timeline of typologies, see my personal blog). This is a limiting way of surveying fields of study that ignores myriad branches and off-shoots into other fields, but it allows us to demonstrate how we come to contemporary contributors to the field via others who can trace their emergent thinking back as far as Hart’s (1992) ladder of student participation.

One thing that many contributors to the field(s) have in common is the use of analogous frameworks to describe relationships and hierarchies within participation, voice or SAR. Arnstein (1969) and Hart have their ladders, Treseder (1997) a circular model that accounted for differentiated aspects but removed the hierarchical nature, Mitra a pyramid that softened but retained a hierarchy (Mitra, 2006), Shier (2001) a hierarchy of action aligned to a horizontal axis of commitment, and so on. More contemporary contributors also utilise hierarchical models within ‘frameworks’ (see for example Brasof & Levitan, 2022; Lyons et al., 2022). While the use of transposable analogous models such as ladders, cycles and pyramids help us to make connections with abstract concepts, they are, by their nature, limiting. Ladders and hierarchies suggest that lower rungs are less valuable than higher rungs, or that each stage is developmental and dependent upon successful completion of preceding stages. Pyramids, while allowing the nuance of several parts appearing in the same hierarchical layer, still suggest priorities of import; and cycles suggest a repeating pattern where every stage must occur in a pre-determined sequence. Any model may be helpful, and authors acknowledge limitations, describe outliers, exceptions and interpretations, yet as many words are spent describing their nuances as are saved by using simplifying models in the first place.

‘Any model may be helpful … yet as many words are spent describing their nuances as are saved by using simplifying models in the first place.’

Fielding (2011) looked at the history and future of the field of student voice in such a way that described a crossroads for the field suggesting a pivotal moment. I would suggest that each moment in the emergence of SAR from student voice and student voice from participation also seems pivotal and that it feels – to me in my early stages as a researcher into SAR at least – that the field is a wave with a crest moving forward, propelled by the momentum of everything that has gone before. This momentum comes from the variety of voices, models and inter-relationships, none of whom fit an easily definable prescribed model. If there was a universally true model, perhaps momentum would be lost and the wave would break. Rather, each proposed model and subsequent critique generates the energy that keeps the field moving forward, and in moving forward, more students engage with, and lead, research in ways that add to the field of knowledge.

As Paul Valery pointed out, if it is simple, it is false; if it is not, it is unusable. Perhaps, in understanding the field of SAR, frameworks are useful in aiding communication and inter-subjectivity but will always be open to critique, thus driving the field further forward.

References

Arnstein, S. R. (1969). A ladder of citizen participation. Journal of the American Institute of Planners, 35(4), 216–224. https://doi.org/10.1080/01944366908977225

Brasof, M., & Levitan, J. (2022). The student voice research framework. In M. Brasof & J. Levitan (Eds.), Student voice research: Theory, methods, and innovations from the field (pp. 13–37). Teachers College Press.

Fielding, M. (2011). Student voice and the possibility of radical democratic education: Re-narrating forgotten histories, developing alternative futures. In G. Czerniawski & W. Kidd (Eds.), Student voice: Bridging the academic/practitioner divide. Emerald.

Hart, R. A. (1992). Children’s participation: From tokenism to citizenship. UNICEF International Child Development Centre.

Lyons, L., MacCannell, E., & Gold, V. (2022). Student voice: Assessing research in the field. In M. Brasof & J. Levitan (Eds.), Student voice research: Theory, methods, and innovations from the field. Teachers College Press.

Mitra, D. L. (2006). Increasing student voice and moving toward youth leadership. The Prevention Researcher, 13(1), 7–10. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ793208

Shier, H. (2001). Pathways to participation: Openings, opportunities and obligations. Children & Society, 15(2), 107–117. https://doi.org/10.1002/chi.617

Treseder, P. (1997). Empowering children & young people: Promoting involvement in decision-making. Save the Children.