Students as Radical Agents of Change

The paper opens by asking sharp questions about the current vogue forconsulting students about various aspects of their experience of schooling. The unwitting manipulation often embedded in much of thisActivity is contrasted with a radical approach known as `Students as Researchers.' Having described the still current joint work in a UKhigh school that has developed since 1996 the paper moves on to consider the transformational nature of the project and ends by offering two frameworks: one suggests a number of key questions pertinent to anyevaluation of the institutional conditions for student voice; the otherprovides an overarching conceptual re-appraisal of the domain. Practicalexamples are given and the compelling nature of the ``Students as Researchers''approach reaffirmed.