Engaging Students’ Voice Through Commissions

Abstract

Students’ participation in the school community is a topic that has always been of a great interest in the education field. We find that schools label themselves as democratic and encouraging students’ voice when some of them do not have democratic practices. A number of researchers have highlighted the importance of students’ involvement in the school community but few researchers have been studying the impact of student-teacher commissions as a tool to increase students’ participation. The purpose of the current study is to analyse commissions as an effective tool to increase students’ involvement in Primary Schools. This paper will address the questions about the commissions’ effectiveness in promoting participation and the students and teachers’ experiences towards it. This is accomplished via a qualitative analysis of commissions in a real school context at Escola Projecte and interviews with different agents participating in those commissions. The article goes on to look of the commissions’ development and the impact that this has in the school community. The analysis showed that commissions build a place where students create their initiatives and that those have a real impact on school life. The results are especially relevant because they set a path towards considering commissions’ use in other schools involved in promoting students’ participation.