Introduction
All children have a right to speak out and be heard on all matters affecting their education. Adults have a duty not just to listen but to give due weight to the views expressed. As participation is a human right, it does not have to be justified by reference to proven benefits. However, there is a growing body of research evidence to show that it indeed brings many and varied benefits to children and schools.
This entry will therefore look more closely at the relationship between student voice and children’s rights, focusing on the implications for adults, both as duty-bearers of these rights, and as the dominant wielders of power in education systems (Robinson 2011). This is important because, despite the many references to children’s rights in the “student voice” literature, in practice, student voice initiatives can easily become subverted, wittingly and unwittingly, by a focus on adults’ concerns.
This entry first frames student voice as a human right protected under...
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References
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Shier, H. (2019). Student Voice and Children’s Rights: Power, Empowerment, and “Protagonismo”. In: Peters, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Teacher Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_27-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_27-1
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