Literature suggests a positive impact on children's health and wellbeing from being in nature. This study explores primary teachers' perceptions of their pupils' (7-11 years) experiences of contemplative approaches in nature reserve settings. Nine teachers from a convenience sample of eight different primary schools took part. After observing…

Student voice is, of course, fundamental -- who could argue against democracy? It is important that we do not return to a time where students were seen and not heard and positioned as subordinate figures but at the same time, do teachers suffer because of this democracy? Although student voice policies can represent positive developments, it would…

Student agency is a critical feature of impactful service-learning programs. In this article, we describe lessons learned from a study of Connect Science, and environmental service-learning curriculum and teacher professional development program. We present five ways to amplify student voices in service-learning. Examples from teachers that we…

This paper draws on Bernstein's educational sociology to illustrate how a language-focused "subversive" pedagogic approach (Martin, 2011) was systematically realised through classroom interactions. While educational inequalities are often addressed at the level of policy and budgets, this paper provides a perspective on inequality and…

Immigrant parents have varied yet comparable language ideologies, perspectives, and experiences. In this qualitative case study, 67 immigrant parents were interviewed, 37 Chinese and 30 Latinx, whose children were enrolled in Mandarin-English and Spanish-English bilingual after-school programs at two urban public elementary schools in the U.S.…

There is a paucity of research that has effectively listened to children's voices on matters important to them and has asked them how they would like to be listened to. This study used a playful approach to listen to children's voices about play spaces in their primary school. The research questions were: How can a playful approach be used to…

Using videos to supplement live instruction has gained momentum in the past year because teachers often scrambled to find ways to instruct students from different locations. The author, like many of her colleagues, began recording herself teaching short lessons and adding them to her Google Classroom library. But then she realized that despite her…

The participatory view of learning emphasises students' identity construction. However, identity research in the context of programming education to cultivate students' computational thinking is scarce. In this study, an instrument of computational identity with components of engagement, imagination and affiliation, was developed and validated.…

Classrooms should be spaces where every child feels safe to bring their whole self to school. This book shows how to set up preK-grade 6 classrooms that support student agency, independence, and choice. The results of classrooms designed with these goals in mind include: (1) Greater student engagement with curriculum; (2) Students who know…

This paper, co-authored between three adults and five children aged 8-11, adopts a 'collaborative writing as inquiry' approach to examine and discuss the authors' experiences of a participatory research project through the lens of critical dialectical pluralism. In the original project, children formed two 'young advisory panels', one online,…

Psychologist Wendy Ostroff explains why using dialogue in learning with elementary-age students is a win for everyone, especially for learning. Young students are inventive questioners and naturally divergent thinkers, and they are engaged and empowered by exercising their voices. Teachers will benefit from Ostroff's guidance about fitting…

Student voice has been heralded as a practice that provides all children with the opportunity to exercise their right to participate in matters affecting them. However, a common research concern is that not all student voices are consistently or comprehensively attended to. What is often under scrutinised is how this uneven distribution of…

International children's picture books provide windows and mirrors for children and allow them to consider issues of fairness, justice, equity, diversity, and the common good as they build their nascent citizenship skills. One powerful pedagogy that supports the use of rich curriculum and thoughtful discussions is critical literacy, a subset of…

The author, a fifth-grade teacher, describes how she reimagined the literary essay curriculum to amplify student identity, agency, and voice by creating a class podcast. Because of their similar structure and organization, teaching students literary analysis and interpretation through podcast writing offered entry into literary essays. The author…

Before ever entering a formal educational setting, children use writing to make themselves known. Yet by the time students reach the fourth grade, only a small minority of students demonstrate writing skills considered competent by national standards. By this time in their school career, many have begun to internalize that they are poor writers…