In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in student and teacher voice in education. What distinguishes 'teacher voice' or 'student voice' from simply reflecting participants' views as a source of data is the placement of participants in an empowered participatory position. It is the positioning of their voice as consisting of more…

This collection explores a variety of perspectives on the student voice in UK higher education. Featuring reflections from a vice-chancellor, student representatives and interviews with the Office for Students' Student Panel, as well as sections considering disabled students, international students and mature students, the thirteen essays each…

As calls for student-staff partnership proliferate across higher education, academic development must re-examine and reimagine its relationship to students. Students generally occupy roles with limited agency in academic development. We argue that this needs to change. We propose re-articulating the purpose of academic development toward the…

Student cohorts in higher education are rapidly diversifying. Approaches to student engagement in teaching and learning must evolve to meet the changing needs of these diverse groups of students equitably. Student-staff partnership is an approach to student engagement embracing the diverse experiences of both students and staff. Growing evidence…

Whilst internationalisation has already become an integral part of the curriculum at all higher education institutions in the UK, what does it actually mean? Is student mobility an aim in itself or is it more useful as a promotional tool to develop more internationally oriented graduates? How can we help students take control over their…

Purpose: Over the past few decades, universities have been recognized as ideal leaders for the development of policies and innovative solutions required to support the transition to sustainable societies. As a major stakeholder group, students play a significant role in moving this agenda forward; however, their actions remain understudied in the…

This paper looks back at an academic-led language field trip project, now in its third year, involving ab-initio students of Italian at the University of Southampton. It considers the role of academic-led field trips in Modern Languages (ML) and it explores the underlying pedagogical approaches that were adopted to enhance students' engagement,…

Why look back to imagine the future? Given the almost universal consensus that higher level technology-enhanced learning should lead in the design of school buildings, what place is there for low-level (non-digital) technologies in education? What can we learn from revisiting schools that were at one time seen to be internationally pioneering in…

This study evaluated a model of student-engaged educational development. Despite widespread commitment to student engagement across many institutional activities, student participation as partners with faculty in teaching and learning enhancement has been identified as a threshold concept for educational development. This study sought not only to…

This article addresses a question for those seeking to deepen engagement with nontraditional students for strategies of widening participation in the higher education setting. The question is as follows: how can the academic subject be made more "open" to what the student (and therefore also the nontraditional student) can bring to it?…

The use of large online discussion forums within online and distance learning continues to grow. Recent innovations in online learning such as the MOOC (massive open online course) and concomitant growth in the use of online media for the delivery of courses in traditional campus based universities provide both opportunity and challenge for online…

This paper will review the existing student voice work in higher education and critique its current weaknesses, particularly in relation to conceptualisations of and commitments to participation, transformation and empowerment. It will be argued that the employment of participatory methods in higher education student voice work offers a way to…

In the United Kingdom, the higher education landscape has undergone a transformation since the late 1980s as seen in the "massification" of higher education and the "quality revolution". These changes have resulted in an increased sense of accountability, to principle stakeholders: the government, the taxpayer and students…

This article is about student engagement and in particular the engagement of students in internal institutional quality assurance processes in the UK. It discusses the extent to which the introduction of more explicit internal and external quality assurance processes militate against the notion of the student as a part of a "cohesive learning…

This article addresses the question of the role and function of contemporary higher education in western industrialised nations through a focus on the participation of undergraduate students. The discussion examines some of the dramatic changes brought about by neo-liberal educational policy, in particular the hierarchical division of teaching and…