At a time when "trust" is argued by many to be on the wane within post-industrial societies this article examines a case study of pupil voice brought about through collaboration between a secondary school (for pupils aged 11-16) and a university located in a large conurbation in southern England. Building on data from focus groups and…

This paper considers enjoyment of formal education for young people aged 14 to 16, largely from their own perspective, based on the view of around 3000 students in England. The data include documentary analysis, official statistics, interviews and surveys with staff and students. Enjoyment of school tends to be promoted by factors such as…

Academic underachievement, a syndrome affecting nearly 50% of gifted adolescents across gender, race, and socioeconomic strata, has fueled research for decades, in an attempt to identify its antecedents, characteristics, and consequences on the individual and on society. The research bridges fields of inquiry that converge in the area of human…

This paper is a summary of a pupil voice research project conducted to investigate the influence that teacher-pupil relationships have on pupils' feelings of engagement with their school. The study involved two year groups (12-13 and 14-15 year olds) in a rural secondary school in Cambridgeshire. Data sources were collected through a questionnaire…

Urban school districts have increasingly enacted policies of personalism, such as converting large schools into smaller schools. Such policies ask teachers to develop supportive, individual relationships with students as a presumed lever for student achievement. Research on student-teacher relationships generally supports policies of personalism.…

This qualitative study compared the perceptions of self-identified victims and school authority figures in regards to adolescent relational aggression among female middle school students. Six significant aspects of this issue were explored, including causal conditions; contextual factors; definitions and descriptions of relationally aggressive…

Despite a decade of concentration on closing the pervasive achievement gap in America, White students and Black students still attend schools with unequal results. Many strategies aimed at closing the gap exist, including increasing the number of African American teachers, but the majority of urban teachers are White, which will remain the case…

This paper revisits and discusses some of Paulo Freire's theoretical tenets for participatory education suggested as part of a critical approach to the education of adults. Through data collected during a family literacy programme, the author analyses her discursive interactions as an adult education tutor with parents as learners. These discourse…

While the existing literature has documented the positive impact of new discourses and interventions on nonnative English speaker (NNES) graduate students through Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)-related courses (Brutt-Griffler & Samimy, 1999; Kamhi-Stein, 1999; Pavlenko, 2003), long-term effects of those interventions have…

After getting her master's degree from UCLA, Nancy Wills dreamed of starting a school-based guitar program so she could teach students to make music on the instrument she'd loved since she was a kid growing up outside of Yosemite, California. She had a strong belief that guitar was perfect for schools, ideal for individualized playing but also…

Recent publications and research have warned that student self-assessment practices in higher education cannot be presumed to empower students in ways that enhances their learning. This is partly due to a tendency to speak of power in student self-assessment in general and undefined terms. Hence, there is a need to identify the types of power…

This article discusses the views of Turkish and British novice teachers on pedagogy and pedagogical relationships with school students when confronted with the pedagogical practices of the "Other" in particular policy contexts. Experiences of those practices were gained by novice teachers during an exchange visit for British and Turkish…

Teachers' narratives, when viewed as a form of critical inquiry, can allow teachers to tell and retell stories from their evolving points of view and contextual positions, with the goal of better understanding the complexity and depth of the experiences that have informed their teaching. This narrative, which weaves the voices of the author and…

In the current era of "zero tolerance", disciplinary practices including punishment, expulsion, physical and psychological surveillance, and confinement are a major part of resistant students' lived experiences. This article is an ethnographic study of student resistance that is observed in an alternative high school in the USA, which serves…

This paper aims to develop understandings around the factors which facilitate and those which constrain implementation of Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989; UN General Assembly Resolution 44/25) in student voice projects. Article 12 is concerned with children being given the right to express their views…