Chapter 9: Student Voice or Empowerment?: Examining the Role of School-Based Youth-Adult Partnerships as an Avenue Toward Focusing on Social Justice

When considering the place of social justice in educational leadership, one must examine the concept as both a goal and a process. That is, one must think not only about whether schools can be engaged in discussions and activities on questions of equity and social change. One must also examine whose voices are included in such conversations.

A growing body of literature emphasizes the value of extending the notion of distributed leadership (Elmore, 2000; Lashway, 2003) to include students in the process. Such research has demonstrated that youth-adult partnerships can create a synergy that transcends what youth or adults alone can do, including sparking great strides in clarifying an organization’s vision and accomplishments (Kirshner, O’Donoghue, & McLaughlin, 2003; Mitra, 2001; National Research Council, 2002; Zeldin, 2004; Zeldin, Camino, & Mook, 2005). Increasing student voice in schools can also encourage schools to more closely align their mission, goals, and activities with a social justice focus. Research indicates that young people tend to broach subjects that adults are reluctant to discuss, such as equity issues that tend to get swept under the rug by administrators and other adults in the school who would rather avoid controversy (Fine, 1991; Wehlage, Rutter, Smith, Lesko, & Fernandez, 1989). For example, by involving students in school-wide discussions about academic achievement—and particularly students failing subjects or rarely attending school—school personnel cannot easily shift the blame of failure onto the students (Mitra, 2003). Instead they must assess the problems within the school’s structure and culture. Giving students a voice in such reform conversations reminds teachers and administrators that students possess unique knowledge and perspectives about their schools that adults cannot fully replicate without this partnership (Kushman, 1997; Levin, 2000; Mitra, 2001; Rudduck, Day, & Wallace, 1997; Thorkildsen, 1994).