Educational leaders and teachers are increasingly embracing the concept of student voice and implementing student voice practices (SVPs) in schools and classrooms. This study presents the validation of two SVPs scales that together reflect the state of SVPs in a school. One 17-item scale focuses on teachers’ SVPs, and the other 11-item scale addresses school-level SVPs. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses using a randomly divided sample of 1,751 students from four schools revealed both scales to be multidimensional, consistent with theory. Each scale also showed strong reliability, convergent validity with student-teacher relationships, and concurrent validity with academic engagement. Measurement invariance testing demonstrated that the scales are invariant by gender and racial and ethnic background. The SVPs scales can advance research on student voice in schools by helping to clarify the enabling conditions and the effects of practices that give students a say in improving their educational experiences.

Background: Student voice practices (SVPs) are processes through which students can participate in and influence educational decisions affecting their own lives and the lives of their peers. This article examines teacher readiness for implementing SVPs.Focus of Study: Previous research has conceptualized readiness by considering the what of the change, the how of the change process, and the individuals involved. Using a framework of mindsets, heartsets, and skillsets, this study investigates the question, What conditions contribute to teacher readiness to engage in SVPs?Research Design: Employing an embedded case study design, this article analyzes qualitative data from four schools to explore teacher readiness. Cognitive mindsets encompass beliefs that students have a right to express their views and can provide unique insights, and that involving students as partners makes organizational and classroom change more effective. Emotive heartsets involve prioritizing the development of trust, and safe relationships and environments. Intention-building skillsets include the necessity of training for both adults and students, as well as the creation of supportive classroom structures.Conclusions: Our findings suggest directions for enhancing training and preparation for SVPs. Additionally, they contribute to organizational theory and educational leadership research by exploring factors that may facilitate or hinder the development and sustainability of change initiatives.

To advance theory and research on youth sociopolitical development, we must better understand how young activists become passionate, knowledgeable, and active in a cause. We explored sociopolitical synergy-high interest, knowledge, and involvement in a social or political issue-among U.S. adolescent activists (N = 677). Overall, 26.3% of young activists had synergy on racial justice activism, and 17.1% had synergy on gender justice activism, with little overlap between groups. Youth of color and genderqueer youth were more likely to have racial justice synergy, and LGBQA youth were more likely to have gender justice synergy. Sociopolitical synergy was related to sense of belonging to an activist community and to some benefits of activism (e.g. flourishing, self-expression, and purpose), although young racial justice activists with synergy also experienced costs (e.g. conflict, harassment). Findings highlight potential developmental and societal benefits to young activists' sociopolitical synergy on varying social justice causes.

Strategies that promote student voice have long been championed as effective ways to enhance student engagement and learning; however, little quantitative research has studied the relationship between student voice practices (SVPs) and student outcomes at the classroom level. Drawing on survey data with 1,751 middle and high school students from one urban district, this study examined how the SVP of seeking students’ input and feedback related to their academic engagement, agency, attendance, and grades. Findings revealed strong associations between this SVP and student engagement. Additionally, results showed that having just one teacher who uses the SVP is associated with significantly greater agency, better math grades, higher grade point averages, and lower absent rates than having no teachers who do so. In models testing interaction effects with choice, responsiveness, and receptivity to student voice, teachers’ receptivity was strongly associated with all outcomes. Few interaction effects were found. This study contributes compelling evidence of the impact of classroom SVPs and teacher receptivity to student voice on desired student outcomes.

Although teachers and administrators increasingly support the idea of student voice, questions remain about what “student voice” looks like in practice. This mixed methods study in two urban U.S. high schools explores what student voice practices in the classroom entail and how these practices relate to other pedagogical strategies. Findings reveal that student-teacher relationships, differentiated instruction, and choice serve as core building blocks for the use of student voice practices in the classroom. Findings also underscore the rarity of the student voice practices of seeking student feedback and input and engaging in collaborative decision-making with students.

Drawing on data from 401 US youth activists, this study examined what they describe as their biggest wins. The most common responses pertained to changing the hearts and minds of others, followed by changes to the policies or practices of their schools, electoral impacts, and local or state policy change. Participants who reported successful direct aid campaigns, school changes, and policy changes rated their activism as more effective than those without these types of wins. Additionally, youth who had been activists for a longer period of time reported greater effectiveness. Identity differences related to the issue areas in which wins were accomplished, rather than the type of win achieved, with the exception of an association between gender and direct aid wins. Findings highlight the need to value "changing hearts and minds" as important wins in wider public discourse and to recognize the wide range of impacts youth activists are achieving.

The field of youth organizing emerged in the 1990s, as nonprofit organizations began engaging low-income youth of color, aged thirteen to nineteen, in political education and community organizing work while also providing developmental supports, such as academic tutoring and mental health resources. Over the last thirty years, the field has expanded rapidly. This chapter discusses the unique features of youth organizing and identifies trends in the field, including the growth in different kinds of youth organizing groups, the rise of coalitions, and changes in the demographic makeup of participants. It then presents a case description of a long-standing youth organizing group, Asian/Pacific Islander Youth Promoting Advocacy and Leadership (AYPAL), based in Oakland, California. Next, the chapter reviews the literature addressing how youth organizing promotes the psychological empowerment of its participants and builds community power situationally, institutionally, and systemically. It concludes by highlighting the implications of this research and suggesting opportunities for future scholarship.

Cases of historical and contemporary social movements suggest that among activists, reading texts together is a valuable learning experience. However, less research exists on the specific texts youth activists seek out in their work and the role these texts play in shaping their understanding of themselves as activists. Drawing on Rudine Sims Bishop’s classic formulation of books as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors, this study explores the under-appreciated role texts may play in drawing young people to activism and shaping their identities as activists. Coupled with interview data from six youth activists engaged in the climate justice movement, survey data from 237 self-identifying youth activists suggest that the texts youth activists name as influential serve a “through the looking glass” function: they often reflect problematic aspects of the social world and one’s place within it, while also revealing new and aspirational roles readers might take on to address social problems. The texts the youth identified as influential were diverse; there were few commonalities among titles, underscoring the importance of ongoing access to a broad range of reading materials. Ultimately, findings suggest that texts work to bind together the various internal and external, micro, meso, and macro influences that collectively shape youth activists’ narratives of becoming.

Centering the concept of student voice, this chapter makes three key contributions to the research on instructional practices that promote active learning and engagement. First, using research-based vignettes, it explains what student voice practices look like in the classroom and how they differ from the provision of choice. Second, it reviews the research linking student voice practices and choice practices to deeper engagement and learning. Third, drawing on original survey, interview, and focus group data, it illustrates how student voice practices and choice practices enhance affective, behavioral, and cognitive student engagement from the perspectives of both students and teachers. This chapter offers useful guidance to educators who wish to expand their active learning pedagogical repertoires to include student voice practices.

In recent years, girls and young women have become particularly visible as leaders of activist campaigns and social movements. Drawing on data collected from an ACLU summer program for youth activists and advocates, this study explores the costs and benefits cisgender girls incur as a result of their activism. The findings reveal that although girls report more benefits than costs overall from their activism, the costs are correlated with the number of marginalized identities they hold. Queer Black girls report the greatest overall costs from their activism, and queer Multiracial girls report the highest rates of burnout. Queer White girls report significantly greater overall costs and problems as a result of their activism than heterosexual White girls, more burnout than heterosexual Black girls, and more empowerment than heterosexual Latinas. Informed by intersectionality and the PVEST framework, implications for supporting the sociopolitical action of girls with different social locations are discussed.

Purpose: As research increasingly links positive student-teacher relationships (STRs) to positive student outcomes, instruments to measure STRs have proliferated. Yet most neglect student agency and sociocultural variation in the operationalization of STRs. This study explores the specific actions teachers and students take to build positive STRs from the vantage point of a diverse group of US middle and high school students. Research Methods: Drawing on the principles of critical collaborative research, our intergenerational team of scholars engaged 84 youth participants (ages 12–18) in qualitative data generation and analysis, using novel youth-voice elicitation techniques known as the fishbone and diamond card sort. Findings: Findings highlight specific actions that a diverse group of youth believe students and teachers take to create positive STRs and foreground the importance of teacher power, student responsibility, safe classrooms, and reciprocity in STR construction. Implications: By pinpointing specific actions that teachers can take to build positive STRs, this work raises implications for teacher education and professional development, especially as schools struggle to regain ground with students in the wake of COVID-19 disruptions. In addition, the study demonstrates how engaging youth as partners in qualitative research can help improve the conduct and products of empirical research in education, offering a model for the field of youth validation processes.

Engagement in youth activism has been linked to both positive and negative wellbeing. Drawing on survey results from a sample of 636 youth participants in the ACLU Advocacy Institute, this study finds that although youth generally report greater benefits from their activism than costs, the costs are significantly related to worse mental health, physical health, and flourishing, while benefits are positively associated with flourishing only. A sense of belonging to an activist community, however, emerges as a significant protective factor for mental health, physical health, and flourishing. Focus group respondents explain how peer support and a sense of belonging act as salves to burnout, the most common cost that youth activists in this sample report experiencing. They also identify three main sources of burnout: backlash in response to their efforts; pressure to be the savior generation; and the slow progress of change. This study advances understanding of the complex relationship between youth activism and wellbeing and raises implications for youth activists and those who support them.

As student activism continues to roil campuses, concerns have arisen about the mental health costs associated with activist-oriented civic engagement. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 42 self-identifying student activists from across the United States, this study examines how activists describe the impact of their activism on their mental health. While just under one third of the respondents perceived a positive effect, 60% of the respondents noted adverse consequences to their psychological well-being. Nevertheless, these respondents remained committed to continuing their activism. Four factors surfaced in activists’ reflections on their mental health, which, while not responsible for positive mental health outcomes, did help offset the stress, exhaustion, and guilt associated with activism. These four factors included social capital or connection to others, a sense of purpose, effecting change, and self-care and collective care. Respondents credited these factors with helping them to sustain the emotionally and physically difficult work of activism. Implications for higher education policy and practice are discussed.

Purpose: Educational leadership traditionally has defined school leadership as an adult-only space. An emerging group of scholars is expanding the field to challenge who should be considered an educational leader and whose voices should be centered in change processes. Examining the ways in which students serve as leaders in schools, student voice scholarship has expanded rapidly over the last two decades. However, it has not cohered around a shared understanding of the central components of the practice of student voice in classrooms and schools. Research Methods: Our process drew upon two different data sources in parallel-a systematic literature review and interviews/focus groups with students, teachers, and school leaders. We designed our process in this format to draw upon what has been done before and to understand whether the past still aligns with current practice. We hope that in addition to articulating student voice constructs, this article also can offer methodological contributions as demonstrating ways to understand educational practices based on past and new research. Findings: This article presents a framework of the core components of student voice in classrooms and schools: structures (setting, focus, and intent) and relationships (access, representative, roles, and responsiveness). Implications for Research and Practice: This framework provides a roadmap for students, teachers, school leaders, and academic scholars to understand how leadership at the school and classroom levels can envision and design student voice practices. Further, it offers a starting point for articulating the range of possibilities for student voice in classrooms and schools.