Conference Agenda

This study examines the intersection of two dominant global educational trends: data-driven decision-making and student voice/participation rights. As schools increasingly adopt systematic data collection and analysis to guide improvement efforts, student perception surveys have emerged as a key instrument that ostensibly bridges evidence-based improvement with participatory ideals. However, the actual realization of this promise remains underexplored, particularly regarding how institutional cultures and power dynamics shape student voice opportunities.

Research Questions:

Within a data-driven decision-making initiative utilizing a student perception survey platform:

1. How was student voice enacted and experienced by students and educators?
2. How did institutional routines, cultural norms, and platform design afford and constrain different forms of student voice and participation?

Objective:

This ethnographic multi-case study aims to critically examine whether and how student perception surveys function as participatory tools. By examining the gap between the democratic promise of student surveys and their practical implementation, the study seeks to inform more responsive data-driven school improvement approaches that authentically center student perspectives.

This research addresses globally relevant tensions in educational policy. Student perception surveys have proliferated internationally—from the U.S. to similar initiatives in the UK, Australia, and across Europe. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), particularly Article 12, establishes children's participation rights as universal principles, yet schools worldwide struggle to translate these rights into practice. The study's findings regarding institutional barriers, adult-centered power dynamics, and the tension between datafication and participation resonate across diverse educational contexts facing similar pressures to balance accountability with democratic participation.

Theoretical Framework:

The study builds on literature examining data-driven decision-making's shift from accountability to formative improvement (Mandinach & Gummer, 2016; Van Geel et al., 2016), while acknowledging challenges including limited data literacy and accountability-learning tensions (Datnow & Hubbard, 2016; Lai & Schildkamp, 2016). Research on student perception surveys reveals a paradox: despite their validity in assessing teaching and climate (Schneider et al., 2021), implementation rarely realizes their participatory potential due to teacher resistance, incomplete feedback loops, and institutional unresponsiveness (Finefter-Rosenbluh et al., 2021, 2023; Schildkamp et al., 2025).

To address these complexities, this study proposes an integrated five-dimensional framework synthesizing leading models of student voice and participation such as Hart's Ladder (1992), Shier's Pathways (2001), Mitra's Pyramid (2006), Lundy's space-voice-audience-influence model (2007), and Holquist et al.'s structural-relational elements (2023), and adding Stance, an inductively identified dimension:

1. Opportunity: The extent to which students have equitable, authentic chances to participate.
2. Stance: Students' subjective perceptions of voice opportunities as genuine, valuable, and worthy of participation.
3. Expression: The extent to which students can articulate views in their own words and forms.
4. Responsiveness: The degree to which adults/institutions genuinely listen, acknowledge, and act upon student input.
5. Scope: The domains of school life where students hold influence and the nature of students’ authority.

This framework operationalizes UNCRC Article 12's dual mandate: children's right to express views and to have those views given due weight, while recognizing that meaningful rights realization requires both structural conditions and children's subjective experience of being heard and valued. Critically, this study introduces Stance as a distinctively student-oriented dimension that captures how past voice-related experiences shape current engagement—a dynamic that is overlooked in existing frameworks.

The addition of Stance also integrates structure-agency perspectives (Sen, 1985; Emirbayer & Mische, 1998), recognizing that student participation emerges through ongoing interplay between institutional affordances/constraints and students' agentic orientations, shaped by accumulated predispositions and preferences (Gal, 2017). The theoretical lens also draws on critical perspectives regarding adultism, tokenism, and framed participation (Lundy, 2007; Charteris & Smardon, 2019; Nir & Perry-Hazan, 2016).

The voices of the children were historically silenced by the dominant societal conceptualization of childhood and children (James et al., 1998). With the emergence of the New Sociology of Childhood framework, children started to be conceptualized as active agents who can use their voices and contribute to the knowledge production (James & Prout, 1997; Corsaro, 2005). This perspective has been widely acknowledged and emphasized in Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (United Nations,1989). In line with this, the child participation perspective has brought increased attention to recognizing children as capable, autonomous, active agents in decision-making in all aspects of life (Palaiologou, 2014). This recognition also reflected on the process of conducting research with children. More precisely, the literature highlights a shift from involving children as passive agents of research to involving them as active agents whose participation is valued (e.g., Lane et al., 2019; Palaiologou, 2014). Specifically, within the context of child well-being, several scholars highlighted the importance of this transition by emphasizing the necessity of adopting a “research with children” perspective rather than “research on children”, positioning them as having active roles in measuring and monitoring their well-being (Ben-Arieh et al., 2001; Ben-Arieh, 2005; Fattore et al., 2009). OECD (2021) defined it as a multidimensional and forward-looking concept, focusing on four main outcomes of child well-being: material, physical health, cognitive/educational, and social, emotional, and cultural, serving as a valuable conceptualization for policies and research.

By enabling child participation in research and policy, well-being actions correspond to the children’s real-life circumstances, instead of relying on the adult guesses (Moore & Lynch, 2018; Hernández-Torran et al., 2025). Importantly, to gain an understanding of each child’s well-being and enhance their well-being through research and policy, it is also important to reach children’s understanding of well-being from diverse backgrounds, as their well-being understanding alters with their context and characteristics, such as socioeconomic background (Fattore et al., 2009). Taken together, in child well-being research, making children active agents and reaching children from diverse backgrounds may warrant further attention.

The existing literature includes a number of review studies focusing on the voices of the children in the research (Sun et al, 2023 & Lane et al., 2019). Several review studies have also examined the children's well-being in the literature (Domínguez-Serrano & del Moral-Espín, 2022). Despite the existence of literature for each topic individually, their intersectionality has received limited attention. Given the importance of children’s voices in the well-being research, a need for undertaking a review on child participation in child well-being research may arise.

Drawing upon these, this study is grounded in providing a review of the current literature on taking the voices of children into consideration in their well-being through research. The review will be informed by the New Sociology of Childhood (James & Prout, 1997), which conceptualizes children as active and social agents. Grounded in this theoretical framework, the study aims to systematically review empirical research to analyze child participation in child well-being research by focusing on children’s forms of participation, data collection methods, and characteristics of the participant children.

The research questions are:

1. How do children participate in child well-being research, and whose voices are used to produce data regarding children in child well-being research?

1.1. What are the forms in which children participate in child well-being research?

1.2. What data collection methods are used to collect data directly from children in child well-being research?

1.3. What are the characteristics of children participating in child well-being research in terms of age, geographical region, gender, disability status, and migration status?

Klafki's concept of education (Bildung) as the development for self-determination, co-determination, and solidarity plays an important role in constructive didactics (Willbergh, 2021). It resonates with core principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (following: UNCRC; United Nations, 1989) as both acknowledge children as agentic subjects in society. Bildung serves a dual function: It is shaped by society and, in turn, shapes society. This interrelationship highlights the potential for societal transformation through it, as societies are human constructs and thus amenable to change. One fundamental aspect of societies that shapes children’s experiences and is widely discussed in international Childhood Studies is the generational order. It structures relationships between adults and children and is asymmetrical (Alanen, 2009): Adult status is associated with more possibilities and privileges, while childhood is often linked to marginalization (Fletcher, 2015). By focusing on the generational order, we can shed light on the social structures that lead to the discrimination of children, which is referred to as adultism (Fletcher, 2015). It permeates various societal domains, including education. Relational perspectives do not view adults and children as dichotomous or essentialized categories. Rather children (and adults) are active members of society and therefore the generational order is socially constructed and mutually constituted (Spyrou, 2018). The generational order has a crucial influence on the realization of Bildung, which aims at self- and co-determination as well as the UNCRC, which gives an international normative framework to acknowledge children as agentic subjects.
The generational relations are continuously (re)produced through social practices and interactions (Alanen, 2009). Within these relations, processes of subjectification take place under conditions of power imbalance. Subjectification can also be understood as relational: the subjects are producing society on the same time society produces subjects (Traue & Pfahl, 2022). Power asymmetries determine the possibilities for subjects but at the same time they enable them to act (Butler, 1997). These dynamics permeate all societal spheres and structure children’s opportunities for participation and recognition; they are inevitably inscribed in educational settings.
While Article 28 of UNCRC advocates for children's right to equal education, children face discrimination on individual and institutional levels in schools. Educational relationships “are often permeated by issues of power, violence, and discrimination” (Tomás & Gonçalves, 2024). While research has addressed racism and sexism in schools, age-related discrimination remains comparatively underexplored. By investigating children's interpretations of the generational order, we can better understand and address age-related barriers and adultism in society, fostering more inclusive and equitable educational environments that respect children's rights.
Despite the centrality of generational relations in all educational settings and for the implementation of the UNCRC, children’s own perspectives on this social structure have rarely been studied (Cassidy et al. 2017; Kost, 2025). Drawing on theories of subjectification within the generational order this dissertation study seeks to answer the following research question: What interpretations of the generational order do primary school children (re-)produce in a participatory research setting and what kind of subjectivation processes take part?
By linking Bildung theory with the global framework of the UNCRC, the study situates children’s interpretations of generational relations within broader international debates on children’s rights. A specific focus is placed on adultist power imbalances as a barrier in society and school – for this paper presentation the sphere of school will be put central.
Furthermore, it seeks to enrich the discourse on Participatory Action Research (PAR) with primary school children and the accompanying ethical questions.