Conference Agenda

Following Part 1 Symposium, where we explored different conceptualisations and methodologies employed in various countries in studies that focus on students’ voices and inclusion in schools, in this second Part Symposium, we move into examples of empirical studies, carried out in three countries of our World Educational Research Association International Research Network (WERA IRN) “Student Voice for Promoting Inclusion and Equity in Schools”: Indonesia, Portugal, and UK (England).

Involving children and young people in research links to notions of childhood that view children as active participants and as “being” as opposed to “becoming” (James, Jenks, and Prout, 1998). However, even though the idea of listening to children’s and young people’s voices in research and in schools has gained ground in recent years internationally, there is still a danger that such approaches are used superficially. Fielding (2001) offers a helpful formulation in this respect when he suggests ‘a four- fold model which distinguishes between students as sources of data, students as active respondents, students as co-researchers, and students as researchers’ (p. 135). These are different levels of student involvement that can be used for school improvement or school self-review, or purely for research purposes. Hart’s (1992) ‘Ladder of Participation’, is also useful in thinking about levels of participation in schools and in research, ranging from manipulation of students’ voices, where children are used to achieve adults’ aims, to higher degrees of participation where students and adults, in projects in schools and in research, share their own unique perspectives and take shared decisions. In these ways, students are actively involved and respected for their own contributions.

In employing such inclusive approaches in research, where students are genuinely active participants, participatory approaches and methods can be instrumental, such as the use of photovoice, drawings, diaries and observations by student researchers. The role of research methods when engaging with children and young people’s voices has been discussed extensively in the literature (e.g., Christensen and James, 2001; Thomson, 2008) such as photo voice and photo elicitation (e.g. Shaw 2020). A range of such approaches are explored in the papers that follow from studies carried out in different countries.

However, involving children and young people in research involves a range of challenges, the most predominant one being that of power dynamics (Montreuil et al., 2021). Morrow and Richards (1996) suggest that “using methods which are non-invasive, non-confrontational and participatory, and which encourage children to interpret their own data, might be one step forward in diminishing the ethical problems of imbalanced relationships between researcher and researched at the point of data collection and interpretation” (p. l00). It has been argued that participatory research methods address power differentials, maximise participation and are oriented towards “researching inclusively” (Nind, 2014). At the same time, as Purdy and Spears (2020) argue, co-participatory research with children is “potentially radically democratising, inclusive and empowering while at the same time potentially disruptive, uncomfortable and bumpy” (p. 189).

In this second part of the symposium, we will explore the following questions:

- How can we involve children and young people in research in different contexts?

- How do different methodologies allow students’ voices to emerge?

- What are the challenges encountered in employing such approaches?

Through our analysis of the empirical studies in each of the different countries we will highlight how methods are crucial in promoting students’ voices and inclusion in diverse contexts, whilst at the same time emphasising the importance of the overall methodologies employed and the positionalities of the researchers involved.

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Sense of belonging – a subjective feeling of connection with social groups, physical places and individual and collective experiences (Allen et al., 2021), is a key dimension of the school experience, which is associated with students’ well-being and engagement (Craggs & Kelly, 2018). In school, students experience belonging when they feel accepted, respected, included and supported by others (Goodenow & Grady, 1993). Belonging in school is affected by teacher support and peers’ relationships and acceptance (Allen et al., 2018). In addition, it emerges from the emotional bonds that students establish with the school-place (Nind et al., 2025). Despite its importance, few studies have explored how students’ experiences of space is related to their sense of belonging in school (Nind et al., 2025). Therefore, based on the triadic model of space (Lefebvre, 1991): conceived spaces (representations of spaces), perceived (social practice) and lived (spaces of representation), the aim of this study was to understand how the experience of physical and social spaces relates to students’ sense of belonging in school. The study used an ethnographic methodology (Hammersley, 2006), which involved prolonged permanence in a class composed of students from different sociocultural backgrounds, presenting with emotional, social and learning difficulties. Data were collected through classroom debate on topics such as inclusion, participation and belonging, and participant observation of students’ spatial and social interactions. In addition, students used an individual field diary for collecting their perception of the space. They were asked to use drawings and words to register their impressions about physical aspects of the classroom and the school, and how they interact with their peers, to identify zones of comfort and discomfort, where they feel they belong and how they participate in school. Emphasis was placed on a collaborative approach, where all students participated, talked and discussed, with the intention of contributing to the rethink and to the practice of true inclusion (Messiou, 2016). In this presentation, we will present the results regarding how students experience the school and classroom spaces and how it relates to students’ sense of belonging. The results will be explored in light of the school's organization for student diversity, identifying conditions that foster students’ connection to school and classroom spaces, the construction of place, with effects on belonging, well-being, academic learning, and inclusion.

Allen, K., Kern, M. L., Vella-Brodrick, D., Hattie, J., & Waters, L. (2018). What schools need to know about fostering school belonging: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 30(1), 1–34. Allen, K-A; Kern, M. L.; Rozek, C.S.; McInerney, D, M.; Slavich, G. M. (2021) Belonging: a review of conceptual issues, an integrative framework, and directions for future research, Australian Journal of Psychology, 73:1, 87-102. Craggs, H., & Kelly, C. (2018). Adolescents’ experiences of school belonging: A qualitative meta-synthesis. Journal of Youth Studies, 21(10), 1411–1425. Goodenow, C., & Grady, K.E. (1993) The relationship of school belonging and friends’ values to academic motivation among urban adolescent students. Journal of Experimental Education, 62, 60–71. Hammersley, M. (2006) Ethnography: problems and prospects. Ethnography and Education, 1(1), 3-14. Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space. translated by Donald Nicholson-Smith, Blackwell, Oxford UK & Cambridge USA, Editions Anthropos Messiou, K. (2017) Research in the field of inclusive education: time for a rethink? International Journal of Inclusive Education, 21(2), 146-159. Nind, M., Köpfer, A. & Lemmer, K. (2025). Children’s spaces of belonging in schools: bringing theories and stakeholder perspectives into dialogue. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 29(29), 210-222.

In this paper we explore the role of various participatory methods to engage student-researchers in primary schools. Participatory research has been used as an “umbrella term” which includes research where children and young people are being involved in collecting data or are being engaged in actively making decisions in the research process, or in both ways (Montreuil et al., 2021). Levy and Thompson (2015) highlight the close link between student voice and participatory research approaches and emphasise the need for “listening to children and hearing their voices” (p. 139). Participatory approaches necessitate a shift in the way children are viewed, from being passive objects of research to being active agents who can make meaningful contributions to the research process, thereby anchoring the outcomes of the research in alignment with children’s perspectives (Gallacher & Gallagher, 2008). Findings from a study that involved ten primary schools in England (5-11-year-olds), exploring how an engagement with students’ voices can promote inclusion within schools, will be analysed. The schools belong in a research-practice partnership, (RPP) “a long-term collaboration aimed at educational improvement or equitable transformation through engagement with research. These partnerships are intentionally organized to connect diverse forms of expertise and shift power relations in the research endeavor to ensure that all partners have a say in the joint work.” (Farrell et al, 2021, p. iv). Our RPP, the “School Voices Research- Practice Partnership” aims to support schools in responding to student diversity and improve learning outcomes for all, whilst at the same time promote inclusion, by focusing on students’ voices and dialogues between teachers and children and young people through participatory research approaches. Lesson observation, training of student researchers, fieldnotes from meetings, and interviews with teachers and children were collected over a period of four years. Data analysis highlighted how participatory approaches and methods (student researchers approaches, sticky notes with unfinished sentences, visual methods and observations) allowed students to be actively involved in the research process and led to changes in their schools. We argue that participatory methods can be a powerful means for change in schools, only if they are used in ways that enable sustained dialogues between teachers and students in schools. Of all the methods that we explore, we highlight observation used by student researchers as having a great potential for facilitating such efforts (Messiou et. al, 2025). We will also discuss some of the challenges involved in using such approaches.

Farrell, C.C., Penuel, W.R., Coburn, C., Daniel, J., and Steup, L. (2021). Research-practice partnerships in education: The state of the field. William T. Grant Foundation. Gallacher, L.-A., & Gallagher, M. (2008). Methodological Immaturity in Childhood Research?: Thinking through ‘participatory methods’. Childhood, 15(4), 499–516. Levy, R., & Thompson, P. (2015). Creating ‘buddy partnerships’ with 5- and 11-year old-boys: A methodological approach to conducting participatory research with young children. Journal of Early Childhood Research, 13(2), 137–149. Messiou, K., de los Reyes, J., Potnis, C., Dong, P., & Rwang, V. K. (2025). Student voice for promoting inclusion in primary schools. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 29(7), 1168–1182. Montreuil, M., Bogossian, A., Laberge-Perrault, E., & Racine, E. (2021). A review of approaches, strategies and ethical considerations in participatory research with children. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 20, 1–15