Articulating identities and analyzing belonging: a multistep intervention that affirms and informs a diversity of students

This article describes a multistep intervention developed for an undergraduate course called ‘Advocating Diversity in Higher Education.’ The goal of the intervention was to affirm diversity and foster a sense of inclusion among students within and beyond the course. We contextualize the intervention in student protests during 2015 and 2016 regarding racial and other forms of discrimination on college and university campuses in the United States, and we describe how it is informed by several theoretical frames and associated practices: intersectionality, belonging, and radical pedagogical partnership. Co-authored by the faculty member who co-designed and co-taught the course, an undergraduate student who co-designed the course, and a recent graduate who co-created the course when she took it, the article embodies the inclusion and radical partnership it analyzes. It is intended to offer individuals working in higher education an intervention that can be adapted across contexts

Authorizing Students\u27 Perspectives: Toward Trust, Dialogue, and Change in Education

This article argues for attending to the perspectives of those most directly affected by, but least often consulted about, educational policy and practice: students. The argument for authorizing student perspectives runs counter to U.S. reform efforts, which have been based on adults’ ideas about the conceptualization and practice of education. This article outlines and critiques a variety of recent attempts to listen to students, including constructivist and critical pedagogies, postmodern and poststructural feminisms, educational researchers’ and social critics’ work, and recent developments in the medical and legal realms, almost all of which continue to unfold within and reinforce adults’ frames of reference. This discussion contextualizes what the author argues are the twin challenges of authorizing student perspectives: a change in mindset and changes in the structures in educational relationships and institutions

Sound, Presence, and Power: Student Voice in Educational Research and Reform

Every way of thinking is both premised on and generative of a way of naming that reflects particular underlying convictions. Over the last 15 years, a way of thinking has reemerged that strives to reposition students in educational research and reform. Best documented in Australia, Canada, England, and the United States, this way of thinking is premised on the following convictions: that young people have unique perspectives on learning, teaching, and schooling; that their insights warrant not only the attention but also the responses of adults; and that they should be afforded opportunities to actively shape their education. Although these convictions mean different things to different people and take different forms in practice, a single term has emerged to capture a range of activities that strive to reposition students in educational research and reform: student voice. In this discussion the author explores the emergence of the term student voice, identifies underlying premises signaled by two particular words associated with the term, rights and respect, and explores the many meanings of a word that surfaces repeatedly across discussions of student voice efforts but refers to a wide range of practices: listening. The author offers this discussion not as an exhaustive or definitive analysis but rather with the goal of looking across discussions of work that advocates, enacts, and critically analyzes the term student voice

Listening to equity-seeking perspectives: how students’ experiences of pedagogical partnership can inform wider discussions of student success

Discussions in higher education have proliferated in recent years regarding not only how to recruit a greater diversity of students but also how to support their success. The voices of students themselves, particularly those students traditionally underrepresented in and underserved by higher education, have important contributions to make to these discussions. This article draws on a larger study of the perspectives of undergraduate students who identify as members of equity-seeking groups (e.g., students who are racialized, LGBTQ+ and first generation) and who have collaborated with faculty in a bi-college, classroom-focused, pedagogical partnership program in the United States. Using constant comparison/grounded theory, I analyzed these students’ responses to a question about how participating in this program affected their sense of themselves as students. The themes that emerged across students’ responses included how participation in pedagogical partnership (1) fosters important affective experiences in relation to all faculty and to fellow students, (2) informs students’ academic engagement in their own classes and (3) contributes to students’ sense of their evolution as active agents in their own and others’ development. Both affirming and expanding established understandings of what contributes to student success presented in the literature on belonging, engagement and persistence, these themes have implications for how we might support the success of a diversity of students both within and beyond formal pedagogical partnership

Making Spaces to Learn

An essay review of What the Best College Teachers Do (Bain, Ken. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004)

Sound, Presence, and Power: Student Voice in Educational Research and Reform

Every way of thinking is both premised on and generative of a way of naming that reflects particular underlying convictions. Over the last 15 years, a way of thinking has reemerged that strives to reposition students in educational research and reform. Best documented in Australia, Canada, England, and the United States, this way of thinking is premised on the following convictions: that young people have unique perspectives on learning, teaching, and schooling; that their insights warrant not only the attention but also the responses of adults; and that they should be afforded opportunities to actively shape their education. Although these convictions mean different things to different people and take different forms in practice, a single term has emerged to capture a range of activities that strive to reposition students in educational research and reform: student voice. In this discussion the author explores the emergence of the term student voice, identifies underlying premises signaled by two particular words associated with the term, rights and respect, and explores the many meanings of a word that surfaces repeatedly across discussions of student voice efforts but refers to a wide range of practices: listening. The author offers this discussion not as an exhaustive or definitive analysis but rather with the goal of looking across discussions of work that advocates, enacts, and critically analyzes the term student voice