Invoking learner voice and developing leadership: what matters to learners?

Abstract

Educational leadership and management (ELM) research overly focuses on adult leadership development at the expense of leadership of learners. Framed by the concept of learner voice, this article focuses on learner leadership and argues that learners should be treated as people whose ideas matter. It draws on a Bachelor of Education Honours (ELM) elective which required students (practicing teachers) to establish school leadership clubs and involve learners in a reform initiative in pursuit of leadership development. The longitudinal study which informed this article was designed as a multi-case study to explore learner voice and the development of leadership across 44 leadership clubs drawing on three data sources. The study found that while the phenomenon of learner leadership was not common across schools, leadership clubs offered a space for the development of learner voice. Learner voice was generated in relation to the school physical environment, English proficiency amongst learners, improved learner conduct, developments pertaining to the extra-mural curriculum, and leadership training initiatives. In addition, the clubs afforded learners the opportunity to initiate and lead a change project in their schools. However, the take-up of learner leadership as a whole school initiative was problematic in the majority of schools. The article concludes with some suggestions for a future research agenda emerging out of the first phase of the project.