Shaping the future of ‘student voice’: understanding the individual, shared and sector ideologies informing student voice activity 2010-2025.
Keywords:
Student Voice, Student Engagement, Power, Higher EducationAbstract
‘Student voice’, while of course referring to the 2.9 million individual voices of students in the UK, is in this context used to describe engagement between students and institutions to inform, shape or transform the education and wider experience. Activity associated with student voice has been subject to considerable attention, activity and commitment in higher education institutions in England over the last 15 years. It spans work that takes place at the micro level, focused on transformation of learning, through to whole institution approaches that shape priorities and inform change. During this period, changing models of financing universities, including increased tuition fees, student numbers, fluctuations in international recruitment and a focus on quality and equity of outcomes has provided a nuanced backdrop, combined with the significant disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and wider political and societal change. In this piece I look back at research that I undertook between 2010-13 on the different ideologies that inform student voice to understand how these have changed and adapted in today’s landscape. I argue that understanding how ideologies intertwine, and making the implicit, explicit, is important for understanding the value of student voice. By acknowledging these, I argue for future approaches that are more honest and intentional to enable transformation, in an ever more complex, challenged system.
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