Integration Technology Across the Curriculum

carey.peter@cathednet.wa.edu.au

The Nature of Student Participation

What is the nature of the participation problem? According to Holdsworth (1995) the word 'participation' has been used in various ways in education. For example:

it has meant 'being there' as in participation (or retention) rates; it can mean 'taking part' (as in doing activities over which students may have no say); it can mean 'having a say' (students' speaking out about issues). All these might be important, but we mean much more than these definitions when we talk of 'student participation'. We mean: an active sharing by students in decisions about and implementation of education policies and practices and of the key issues that determine the nature of the world in which they live. This implies that participation must value the contribution that students make, meet genuine needs (that is, be about real things), have an impact or consequence that extends beyond the participants (that is, outside the classroom), be challenging to participants, and provide the opportunity for planning, acting and reflecting (Holdsworth 1995 : 1).

Furthermore, Holdsworth (op. cit.) states that student participation involves activities that are valuable and make sense in three ways. First, students are working on issues that make sense to them, and they are valued. Secondly, the community values the issues that students are working on because of their contribution to the community, and thirdly, student participation meets the required curriculum aims and objectives that schools are meant to achieved.

The Justification of Student Participation

On what grounds is greater student participation to be justified? What might it mean to widen participation of students in schools? The literature suggests a number of reasons for supporting increased student participation. These tend to cluster around four statements. The reasons can be characterised as running from purely instrumental reasonings to those more broadly philosophically based- from those concerned with better achieving the aims of education to those concerned with the nature of the aims. These are briefly stated below:

Instrumental Reasonings

Some literature suggest two instrumental reasons: better student learning and better group decisions.

Student participation is said to lead to more effective decision making and learning; better decisions are made when participants share in making those decisions; and learning is more effective when students are active participants. Student participation is seen as a teaching/learning strategy, a way of achieving educational goals.

Boomer (1978) lists the benefits to a student's educational development by shifting the level of responsibility for learning from the teacher to the student. In particular, Goodlad (1984) and Middleton et al. (1986) states that a considerable minority of students in schools have negative attitude towards school, and student participation is an important factor in increasing student commitment to schooling (Holdsworth 1986, Glasser 1990).

Taylor (1987 : 5) makes the point that: 'research consistently shows that increased participation leads to high morale, commitment to the organisation and its values, improved quality of decision making, reduced absenteeism and increased productivity and learning'. Such consistency according to Taylor (op. cit.) is very rare in social research. Education research has also shown that students do best in areas they are interested in and have a say in its planning and development (Jones and Jones 1986; Gow and Balla 1988).

Various educational programs have recognised that successful achievement of their aims, particularly when these aims require change, need democratic participation of affected partners. For example, the guidelines of the Participation and Equity Program states that teachers, parents and students 'should be represented in decision making through a democratic process which ensures that changes being made in schools have the support of broadly based parent, teacher and (where these are developing) student organisations'.

Views of a Democratic Community

There seem to be two variations on the democratic community argument. The first view is around a 'passive' preparation for democracy - to know what democracy is; to know how to exercise democracy; teaching and learning about democracy and the capacity to act. Taylor (ibid : 5) states that there is a strong case for participation of students on the grounds of education in citizenship and the values of a democratic society. Educators have a role in teaching about our democratic community, being a model for and part of that community. Student participation will make these notions clear by developing in youth the capacities to participate actively within the social, political and cultural life of the community.

The second view of a democratic community is around an 'active' commitment to developing democracy . Children, especially it is argued, lack the sense of responsibility, the decision making skills and requisite knowledge to be informed participants. This argument is explicitly put forward by (Woods and Barrow 1975). According to Rousseau, participation is part of a process of political and moral education: it is an education in responsibility. A sense of responsibility and decision making skills, which Barrow would like to see inculcated in children, can be developed by them having a share in participation.

Rizvi (1989) argues that educators should especially seek to prepare students for democracy in such a way as to provide them with critical skills which enable them to identify and challenge sources of domination and oppression.

White (1983 : 18) further explains that there is a 'duty to participate' and that it is 'a matter of getting people to appreciate, through political education, that they have both moral rights and, more pertinently here, moral duties in an area where it may not have occured to them that they did, or where they are reluctant to acknowledge them'.

If students are encouraged to accept participation as a moral obligation inherent in our social relations, then it is likely that as adults they would want to participate. Participation is a moral obligation that should be seen as an educative objective.

The Value of Youth

As quoted in Holdsworth (1995): Coleman (1972) and Pearl (1978) have both developed arguments around what Pearl (op. cit. : 24) refers to as a "general theory of valuing youth". In brief summary, they argue that the role of young people has become increasing passive, divorced from action and devalued by society. This has negative consequences for young people and for society.

Schools play a central role in such approaches, and must therefore adopt different approaches that build a valued role for young people, and that develop models for community participation. The critique is neatly summed up by Coleman (1972 : 8) as:

the student role of young persons has become enlarged to the point where that role constitutes the major portion of their youth. But the student role is not a role of taking action and experiencing consequences ... It is a relatively passive role, always in preparation for action, but never acting ... the consequences of the expansion of the student role, and the action poverty it implies for the young, has been an increased restiveness among the young they are shielded from responsibility, and they become irresponsible; they are held in a dependent status, and they come to act as dependents; they are kept away from productive work, and they become unproductive.

Pearl (1978 : 24) argues: 'If youth are to be valued, they must be of the society - participants, not recipients. That is the crux of any theory of valuing youth'. This implies an ability to control their own affairs and participate in the management of their society.

Student Participatory Rights and its Emanicipatory Potential

if students are to be active learners, critically examining problems of school life, dealing seriously with ambiguity, conflict and contradication, at a minimum they require opportunities to express themselves frequently (orally and in writing) and to receive prompt, detailed feedback on their views...to engage in honest critiques of one another's ideas, they must learn within an atmosphere of co-operation and trust, not competition and individual isolation if students are to take the process of schooling seriously (as opposed to mechanisically meeting its demands), schools must minimize student alienation; for example, by offering opportunities for student choice in school work, by cultivating consensus among faculty and students on the central purposes of the school (Newmann 1985 :12).

Kraft (1967), Newmann (1985), Lingard (1994), and Starr and Moore (1994) are among several educationalists who strongly advocates the use of curriculum in engaging young people as informed, skilled and active participants in the struggles for social justice. They suggest the emancipatory potential for students will be limited, if students are not actively participating in the management, operation, and establishment of policy for their own school community. Such interaction, they explain, will bring students into direct, real and non-artifical encounters with their social environment and hence allow students to question the human values and the psychological processes of human interaction which relate to social justice issues (Kraft 1967).

Author: Dr Peter Carey careyp@netspace.net.au

Connect

Connect is a bi-monthly magazine supporting active student participation - in governance and curriculum areas - in primary and secondary schools throughout Australia.

Connect has been produced since late 1979; over 160 back issues of Connect are in print and available for purchase.

http://www.geocities.com/rogermhold/Connect/

Youth Affairs

http://www.yacvic.org.au

The National Conference on Student Services (NCSS)

http://www.ncssleadership.com/

Thirty-three curriculum approaches: enhancing effective student participation

http://www.civicsandcitizenship.edu.au/cce/default.asp?id=9345

Student Participation in Action

http://library.thinkquest.org/C001515/teachers/connect.shtml

Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies

http://www.acys.info/resources/topics/participation

Learning Choices

http://www.dsf.org.au/learningchoices/resources.php

Useful Web Sites for SRC Co-ordinators

PASTA Newsletters

http://www.ptc.nsw.edu.au/pasta/newsletter.html

Changing the Nature of Education: Using Information Systems that Integrate Computers and Communication tools. What does this mean for Student Participation and Student Learning?

http://www.ceo.wa.edu.au/home/carey.peter/change1.html

The Canadian Association of Student Activity Advisors (CASAA)

http://www.casaa-resources.net/

Student Leadership, Student Representative Councils and Participation

http://www.schools.nsw.edu.au/studentsupport/src/index.php

Professional Association of Student Representative Council Teacher Advisors (PASTA)

http://www.hsc.csu.edu.au/pta/pasta/

The Student Leadership Development Program

http://www.siue.edu/KIMMEL/SLDP/

International Education and Resource Network (I*EARN)

http://www.iearn.org.au/

Connecticut Non Profit Information Network