Thesis advisor: Irwin Blumer / The focus of this dissertation is the student voice in College Bound (CB), a pre-college preparation program at Boston College. College Bound has existed on the Boston College campus for more than twenty years as an academic enrichment and supportive program that benefits urban students from two Boston Public high schools. The two essential questions of the research are "What do students say they learn at CB?" and "What suggestions do students have to improve the CB Program?" Literature about the importance of the student voice in the educational enterprise is reviewed as a means of giving context to the study. Primary data included student surveys (n=29), interviews (n=12), and focus groups (n=3). Other sources utilized included field notes and observations of the researcher as participant-observer, in addition to official College Bound documents. The constant comparative method was used to analyze data from the primary data sources. Data was also analyzed by data type and findings were presented thematically. Major findings included: CB students know a lot of what is going on and do not attend CB as empty vessels, but bring their own knowledge and experience to the CB Program. Students say they learn academic self-discipline, a more focused search for potential colleges to attend, and value their experience attending the CB program on the Boston College campus. Suggestions for improving the CB Program include: creating a regular schedule, re-establishing a community meeting experience, ensuring a consistent connection with their Boston College mentors, and providing more field trips to other colleges and museums. Participating student voices should be encouraged and respected as an important source of information in educational programs that exist to benefit those very students. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2011. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership.

This application is for the U.S. Department of Education’s Education Innovation and Research Program to secure funding for the development of an application for touchscreen devices that allows students to record real time instructional feedback to their instructors that is collected during, rather than at the conclusion of, a lesson. Student feedback to teachers can be a valuable tool to help improve instruction. This feedback, shared with teachers, would help identify areas for instructional shifts to better meet the needs of students. Embedded in this proposal are the following research questions: What sort of feedback options (format, timing, quantity) do high school students and teachers find most useful in a touch-screen app? To what degree can a touchscreen app provide technically adequate measures of instruction? What are teachers’ perceptions of this feedback?

Keywords: education policy, racial equity, youth, student voice, power relations The confluence of racial equity work – where district policy, students, staff, and administrators converge – creates significant tensions when enacting an educational racial equity policy that is intended to produce meaningful and transformative racial equity for all students. It is not only critical to analyze how educational policies conceptualize race and equity in relation to students’ experiences in schools, but also how students are positioned as recipients, stakeholders, and/or partners within such policies. This study examines the effects of power “at its extremities” when policy, race, and equity are localized in relation to beliefs, actions, and behaviors between students and adults enacting racial equity work. Using student focus groups with students of color and white students, participant observations from positions as a teacher/researcher, the research considers Foucault’s (1980; 1994) work on power to examine how students identify, engage, and address racial equity issues in their school. Educational equity policies discursively constitute racial inequities by defining “racial equity” from positions outside of schools, away from the very places where policies are enacted. The study explores how students of color and white students navigate tensions between themselves, administrators, and staff members as they organized a student-led racial equity club then leadership class to address racial inequities in a predominantly white high school. Despite the implementation of a six-year District racial equity policy, students’ “lived experiences” questioned enactments of the policy by administrators and staff members (see Dumas, 2014). The study argues meanings about race and equity are caught within “divergent discourses” (see Ball, 2013); that is, who is allowed to participate in conversations about race and equity, and who decides what racial equity issues take precedence in a predominantly white high school. Students are positioned in schools in unstable and contested ways to administrators and staff members, even if invited to participate in racial equity work as “student voice.” The concept of “student voice” in school-based decisions or policy work has inherent tensions between adults and students, however this should not dissuade policy processes that include students. Student involvement is strongly, but cautiously encouraged.

The research in this thesis explores how and why student leadership of learning with ICT can impact the knowledge, practice and environment in one high school. Interest in student participation and student voice increased with the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child over a decade ago by countries including the UK, USA and Australia, but questions remain as to whether or not this has resulted in schools becoming more democratic. Although much valuable research has been done relying on the views of students themselves, few studies actually examine student participation in school leadership. This research therefore seeks to further understanding in this area by exploring student participation in school ICT policymaking, and the consequences of this involvement.I set up a student-led project at an independent private secondary school in the south-east of England. This project, which lasted 8 months, became a lens through which I examine student leadership of ICT for learning. Twenty-five students aged 14–19 led staff at the school in developing research-based ICT policy statements for recommendation to the school’s senior management team. They formed a consortium in which the 13 staff members served as their ‘critical friends’, and worked with them in devising the policy recommendations. I studied this project over 33 months using case study methodology. Data generated through observations, participant interviews and document analysis, along with literatures in related fields of educational technology, educational leadership and student participation are used to address how and why student leadership of ICT for learning can contribute to changes in knowledge, practice and the school environment. Distinctly, the specific Doctoral research investigates the role of these students in leading learning with ICT from the perspective of a researching practitioner: not just what role they can and do play but also what are the consequences of their involvement in school policymaking. The findings show that (1) ICT leadership at the school is problematic, and students hitherto played no part in decision-making about school and classroom ICTs; (2) the student-led project highlighted the fact that students can provide knowledge and understanding about digital technologies, and that there is need for students and staff to develop a shared ethos about ICT for learning at the school; (3) students are quite capable of leading ICT changes in the knowledge, practice and environment at the school. The thesis goes further to use Bourdieu’s thinking tools—field, habitus, capital and strategy—to conceptualise student leadership in practice.

Thesis advisor: Lauri Johnson / Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth are a marginalized student population in school settings. The purpose of this qualitative case study was to examine whether and how district and school leaders’ knowledge, attitudes/beliefs, and practices regarding LGBTQ students affected school policies for advocacy, anti-discrimination, and proactive care for this marginalized population. It was part of a larger group case study of how leaders support marginalized students in a Massachusetts urban school district. Data was gathered and analyzed from eight semi-structured interviews, document reviews, and observation of a student organization meeting. Results showed that leaders created and sustained safe environments in schools for LGBTQ youth, made efforts to urge the normalization of LGBTQ advocacy and discourse, and afforded opportunities for LGBTQ student-led activism. The study also found that district and school leaders need to further their systemic efforts toward establishing and implementing inclusive LGBTQ curriculum and instruction. Implications of this study reveal that district and school leadership practices must be explicitly designed, implemented, and sustained in order to effectively support LGBTQ youth. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2020. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Including all students through the educative processes is instrumental to their success. Each student's journey through education is therefore impacted by the ways they are included in the classroom. As such, social inclusion, and academic inclusion underpinned by a general sense of belonging are key elements impacting students' successes in schooling. Both globally and nationally school systems face challenges in enacting policies, pedagogies, and practices to meet the needs of increasingly diverse student populations. Student voice which has historically been absent from the literature can be a valuable tool in accounting for the lived experiences of diverse students with or without a formal label of dis/ability. Student voice can (re)present a revelatory tool that can be acted upon in responding to these diverse needs. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore how secondary students in Grenada with or without a label of learning dis/ability but who are considered as part of responsive inclusive education, experience a sense of belonging through academic and social inclusion. This qualitative study using critical narrative inquiry pursued through semi-structured interviews with students, their teachers and parents revealed resonant threads of strained responsive education, childism and coloniality, the pedagogy of nice and an elusive inclusive education. Recommendations are therefore made to center student voice and choice, further the decolonization of schooling, create improved systems of evaluation and diagnosis of specific learning challenges, and to provide extensive teacher training so that the needs of diverse learners can be met. The findings have the potential to encourage and introduce collaborative educational practices amongst teacher-practitioners, students, and Grenada's Ministry of Education and thereby improve responsive models for secondary learners of diverse abilities.

abstract: In this study, the current literature regarding student engagement and student voice were reviewed to explore the connection between these two classroom elements. Currently, frequently incorporating student voice in order to increase student engagement most commonly takes place at the high school and university levels. Thus, utilizing Finn’s (1989) participation-identification theory, this study set out to implement a practical design intervention in an elementary classroom to increase student engagement through the incorporation of student voice. Using Design-Based Research, I implemented a collaborative reflection process which allowed students, teacher/researcher, and co-educators to provide feedback on classroom task and participant structures. The feedback was then considered for further iterations of the task and participant structures. This was a pilot study of the collaborative reflection process and was implemented in a fourth-grade math classroom with 26 participants. Along with participating in the collaborative reflection process, the student participants also took a 26 question Learner Empowerment Measure to survey their feelings of identity with the classroom before and after the design intervention. After analyzing audio data gathered during the classroom tasks, as well as student feedback, it was found that student participation did increase due to the design intervention. However, there was no measurable difference in students’ feelings of identity with the classroom due to the collaborative reflection process. Future studies should consider implementing the collaborative reflection process in multiple classrooms across diverse activities during the school year. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Learning, Literacies and Technologies 2019

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