Student participation: auspices and contradictions in an educational innovation context

Understanding children and youngsters’ participation as a key dimension in educational innovation processes assumes the evolution from a conceptualisation of learners as beneficiaries to another which sees them as partners within that innovation and active individuals, agents of the teaching-learning-evaluation process. The research was centred on this topic, focusing on secondary education, within the scope of an ongoing innovation process in a school located in Porto. We sought to understand how the co-constructed social change is being experienced and perceived by the protagonists and which factors may enable or hinder it. The research was based on qualitative information, assuming it was an exploratory, descriptive, interpretative study. Data was collected through three focus groups – one with teachers and two with students (one with 5th and 9th graders and another with 11th graders) –, as well as an individual interview with the headmaster. The data analysis showed that the transition from conditional or advisory forms of participation to collaborative or co-decision-making ones is neither simple nor immediate. In identifying the barriers to their participation or the factors which can promote it, students have shown to be able to go deeper into the issues at stake and to clearly understand the need to walk a path towards the shared assumption of a participation perspective based on continuous and committed dialogue. As well as allowing an understanding of the innovation process being analysed, this study can also shed light on other research or practical experiences that link student participation and innovation in school education.