Fitting the outreach in: school strategies for integrating student-led, community-based projects

This study explores the way in which secondary schools can accommodate student-led, community-based pedagogies within the formal education system. The study identifies benefits and drawbacks associated with different strategies. Through such projects, students can develop their agentic power, that is, an ability to bring about change which is seen as distinct from the power of agency, which implies having the freedom to act. Through semi-structured interviews with teachers and leaders from five schools in different European countries, the study shows how various approaches have knock-on effects related to timetabling, staffing and assessment. This 'fitting in' of projects is often achieved in ways that meet the approval of critical communities, such as parents and local authorities that may have an impact on the school. In doing so, these school help to create supportive conditions for the further development of community-based projects. In this way, such schools are modelling their own agentic power to their students, thus creating a virtuous cycle of experiential learning.