Promoting the participation of student in school. Analysis of international materials and guidelines for teachers who develop student voice experiences

Due to a growing interest in increasing the participation and voice of students, more and more materials of diverse nature are being designed, oriented to teachers who want to amplify the spaces for dialogue and shared decision-making in the school. In order to understand how they promote listening processes, we present a theoretically oriented study of twelve international materials, under the principles of qualitative research of document analysis, making use of the methodology of content analysis. We emphasize the presence of diverse views on the student participation taking into account the areas of dialogue and the level of involvement of them; the recognition of the consultation process as a space for dialogue and collective decision-making; the need to materialize the proposals, the presence of a restricted concept of participation and excessive teacher intervention as main barriers; and the need to collect in the documentation of these experiences the heterogeneity of existing views.