Consulting Students on Classroom Practice, 'Good' Teaching and Teacher Performance - by Craig Skerritt (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Consulting Students on Classroom Practice, 'Good' Teaching, and Teacher Performance is about the consultation of students on teaching and learning matters in schools, as part of typical school life as opposed to students being consulted as part of a project that includes some kind of external support. Craig Skerritt makes not only a conceptual contribution by providing new thinking tools and a new way of understanding and articulating student voice in relation to classroom practice, and by developing and presenting a heuristic device to aid research on student voice and classroom practice, but a series of empirical contributions by reporting on interview data with a range of school-based actors to spotlight existing views, practices and issues, and to call attention to hopes, desires, and fears for the future.

The book provides a critical account of student voice in contemporary schools. Student voice is not taken at face value or accepted as being undisputedly positive, nor are schools or the people in them treated as homogenous entities devoid of context. Significantly, researcher subjectivity is central vis-à-vis the generation, examination, interpretation, and presentation of the empirical data. There is no claim to objectivity in this book and it is subjectivity that comes to the fore - through what Skerritt coins the 'I(nterest) behind this research', major emphasis is placed on his own experiences shaping his outlook. Skerritt occupies a certain vantage point and sees student voice through a particular lens, and this is reflected in the contents of this book.

Review Quotes

As a former teacher with first-hand experiences of various student voice initiatives, Skerritt offers a much-needed critical take on the practice of consulting students on their classroom experiences. Anyone interested in the potential limitations, drawbacks and affordances of student voice practices would do well to read this book and learn from Skerritt's nuanced analysis of the differences between management consultations, led by administrators, and classroom consultations, led by teachers, as they are perceived by stakeholders situated in particular school contexts.

Skerritt's book offers a fascinating and provocative analysis of the unintended consequences of a policy emphasis on consulting students in schools. It will be of interest and use for teachers, school leaders and researchers who are concerned with the potentially perverse effects of ostensibly 'emancipatory' reform strategies.

This thoughtful and engaging account asks us how we can better understand student voice in relation to classroom and management practice, offering a heuristic device that is both sensitive to context and helpful in thinking more critically about the intricacies of consultation in schools.

About the Author

Craig Skerritt is Lecturer in Education at the University of Manchester, UK.