Potential of Students’ Voices to Contribute to Education for a Future World Worth Living In

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter examines the positioning and potential of students to contribute to the evolution of educational practices and arrangements that better reflect their needs and interests as they learn to be and become in a world worth living in for all. Historically, students’ voices are silenced through education with the imposition of schooling arrangements designed to meet the economic and social needs of the present. While students are often surrounded by messages that suggest their futures are in peril from environmental and social crises, their education remains confined to a focus on present imperatives. Although many educators are motivated to transform schooling, traditions and systemic objectives that hold conventional arrangements in place have proven to be difficult to disrupt. Bringing evidence from research that investigated the experiences of students who had disengaged from mainstream schooling in Melbourne, Australia, this chapter highlights possibilities for students to be seen as highly informed experts in their own education. I argue that along with enhancing student voice, a more explicit focus on a ‘capacity to aspire’ as a future-focused capability can counter limiting discourses that prevail and support students to shape a future world worth living in for all.