Immigrated students’ voices at school environment: an analysis of policy documents through school websites

Abstract

Abstract Background The development of immigrant friendly schools is an important target across educational settings. However, relatively few studies have specifically examined mechanism how student voices are heard in European school context. This study examined the extent to which student voices have been addressed in European schools as evidenced from websites of schools located in high migrant areas in six European countries: Austria, England, Finland, Germany, Romania, and Switzerland. Methods Between 2 March and 8 April 2021, we reviewed the publicly available policy documents on school websites to ascertain how student voice practices are carried out in schools as described in the documents. The selected schools were in areas of high immigration. Pre-designed categories were applied to the documents extracted from the websites using a four-step analytic approach (finding, selecting, appraising, and synthesizing the data). A combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches with descriptive statistics (n, %, Mean, SD, range) was used for the data analysis. Results A total of 412 documents from 305 schools were extracted (49–110 documents per country). The most common documents were anti-bullying or violence prevention strategies (75/412) and mission statements (72/412). There were disparities between countries and schools about how hearing students’ voices and including students in decision-making in schools were described in the documents. Limited evidence was apparent as to how students are listened to in their schools based on policy documents. Conclusions Our document analysis based on publicly accessible school websites suggest that student voices are less frequently described in school written policy documents in our sample of European schools. Our findings provide a baseline to further monitor activities, not only at school level but also to any governmental and local authorities whose intention is to serve the public and openly share their values and practices with community members.