Description
School is the place where adolescent students spend most of their time. However, interest in schooling decreases the longer students are in school. Listening to children and adolescents is an opportunity to develop teaching and school activities. In this study, the focus is on school development based on adolescents' own initiatives and topics they find significant. This was accomplished with the help of the Change Laboratory (CL) intervention method. The CL is a method for participatory analysis and design based on cultural-historical activity theory and the theory of expansive learning. A group of 8th-grade adolescent students voluntarily constructed and implemented 11 projects they found significant for their own lives and futures. The two CL interventions were carried out during the school years 2020-21 and 2021-22 in two comprehensive schools in Finland. CL meetings were held during school hours. We examine how the CL processes, and its outcomes were experienced and reflected on by the adolescents, school staff, and external experts. The data consists of recordings of CL meetings, final interviews, and public closing events. The data is analyzed by a thematic analysis method. Participants in this study brought up several important themes that could be linked to teaching and learning and used for school development. The results of this study indicate that we should pay more attention to actual practitioners in school: to students themselves and listen to their voices.| Period | 20 Aug 2023 |
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| Held at | JURE - The network for the Junior Researchers of EARLI |
| Degree of Recognition | International |
Country of activity
- Greece
Nature of activity
- Scientific