Transformative Student Voice: Partnering with Young People for Equitable School Improvement

A testament to the power of centering youth voices in planning and implementing school reform

In Transformative Student Voice, Shelley Zion, Ben Kirshner, and Carlos P. Hipolito-Delgado introduce readers to Transformative Student Voice (TSV), a framework that promotes student agency and activism through youth-adult partnerships, with tangible outcomes for school improvement.
 
Grounded in fifteen years' research on youth voice in school reform in urban, suburban, and rural schools and districts, this revelatory work illustrates the benefits of the TSV framework as a strategy for both student development and systems change. Zion, Kirshner, and Hipolito-Delgado advocate this student-led, bottom-up approach as a means of raising critical consciousness, encouraging civic inquiry, and promoting engagement in school and community reform efforts. Each chapter showcases a specific, real-world application of TSV, identifies possible tensions, and provides evidence of the framework’s effectiveness. Together, they explore how TSV can be implemented at the district level as well as in classrooms and curricula and in extracurricular settings such as afterschool clubs and summer programming in a way that prepares students to claim their power by identifying problems, proposing solutions, and driving change.  

This book gives school leaders, administrators, and other stakeholders a host of conceptual and practical tools for making student voice a core feature of decision-making and equity-focused transformation.

Shelley Zion is professor of urban education in the Department of Educational Leadership, Administration, and Research at Rowan University, where she directs three research labs. She leads training, research, and community partnerships focused on issues of access, success, and equity. Ben Kirshner is a professor of education at the University of Colorado Boulder. He works collaboratively with educators, community organizers, and students to design and study learning environments that support youth development, activism, and transformative student voice. Carlos P. Hipolito-Delgado is a professor in counseling at the University of Colorado Denver. His research examines the sociopolitical development of marginalized youth and training to improve the cultural competence of counselors.