ABSTRACT

In many countries across the globe, and on the African continent in particular, young people do not have a voice in matters concerning their schooling. By virtue of their minor status, opportunities for participatory decision-making and leadership in schools are restricted, despite national policies to the contrary. This is all-too-often because leadership is (mis)understood as an adult phenomenon. In this article, we present a formative intervention, ‘Learners Lead’, which aimed at developing learner voice and leadership in learners through collective involvement in school change projects. Formulated as a documentary case study, data were generated from 95 research reports, the written assessments of the students registered for the Educational Leadership and Management elective within a postgraduate qualification in a South African university. Analysis drew on the pyramid of learner voice and the theory of expansive learning to examine if, and how, leadership development in learners occurred. The study found that expansive learning’s seven learning actions provided the necessary additional theoretical tools for understanding and unpacking the stages of leadership development as the school change projects unfolded. Implications for practice and research are discussed.

摘要

在全球许多国家，特别是在非洲大陆，年轻人在学校教育问题上没有发言权。由于他们的未成年身份，他们在学校参与决策和领导的机会受到限制，尽管国家政策与此相反。这常常是因为领导力被（错误）理解为一种成人现象。在本文中，我们提出了一种形成性干预措施“学习者领导力”，旨在通过集体参与学校变革项目来培养学习者的声音和领导力。作为文献案例研究，数据来自 95 份研究报告，以及南非大学研究生资格中教育领导力和管理选修课注册学生的书面评估。分析利用学习者声音金字塔和扩展学习理论来检验学习者的领导力发展是否以及如何发生。研究发现，随着学校变革项目的展开，扩展学习的七项学习行动为理解和解析领导力发展的各个阶段提供了必要的额外理论工具。讨论了对实践和研究的影响。