Student Voice and Leadership Skills for Leaders of the Future

by Jessie Tobin

You may have noticed a surge in interest in the term ‘Student Voice’ during the last few decades. While cultivating student voice in schools and the classrooms looks different across contexts, the practice of engaging students as active participants (in partnership with teachers) in leading new initiatives is being implemented by many educators around the globe.

As we move further into 2025 characterized by a polarized political landscape, ongoing and deepening social and cultural divides, and rapidly advancing technological innovations, developing youth agency and empowering young people to become proactive members of their communities may be more important than ever before.

Student voice: What is it and why is it important?

There are several different ways student voice can be understood and amplified in schools. Scholars have focused attention on the importance of empowering young people to make key decisions in their own learning as well as for their peers. Promoting student voice in the classroom can come in the form of asking for and applying student feedback, having intentional conversations to learn about students’ lives and interests, or starting each class with an engaging activity that invites student perspective or experience-sharing such as a welcoming ritual.

Over the years researchers have pointed to the benefits of encouraging student voice such as:

• developing young people’s social and emotional competencies — most notably – their decision-making skills,
• addressing educational injustices and giving students a key active role in the process,
• bringing critical firsthand perspectives from students into the continuous improvement process.

Leadership skills in the school and classroom

Along with encouraging student voice, teaching young people leadership skills is becoming increasingly important. Promoting leadership skills is considered effective when part of a holistic approach.

In a recent Edutopia article, author Mike Chapman described teaching leadership skills to students in three levels:

1. Leadership education (foundational principles and theories built into classroom instruction),
2. Leadership training (applying concepts to real world situations in structured and unstructured instances), and
3. Leadership development (both learning in school and application through extracurriculars and student government opportunities).

Student Voice and Leadership in Positive Outlier Schools

NYKids recently celebrated the release of our 20^th anniversary cross-case report exploring the practices in emergent and persistent positive outlier schools. Our team sought to uncover what sustains schools’ significantly better student outcomes for culturally, linguistically, and socio-economically diverse youth over time. We conducted our study with the understanding that schools have undergone many challenges such as the COVID-19 pandemic as well as shifts in technology and policy which influence school practices.

We noticed important themes reflecting student voice and leadership skill development in the schools that have maintained relatively better outcomes over the last two decades. Some of our findings include:

1. Prioritizing positive relationships among students, staff, and community members builds capacity for having tough conversations and encouraging civil discourse. Read more about how educators in one positive outlier school foster respectful discussions and empower students to share their feelings on challenging topics in a recent NYKids blog.
2. Implementing responsive and relevant education – educators in positive outlier schools make a point to inquire into students’ interests and ask them what they want to learn, then actively incorporate student feedback into the classroom. In Brookfield and Fillmore, students learn about the agricultural history of their communities and have opportunities to participate in hands-on Agricultural programs.
3. Giving students a range of elective and extracurricular choices and inviting students to be decision-makers in the creation of new programs. Educators in our study emphasized the need to build capable and good citizens after graduating and utilized school and community-wide activities to promote active involvement and foster these skills.

4. Encouraging class projects that give students opportunities to have voice in their own communities. In one positive outlier school, Malverne Senior High School, educators supported student-led efforts to make change in their community – students led efforts to change their elementary school’s street name, which was formerly named after a Ku Klux Klan leader.
5. Moving beyond test scores as a measure of success. Positive outlier teachers discussed the growing need to provide more hands-on and collaborative learning experiences. Building prosocial skills by giving young people opportunities to work with one another was one notable practice at Alfred-Almond.

If you are interested in reading more on these and other timely topics and research-based strategies in positive outlier schools, check out NYKids website and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. As always, feel free to reach out with comments or questions at nykids@albany.edu.