‘Carving a new order of experience’with young people in physical education: Participatory Action Research as a pedagogy of possibility

Student voice ‘describes the many ways in which youth actively participate in the school decisions that shape their lives and the lives of their peers’ (Mitra, 2007, p. 727). The student voice movement supports a shift in the status of students in school from passive objects to active participants (Hodgkin, 1998). Daniella, Levi and Zara, the students introduced in the narrative above, embody this shift. They have become advocates for a student voice initiative, which engaged them as designers and evaluators of their physical education curriculum and an after-school physical activity club in their community (Enright and O’Sullivan, 2007; The Pres Girls, Enright and O’Sullivan, 2008).