ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the constellation of ideas that have emerged under an overarching notion of ‘voice’ in education and introduce some of the possibilities and dilemmas encountered when these ideas are embraced in practice. It explains how children’s voices and agency are leashed to the wider system, in which primacy is often given to the system. The chapter returns to Qvortrup’s view that children need to be able to speak their realities with their own words (and be listened to) as well as have their voices reported by those who work with them. The development of healthier democratic engagement and global compassionate citizenship in schools, if that is indeed one of the goals of a democratic education, goes further than seeking ‘pupil voice’ and must surely give space for freedom, voicing, agency, action, equalities and attention to the diverse diversities that coexist within the education systems we have constructed.
