ABSTRACT
Nowhere have rights to have a say in one’s own affairs been won without serious struggle.
(Qvortrup, 1997: 85)
Young people want to have a voice – there is clear evidence of this in our work and in the work of others – but lacking confidence in their power to influence practices in school, it was not pupils but others who struggled for them to win the right to have a say. Support has come from many groups – including researchers who have, for many years, demonstrated in their data that young people have a capacity for insightful analysis and have things to say that are worth hearing.
