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This review presents a reasoned synthesis of whole-school interventions seeking to improve the overall school environment by fostering active student participation (ASP) in school activities and decision-making processes. The aims are to describe the selected programs, assess their methodological quality, and analyze the activities soliciting ASP. Among the 205 publications initially provided by the literature search in the academic databases PsycINFO and Education Research Complete, 22 reports met the inclusion criteria of presenting whole-school interventions that solicit ASP in secondary schools, and were thus included in the review. Such publications referred to 13 different whole-school programs, whose implemented activities were distinguished on a 5-point scale of ASP levels, ranging from Very high ASP, when students were involved in a decision-making role, to Very low ASP, when students were the passive recipients of content provided by adults. This review contributes to the literature by proposing an organizing structure based on different levels of ASP, which provides clarity and a common ground for future studies on student participation. Overall, the in-depth description of activities offers a framework to researchers and practitioners for planning interventions aimed at improving the learning environment and contributing meaningfully to the far-reaching goal of encouraging student participation in school life.

The use of drawing as a research tool has often been the subject of debate in the field of developmental psychology, especially for the exploration of children’s meanings on a specific topic. Methodological limitations do emerge when using drawing in research, especially in preschool age. One of the main critical aspects concerns the lack of systematic and standardized coding methods that include clear and operationalizable categories to analyze the content of the drawings, and that associate a brief interview with the children aimed at avoiding misinterpretations. To bridge this gap, the present contribution introduces a new methodological tool named DRAW.IN.G. (DRAWing and Interview Grid), consisting of a specific procedure and a coding system that allow for a systematic investigation of implicit and explicit levels of children’s representation emerging via drawings and interviews. The specific topic investigated by DRAW.IN.G. is children’s representation of the preschool environment; the scarcity of studies on this issue, despite the importance of including children’s point of view in the design processes of educational spaces makes the tool particularly current and relevant to fill some gaps in research in the educational field. The DRAW.IN.G. coding system, developed on the basis of existing literature on the analysis of drawings, includes five main dimensions of children’s representation of the educational environment: physical, behavioral, relational, emotional and motivational dimensions, articulated in 18 macro-categories and 90 categories that make up the scoring grid. To assess the validity of the method, a first application was conducted with a sample of 262 children (141 males, 121 females; mean age = 55.78 months; SD = 11.10; range 37–77 months) from five Italian preschools. Categorical inter-rater reliability of two independent raters showed good to excellent agreement for the categories of the grid, indicating their appropriateness and clarity. The validation study indicated the potential of the method, also revealing some critical aspects to be considered. Both methodological and practical implications are discussed.