Is Student Union a tokenism of student participation in school governance?

Abstract

This article is a report on part of a larger research on student participation in school governance in the Hong Kong context. It addresses the question ‘Is the Student Union a tokenism of student participation in school governance in the context of Hong Kong?’. The research adopts a mixed methodology comprising both quantitative and qualitative methods. For the quantitative study, 3209 valid student questionnaires from 51 secondary schools of different backgrounds were collected. For the qualitative study, four schools of different levels of student participation were involved in in-depth case studies. Semi-structured interviews and field observations with teachers and students were conducted to collect qualitative data. The study revealed that from the questionnaire, the ‘one student, one vote’ policy was an apparently fair, transparent and democratic procedure for Student Union elections, and gave the Student Union a positive image in relation to student participation. However, the in-depth case studies revealed that these were superficial perceptions. Instead, it was found that schools shared very limited powers with their Student Unions, where the Student Union would have power only in trivial school operational matters. The ultimate, real power was in the hands of school authorities, seriously limiting the influence of student participation. Our studies further revealed that whether students were satisfied with this disempowering situation or not, most of them had become ‘positive and passive’. This was because they had been socialized to accept the status quo, without expressing dissident voices, as they did not want to oppose the caring school ethos that they valued. In summary, Student Unions in Hong Kong are, in general, close to tokenism, a representative mechanism that cannot take meaningful action to bring forth genuine changes in important school matters. This may have negative impacts on students’ citizenship development, and ends up with cultivating students to be non-questioning, non-participatory, cynical, passive and docile citizens.

Students’ Perceptions of Their Rights in School: A Systematic Review of the International Literature

“…The most prominent factors lay in the school's context. Aside from a single study (Burger, 2019), all the studies that explored how students' rights consciousness differs across schools indicated that the school context matters, particularly its rights-based practices (e.g., Banerjee et al, 2018;Birnhack & Perry-Hazan, 2020;Hart et al, 2001;Kaba, 2000;Khoury-Kassabri & Ben-Arieh, 2009;Leung et al, 2016;Preiss et al, 2016) and the diversity of the student body and school staff (Assari, 2018;Benner & Graham, 2011;Brown & Chu, 2012;Closson et al, 2014;Leath et al, 2019).…”

“…Other than a single qualitative study of young students in Sweden (Quennerstedt, 2016), the literature consistently shows that students tend to criticize the limited scope of participation rights in school (Allan & Ianson, 2004;Geldenhuys & Doubell, 2011;McCluskey et al, 2013;Osler, 2000). However, studies of student council participants indicated that despite the trivial nature of the matters they decided, these students were generally positive about their experience (Kaba, 2000;Leung et al, 2016). One of these studies explored the perceptions of students who participated in Chicago school councils, which included student representatives under the Chicago School Reform Act (Kaba, 2000).…”

“…The habitus provides "conditioned and conditional freedom" (p. 55) and shapes "aspirations according to concrete indices of the accessible and the inaccessible, of what is and is not 'for us '" (p. 64). In view of these contentions, students who were socialized into the existing framework of school governance may have learned to accept its shortcomings (see Leung et al, 2016). Such students might have been motivated by extrinsic factors, such as wanting to gain an advantage in college admissions.…”

A model for promoting student participation in school governance

“…In order to achieve this, students are expected to be rule abiding and not to challenge authority. In other words, from an early stage of studying students are taught to be personally responsible citizens with the emphasis on being obedient and law abiding (Leung et al, 2016). They are not granted much freedom to participate in school affairs lest they abuse that freedom, which it is feared will result in a loss of control, as stated before.…”

“…In addition, due to the overprotective nature of some teachers, they do not empower students to participate in school governance. Some research shows that there are teachers who interpret children's immaturity as an inability to be rational and that they need protecting by adults (Leung et al, 2016), which extends to making decisions for them whether that be trivial matters or school managerial domains. They are concerned that children would not be able to accept the consequences of making wrong decisions.…”