How students' voice can be heard in the Finnish context : the case of primary, lower secondary and upper secondary schools in Jyväskylä

2014

This qualitative multiple case study research investigated how the Finnish school system practices student leadership as a significant dimension of democracy on three school levels: primary, lower secondary and upper secondary. The study defines student leadership through the democracy issue, leadership decision making and leadership theories. Semi-structured interviews were applied to collect the data from three school principals, eight teacher supervisors and three groups of student leaders, altogether 33 participants. The thematic network analysis, deductive and inductive thematic analysis were used to answer the three research questions. The results of the theoretical (deductive) themat…