Critiquing the use of children’s voice as a means of forging the community in a Polish democratic school

Abstract

The paper examines school meetings held in a small democratic school in Poland in order to explore how school communities are formed. Drawing on Foucault’s concept of power, the authors analyse fieldnotes and interview excerpts to reveal how voice and scripted bodily expressions accompanying verbal utterances are privileged in these school meetings to forge a community. Rather than being merely a space where students can act as empowered participants in democratic school governance, the school meetings are also argued to reduce the modalities of participation to voice and embodied forms of action and attention. Voiced participation is thereby instrumentalised to construct a democratic community with its dynamics of inclusions and exclusions. The paper concludes by pointing to reflexive engagements with utilising voice in democratic communities.