Is Student Union a Tokenism of Students Participation in School Governance?

1. Is Student Union a Tokenism of Students Participation in School Governance? Authors: Yan Wing LEUNG, Wai Wa YUEN, Chi Keung CHENG and Chunlan GUO Hong Kong Institute of Education

2. Outline • Research background • Literature study • Methodology • Findings • Conclusion and Challenges Ahead

3. Research background: The General Research Fund Project (Project Code: 1-6-E031-31-R1065) • This paper reports part of the findings of a larger research project entitled “The Civic Mission of Schools: Citizenship Education, Democratic School Governance and Students’ Participation” • Project period: July 2012 to June 2015 • Two areas of substantive concern: civic education and school governance • Two overarching research questions: (1) How is the school civic mission implemented through their participation in school governance? (2) Is Student Union a Tokenism of Students Participation in School Governance in the context of Hong Kong?

4. Research questions in this paper • RQ1. How is the school civic mission implemented through their participation in school governance? • RQ2. Is Student Union a Tokenism of Students Participation in School Governance in the context of Hong Kong?

5. Literature study: Student Participation in School Governance School governance is all aspects of the way a school is led, managed and run (including school rules, procedures, decision-making structures), the behaviour of its personnel and how they relate to each other” (Huddleston, 2007, p. 5)

6. Literature study: the rationales for student participation • The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) (especially Articles 12 and 15):a child has right to express his or her views freely and to be heard on all matters that affect him or her, and the rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly. • It calls for treating students as ‘here and now citizens’ in the school communities, and endorsing their rights and responsibilities in influencing the matters that affect them (Leung & Yuen, 2009; Roche, 1999).

7. Literature study: four elements of students voice suggested by Lundy (2006) • Space: the idea that children must be given the opportunity to express their views • Voice: the children must be facilitated to express their views • Audience: the children’s voice must be listened to • Influence: the idea that the views must be acted upon, as appropriate.

8. Literature study: school governance in the Hong Kong context • In Hong Kong, schools in general tend to be conservative, authoritarian, paternalistic and not encouraging student participation in school governance (Tse, 2000b). In order to enhance the decentralization of administrative power to schools, the Government introduced the School Management Initiative (SMI) in 1991, which was premised on a school-based management model, by giving schools greater control over their finance and administration, making them more accountable to the public (EMB & ED, 1991). Later, the SMI was modified and became a non-mandatory School Based Management (SBM) with more flexibility.

9. The school management boards and principals can make a difference through their values, beliefs, and vision, to meet the needs of their students. Thus with the launch of SBM, school governance can in principle be more flexible, and introducing the participatory element into school governance has become possible. However, though the possibility of students’ participation has been opened, Leung et. al (2015, in press) found that the official policy and curriculum documents on civic education rarely mentioned student participation and citizenship. Without policy support, the advocacy of student participation in school governance is nearly a “mission impossible”.

10. Methodology • This paper reports part of the findings of a larger research project entitled “The Civic Mission of Schools: Citizenship Education, Democratic School Governance and Students’ Participation”, from July 2012 to June 2015 • A mixed methodology comprising both quantitative and qualitative methods was adopted. • The quantitative method contributes to describe a general picture of students’ participation in school governance in Hong Kong, especially involving Student Union (SU). • Qualitative method assists to enrich our understanding of SU in school governance through a more complex and nuanced analysis of the four case study schools

11. Methodology 3209 students and 495 teachers from 51 secondary schools responded to the questionnaire. 4 case schools engaged in interviews, observations and policy document analysis Table 1: Mixed data sources in the research about the function of Student Union in school governance

12. Findings

13. Table 2: Students’ perception on “participation of Student Unions in school governance”

14. Table 3: Students’ perception on “the forms for students’ participation in school governance”

15. Table 4: Students’ perception on “the scope for students’ participation in school governance”

16. Table 5: A brief comparison of the 4 cases study school by adopting Lundy’s model

17. Discussion In addressing the research question “Is Student Union a Tokenism of Students Participation in School Governance in the context of Hong Kong?”, a mean score of 2.4 (passing mark = 2.5) was given to item k, Table 2, indicating that the students tend to disagree that “Student Council is just a tokenism, without any real functions”. The following will discuss the related issues in detail below under the headings. • The formation of Student Unions • The functions of the Student Union • The reasons influencing low students’ participation in school managerial matters

18. The formation of Student Unions • It was found from the survey questionnaire (item 7), “Does your school have Student Council?”, that nearly all the schools of the respondents (95%) have established students unions and the majority of them agreed that “students organized cabinets by themselves, followed by election by students in the whole school according to the “one student, one vote” principle (item 8, 91.3%). • The open election of SU office bearers offer students a channel to learn election and democracy, contributing positively to students’ citizenship development. The formation of Student Union, in the mainstream, is fair, transparent and participatory. This might have a positive effect on the reduction of the impression of tokenism of the Student Union.

19. The functions of the Student Union Lundy’s work on Students Voice: Space, Voice, Audience and Influence • Space, Voice Students Union was the most popular, formal mechanism, functioning as a bridge of communication between schools and students satisfactory. • Audience Responsible teachers were willing to listen to the students’ voice while some influential teachers, particularly those who were responsible for discipline tended to be conservative and had great reservation on students participation, especially on issues related to rule and order, school uniforms etc,.

20. Influence Students were allowed to have more influence in school “operational matter” (student control), for example, “design of notice board (3.34, item b, Table 4)”, “class activities (3.08, item e, Table 4)”, “extracurricular activities (2.97, item f. Table 4)” but limited participation in “managerial school matters”.

21. The functions of the Student Union Lundy’s work on Students Voice: Space, Voice, Audience and Influence • The influence was controlled ultimately in the hand of teachers When being asked whether “when Students Unions make decisions, teachers have the final say” (all responding schools, 3.10, item d, Table 2)SCHOOL SM (3.30), SCHOOL SK (3.18), LKPF (3.15) and SCHOOL LI (2.87) Student L of SCHOOL SK said : Though we are Official Bearers of the Student Union, in voicing our views on school policies, we have to go through many barriers and at last, we do not have final decision. The ultimate control of power rested in the hand of the school in term of scope and levels among the schools.

22. Reasons influencing low students’ participation in school managerial matters • Poor understanding of children’s right • Mindset and experience of influential teachers • Limited trust on the students • Political socialization of the student leaders

23. Poor understanding of children’s right • Vice Principal T of SCHOOL SK: • I have not heard of it and my colleagues do not know anything about it too. • The Principal P of SCHOOL SK: • To be honest, the teachers in SCHOOL SK are very caring. They care for the students very much and help them whole-heartedly. But may be sometimes, the caring has become excessive that the autonomy of students is limited. May be we have to loosen our hands. • It should be noted that the excessive emphasis on the first two rights, with the assumption that the child is immature, dependent and need protection together with the negligence of the rights to participation, with the assumption that the child is mature, independent and autonomous (Leung & Lo, 2012), may have negative impacts on the citizenship development of the students, which values participatory, autonomous being with independent and critical thinking, leading to passive and submissive citizens.

24. Some significant schools matters, especially those related to school rules and school uniform, were considered as untouchable. • Discipline Master L of SCHOOL LK: • Students have to be well behavior and rule binding. If there are many different kinds of colour for the uniform, The uniform will become very strange (古靈精怪) and the teachers will find them intolerable (慘不忍睹). • Vice Principal K of SCHOOL LI: • Most importantly, students have to learn to be obedient and rule binding. Students have to learn that there are areas that cannot be touched upon while there are some that may be negotiable. However, there are about 80% that cannot be changed while only about 20% are negotiable. • Vice Principal T of SCHOOL SK: • At the moment, there is nothing in our school governance, except the food at lunch, that our students could participate. There are some areas that they may want to be involved but all of them are forbidden areas.

25. The taken for grant beliefs on taboos of the influential teachers interviewed, contradicted Article 12 of UNCRC that students should have the right to influence decision in all matters affecting them. Sometime, it is the experiences of the influential teachers that prevented the participation of students. • Principal P of SCHOOL SK: • A few years ago, some students told me that their form teacher did not allow them to hold a Christmas party. I talked with the teacher and she said holding a party is dangerous and she indicated that she had never participated in any party. But I see no reason why the students cannot hold a party as I had such experience when I was young. It is the experiences of the teachers that limited her.

26. Limited trust on the students Teachers had reservation of the students’ ability and did not trust that students were mature enough to participate in school management. The apathetic attitude of the students lead to the lack of trust on them, however, some teacher might be a cause of the apathetic attitude of the students • Mr. L , SU teacher of SCHOOL SM: • Before we had sixth form students to be the office bearers,. But in this new system, the office bearers came mainly from the fifth form. We did not do so many things as before as we are not sure of the competence of the students in this new system, particularly they have not gone through any public examination.

27. Teacher K of SCHOOL LI : • In fact, they are quite passive. I have tried hard to develop space for them to participate. When we call upon them to form a cabinet for the SU, their response was poor. It was very difficult to form a cabinet. • Teacher Y of SCHOOL LI: • For the Official Bearers of the SU, they spend too much time on the caring of students’ affair. Personally I appreciate. But I would rather prefer them spending more time on their study and pay more attention to their own academic work.

28. Political socialization of the student leaders Taking things for granted, some students, even including the student leaders from the high scored schools, were not conscious of the low level of students’ participation in managerial school matters, as they had been socialized into accepting the norm of the school. Some of them might accept the norm reluctantly while some more willingly, reflecting different degrees of the successfulness of thepolitical socialization of the schools.

29. Official Bearer A of the Student Union of SCHOOL SK : • The students of our schools are generally obedient, simple and very rule binding. Even if we disagree and dislike a school rule, we shall only accept it unwillingly, without complaining. (逆來順受) This has developed into a school ethos of submission. I think if only one of us dare to take the lead, we may all stand up. But no one dares. • Students’ unwillingness to stand up did not come from the fear of the teachers, who were all caring and supportive, but rather come from the pressure of conformity. • Official Bearer B of the Student Union of SCHOOL SK: • We do not want to stand up alone as it is too conspicuous and too special to be different. We need plenty of courage.

30. The strong pressure of conformity might be the result of an ethos of favouring Christian. • Vice Principal T of SCHOOL SK: • In our school, all our teachers and about 80% of our students are Christians. We are just like a family. For those 20% who do not believe will feel more difficult to express their voice as they feel like a member of the family.

31. However, for SCHOOL LI, the socialization seemed to be more effective that the students accepted the norm without any reservation. • Former Official Bearer A of the Student Union of SCHOOL LI: • Our school rules are just like a piece of iron, nothing can be changed. As a student with critical thinking, I found that there is injustice in the communities and we should seek for changes. But, I do not see any problems in my schools and no change is needed. • Current President B of the Student Union of SCHOOL LI: • When I was in junior form, I was not happy with the school too that we had little chance to participate. But when I look back nowadays, as a six form student and the President of the Students Union, I have a much better understanding of why we are not allowed to participate in the decision making. After frequent talking with senior teachers, I understand the difficulties that our school is facing and the current practice is the best way.

32. Political socialization of the student leaders • Students were treated as ignorant and have to be protected by adults who know the best. • Teacher H of SCHOOL LI said that the students are tamed: • Our teachers and students relationship is very good. Teachers are very caring. In many cases, though the students do not agree with the school rules or policies, they observe them unwillingly because they do not want to bring troubles to the teachers they respect. • Students were not only tamed, they were controlled by brainwashing and scolding. • Teacher K of SCHOOL: • The students are molded and brain washed. In fact, teachers of post 80 in the school tend to agree that students dare not talk about school policies because, for example, when you asked about the air conditioners in the school, you will be scolded seriously.

33. Conclusion and Challenges Ahead • Apparently, the answer to the question “Is Student Union a Tokenism of Students Participation in School Governance in the context of Hong Kong?”, is negative, as indicated by the mean score of 2.4 given to item k, Table 2. • However, this slightly negative attitude toward the idea of tokenism of Students Union may be attributed to the positive image generated by the process of formation of Students Unions by “one student, one vote”, an apparently fair, transparent and democratic procedure.

34. In fact, the real power is always vested in the hand of the school authorities. • From the perspective of UNCRC, the rights to protection and provision have totally dominated the school ethos to the extent that the rights to participation are severely marginalized. • In summary, from the perspective of power sharing between school authorities and Students Unions, Students Unions in Hong Kong in general, are close to tokenism

35. Conclusion and Challenges Ahead • Alderson (2000) warned that tokenistic school councils is simply a means of incorporating children into a “fundamentally non-democratic regime” and it had as much or more negative impact than having no council at all, because introducing a token council can increase students’ skepticism. This will have negative impacts on the students’ citizenship development.

36. Conclusion and Challenges Ahead • It is very doubtful how this mode of students participation in school governance could face the challenges resulting from the much enhanced civic consciousness  emerged from the recent Occupying Central Movement, as thousands of secondary and primary students have participated in this significant social movement. Probably, their enhanced competence and eagerness to be involved in decision making in public affairs will be transferred to their daily school life and become demands for real participation in school governance. END!