米国シカゴの学校協議会にみる生徒参加の影響力と課題

─校内警察官配置の存廃をめぐる意思決定の事例から─

抄録

It has become important to consider the way of school governance that repositions students as active participants in the decision-making process. While previous studies on student participation in foreign countries have explored the philosophies, principles and systems, we need further investigation on how students are actually positioned in the governing process, how much their participation has an impact on the decision-making, and what kind of conditions are necessary for the effective functioning of student participation.

This paper uses the case of Local School Councils (LSCs) of Chicago Public Schools in the United States to identify the realities and challenges of student participation, as well as possible determinants of students' influence on decision-making. Each LSC consists of the principal, faculty, staff, parents, community members, and in high schools, a student representative. As a specific example of the analysis, the study focuses on the decision-making at LSCs on whether to keep or remove the School Resource Officers (SROs) in their schools.

Specifically, the cases of two high schools were compared. In High School A, the student representative and most of the students wanted to abolish the SRO, but the LSC decided to keep the SROs. In High School B, although the position of student representative was vacant, the LSC tried to respect students' voices as much as possible and decided to remove the The Influence and Challenges of Student Participation in the Local School Councils in Chicago Public Schools in the U.S. SROs. There are a couple of different possible reasons that account for this difference: first, how discussions in the LSCs are structured and controlled by adults, second, the attitude and involvement of the principal, teachers, and other adults to support and react to the student voice, and third, the school climate that had been accumulating for a long time.

These imply that the influence of student participation is highly dependent on adults, who have more power than students in their power relationships. How adults create atmosphere and environments, how they encourage students' voices during discussions, and how they respond to students' opinions all affect how much students can have an impact on the decision-making process. In addition, daily interaction and relationships between students and adults, as well as school culture and climate may also influence the effects of students' participation. Therefore, simply inviting students to participate in school decision-making may not guarantee their voices being fully respected and taken into account. More research is needed to empirically elucidate the various possible consequences of student participation systems and practices, and the conditions for enhancing their effectiveness.