School leaders are the mediators of a school’s culture. At the high school level, students can contribute to, and even co-construct, their schooling experience with school leaders. Yet there is not a significant literature regarding how high-school building leaders develop and support student voice. Through the research method of semi-structured interviews with three high school principals in a district committed to elevating student voice, this study sought to identify the key behaviors, attitudes, and language used by a school leader working to develop and support student voice as an integral part of the high school experience. Additionally, it sought to define “meaningful” student voice and determine if what the three building leaders described rose to the level of being meaningful. Utilizing a conceptual framework that drew on the work of Spillane et al. (2004), Hart (1992), and Toshalis and Nakkula (2012), it was determined that the leadership practice of two of the three principals had elements of meaningful student voice practice. Implications for future work include understanding how meaningful student voice work can be implemented by building leaders who do not have the myriad of supports like those provided by the district in this study, how policymakers and legislatures support building leaders so they are not alone as they are developing their student voice-oriented practice, and how we shift educational leadership preparation programs so that distributed leadership theory and student-voice-oriented practices become foundational to learning to become a building leader.
","abstract_html":"<p>School leaders are the mediators of a school’s culture. At the high school level, students can contribute to, and even co-construct, their schooling experience with school leaders. Yet there is not a significant literature regarding how high-school building leaders develop and support student voice. Through the research method of semi-structured interviews with three high school principals in a district committed to elevating student voice, this study sought to identify the key behaviors, attitudes, and language used by a school leader working to develop and support student voice as an integral part of the high school experience. Additionally, it sought to define “meaningful” student voice and determine if what the three building leaders described rose to the level of being meaningful. Utilizing a conceptual framework that drew on the work of Spillane et al. (2004), Hart (1992), and Toshalis and Nakkula (2012), it was determined that the leadership practice of two of the three principals had elements of meaningful student voice practice. Implications for future work include understanding how meaningful student voice work can be implemented by building leaders who do not have the myriad of supports like those provided by the district in this study, how policymakers and legislatures support building leaders so they are not alone as they are developing their student voice-oriented practice, and how we shift educational leadership preparation programs so that distributed leadership theory and student-voice-oriented practices become foundational to learning to become a building leader.</p>","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Grzelak-Lee, Beth"],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Open Access Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Leadership and Counseling","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Carmen M. McCallum, Ph.D.","Wendy Burke, Ph.D.","Aesha Mustafa, Ph.D."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2024,"date_issued":"2024-01-01T08:00:00Z","date_published":"2024-01-01T08:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:17:53Z","subjects":["Building Leader","Distributed Leadership Theory","High School","High School Principal","Secondary School","Student Voice","Educational Administration and Supervision","Educational Leadership"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://commons.emich.edu/theses/1276","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Carmen M. 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At the high school level, students can contribute to, and even co-construct, their schooling experience with school leaders. Yet there is not a significant literature regarding how high-school building leaders develop and support student voice. Through the research method of semi-structured interviews with three high school principals in a district committed to elevating student voice, this study sought to identify the key behaviors, attitudes, and language used by a school leader working to develop and support student voice as an integral part of the high school experience. Additionally, it sought to define “meaningful” student voice and determine if what the three building leaders described rose to the level of being meaningful. Utilizing a conceptual framework that drew on the work of Spillane et al. (2004), Hart (1992), and Toshalis and Nakkula (2012), it was determined that the leadership practice of two of the three principals had elements of meaningful student voice practice. Implications for future work include understanding how meaningful student voice work can be implemented by building leaders who do not have the myriad of supports like those provided by the district in this study, how policymakers and legislatures support building leaders so they are not alone as they are developing their student voice-oriented practice, and how we shift educational leadership preparation programs so that distributed leadership theory and student-voice-oriented practices become foundational to learning to become a building leader.
"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["The building leader’s role in developing and supporting meaningful student voice at the high school level"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Carmen M. McCallum, Ph.D.","Wendy Burke, Ph.D.","Aesha Mustafa, Ph.D."],"dc:creator":["Grzelak-Lee, Beth"],"dc:date.available":["2025-01-31T08:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["School leaders are the mediators of a school’s culture. At the high school level, students can contribute to, and even co-construct, their schooling experience with school leaders. Yet there is not a significant literature regarding how high-school building leaders develop and support student voice. Through the research method of semi-structured interviews with three high school principals in a district committed to elevating student voice, this study sought to identify the key behaviors, attitudes, and language used by a school leader working to develop and support student voice as an integral part of the high school experience. Additionally, it sought to define “meaningful” student voice and determine if what the three building leaders described rose to the level of being meaningful. Utilizing a conceptual framework that drew on the work of Spillane et al. (2004), Hart (1992), and Toshalis and Nakkula (2012), it was determined that the leadership practice of two of the three principals had elements of meaningful student voice practice. Implications for future work include understanding how meaningful student voice work can be implemented by building leaders who do not have the myriad of supports like those provided by the district in this study, how policymakers and legislatures support building leaders so they are not alone as they are developing their student voice-oriented practice, and how we shift educational leadership preparation programs so that distributed leadership theory and student-voice-oriented practices become foundational to learning to become a building leader.
"],"dc:identifier":["https://commons.emich.edu/theses/1276"],"dc:subject":["Building Leader","Distributed Leadership Theory","High School","High School Principal","Secondary School","Student Voice","Educational Administration and Supervision","Educational Leadership"],"dc:title":["The building leader’s role in developing and supporting meaningful student voice at the high school level"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Leadership and Counseling"],"thesis:degree_level":["Open Access Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:17:53Z"}