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Participation is a core value for health promoting schools. Student participation at schools is often implemented in various forms of councils. The aims of this article are to summarise the effects of student participation in student councils, to show who benefits most and to discuss characteristics that make student councils effective.

The article is based on a recently conducted systematic literature review. Nearly one third of all included cases were dealing with student participation in the form of student councils. The authors conducted a qualitative analysis of the diverse effects and characteristics of student councils.

Effects of student participation in student councils can be categorised into personal effects on students, effects on interactions and on the school as an organisation. Students actually participating in councils, i.e. the student representatives, benefit most in terms of personal effects (e.g. increasing life skills, self‐esteem, developing democratic skills) and in terms of improvements in peer relationships or student‐adult relationships. All students benefit from improvements in the physical or social environment of the school. The characteristics that potentially make student councils successful concern the council composition, election procedures of representatives, positions and procedures and frequency and timing of council meetings, communication between council and the student body or other actors, the decision‐making power of the council, supportive school context and training of councillors and staff.

This is the first systematic synthesis of research conducted on effects of student participation in student councils. The article discusses the potential of student councils for strengthening the whole‐school approach to health promotion.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the urgent need for a genuinely effective and attainable citizenship education model in Hong Kong’s schools, which focusses on promoting student participation in school governance. It is an empirical citizenship education management model for school leaders that illustrates the predictive effects of personally responsible, participatory, justice-oriented and patriotic citizenship, necessarily supported by school management practices, school ethos and teacher beliefs.

A total of 3,209 students from 51 secondary schools in Hong Kong participated in a quasi-experimental design questionnaire survey. A structural equation model (SEM) was applied to confirm the model.

The results of the SEM show that the values and cultural practices held by a school’s teachers drive the implementation of its citizenship education. Moreover, it is well known that organizational values can exert a powerful influence and it is the same within educational structures: management practices in schools have an impact on ethos, teachers’ beliefs and student participation in school governance.

The paper provides practical proposals for school leaders to create opportunities for student participation in school governance.

This study builds on existing literature and provides school leaders with a practical model for implementing student participation in school governance.

In this paper a systematic and well-defined student participation assessment scheme for college courses is proposed. The scheme supports the involvement of students in a variety of areas of participation within and outside the classroom with the aim of improving their learning. The scheme addresses mostly the challenges related to the practicality of the structure and design of the assessment. It also addresses the subjectivity of grading student participations. Areas of participation are widened to allow the faculty more accurate information about the conduct of each individual student towards more objective assessment. In addition, it provides the faculty with the flexibility to select areas that best fit the learning outcomes, nature of the course, availability of time and resources, and class atmosphere. The proposed scheme is initiated and developed using feedback from the teaching staff of Nizwa College of Technology, (NCT) through a survey and open discussion. The results indicate that over two thirds of the surveyed staff show agreement with the concept of assessing participation and find the scheme design clear and systematic, while 82% of them perceive the scheme as effective in improving the motivation and learning of students.

In The Toolbox Revisited, Clifford Adelman puts forth a compelling case for student responsibility when considering differences in educational attainment. Focusing on student postsecondary school search, in this chapter the author evaluates the way in which young Black men spend their discretionary time whether in extracurricular activities or in unstructured settings. Using the National Educational Longitudinal Survey of 1988, she finds that it is not the amount of time that matters, but the fact of participation in extracurricular activities that are positively associated with the engagement of young Black men in the postsecondary education search process. While the magnitude of this positive influence varies by type of activity, young men who are not engaged in any extracurricular participation in grades 10 and 12 are significantly less likely to engage the post-search process. The difference is so stark that she suggests that independent of scholastic performance indicators, the absence of extracurricular participation for young Black men may be a signal of a lack of propensity toward postsecondary education.

There is increasing recognition of children's abilities to speak for themselves. School democracy, as demonstrated by genuine participation, has the potential to benefit both teachers and students; leading to better relationships and improved learning experiences. The aim of this study is to investigate whether participation in schools in Ireland is linked with perceived academic performance, liking school and positive health perceptions.

Data were collected via self‐completion questionnaires from a stratified random sample of 10,334 students aged 10‐17 years in Irish schools. The questions included encouragement to express their views in class, participation in the organisation of school events; taking part in making school rules; liking school, perceived academic performance, self‐rated health, life satisfaction and self‐reported happiness. Associations between school participation and other measures were expressed by odds ratios from logistic regression models, conducted separately for girls and boys.

More than 63 per cent of participating students reported that they were encouraged to express their views in class, 58 per cent that they were involved in organising school events and 22 per cent that they had been involved in making school rules. All forms of participation were lower among older students. Participation in school was significantly associated with liking school and higher perceived academic performance, better self‐rated health, higher life satisfaction and greater reported happiness.

These data are all cross‐sectional and relationships cannot imply causality.

These findings underscore the relevance of school participation for students in Ireland.

The paper illustrates that, in general, positive relationships between school participation and health and wellbeing are demonstrated among Irish children.

The stress-coping model is extensively studied in the academic context. Past studies have primarily focused on different coping strategies adopted by students to overcome academic stress. However, an important question, how to equip students to cope with stress, was ignored. Drawing on stress-coping theory and the extracurricular activity (ECA) literature, the current study investigates the intervention of ECA participation on students’ coping, academic performance, and well-being in a natural setting.

The study follows a “cross-sectional post-test only quasi-experimental design” using a natural experimental setting.

The findings indicate that participation in ECA has a significant influence on academic outcomes. Different types of ECA participation influence well-being, whereas time spent on ECA positively affects academic performance. Further, the findings also indicate that involvement in ECA moderates the relationship between academic stress and coping.

The study results have practical implications for designing interventional ECA to enhance students’ academic outcomes and well-being.

The study indicates the effectiveness of ECA participation in dealing with academic stress and the development of constructive coping strategies. Hence, the authors advise the academic administrators to integrate ECA in the academic setting.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between the civic mission of schools and students on participation in school governance through an empirical study. It articulates the importance of school mission on nurturing citizenship of high school students.

The research used a mixed method with questionnaire survey in the first phase and qualitative interviews in the second phase. Quantitative data were obtained from a survey completed by 3,209 students and 495 teachers (including principals) from 51 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Qualitative data were collected from 41 individual interviews with principals and teachers and 17 focus group interviews with 56 students in five case study schools.

Both students and teachers believed that good citizenship qualities should include students’ participation in school governance. Schools in general took up the civic mission to nurture good and participatory citizens. A mission of nurturing students to become good and participatory citizens made a significant and positive contribution toward achieving students’ actual participation in school governance. However, students’ actual impact on major school policies was minimal. A paradox existed whereby students, knowing their influence over managerial issues was much circumscribed, still gave it a higher rating than their teachers.

The paper contributes an empirical model for school leaders to develop school vision for promoting student participation in school governance. Based on a large-scale research supported by public funding, the paper contributes an empirical model for school leaders to develop school vision for promoting student participation in school governance. It further adds to the literature on relationship between citizenship education, civic mission of school and student participation in governance.

Online forums are increasingly deployed as important e‐learning tools for facilitating student learning in classrooms. However, building an online forum does not guarantee participation by students. The purpose of this paper is to advance our knowledge of facilitating student participation in this context by studying the role of communication environment.

The model was tested using data collected from a survey administered in a university in Hong Kong.

Results revealed that psychological safety communication climate influenced the intention of students to continue their participation both directly and indirectly through perceived responsiveness and self‐efficacy.

This study builds on social cognitive theory and extends the existing understanding of participation in e‐learning by highlighting the roles of psychological safety communication climate and perceived responsiveness, two communication environment factors critical to student learning but not yet addressed seriously in the e‐learning context.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate service marketing and higher education (HE) literature to develop and test a model that links customer participation behaviour with student overall satisfaction that stems from satisfaction with service augmentation elements. It also examines the influence of brand choice attainment on both satisfaction and participation behaviour.

Drawing on an empirical survey of 238 international students in UK universities, the model was tested using structural equation modelling.

The findings reveal that not all service augmenters are equally important in creating student satisfaction. Campus life and maintenance augmenters are found to be the crucial elements in generating satisfaction for international students. The results also suggest that satisfied students are more likely to participate actively in co-producing the university services compared to dissatisfied students. The effect of brand choice attainment on participation behaviour is mediated by satisfaction.

University administrations might need to prioritize their efforts to put more emphasis on some elements especially crucial for international students and could embellish or deplete the core of education services. The study provides a fresh perspective on segmenting international students based on their brand choice attainment. A superior university experience should be created, particularly for those who did not get into their preferred university, to overcome the disappointment of not studying at the preferred university.

By synthesizing diverse concepts from research on services marketing, branding and HE, this paper contributes theoretically by extending the research on customer participation behaviour into the HE domain. It attempts to address a clear gap between how service literature and HE literature look at “service experience”. The study captures some missing aspects of the “service” in the HE sector (e.g. augmentation aspects). The study also takes the HE literature one step further by identifying the role of brand choice attainment in both satisfaction and students’ participation behaviour.

This chapter critically analyses the current participation of Indigenous Australian students in higher education and identifies new directions for seeding success and enabling Indigenous students to flourish in higher education contexts.

Statistical reports, government reports and the scholarly literature were analysed to elucidate the nature of participation of Indigenous students in higher education, identify strategies that are succeeding, identify issues that need addressing and explicate potentially potent ways forward.

The findings have important implications for theory, research and practice. The results of this study demonstrate, that while increasing numbers of Indigenous Australian students are accessing higher education, they still are not participating at a rate commensurate with their representation in the Australian population. The findings also suggest new ways to enable Indigenous Australians to not only succeed in higher education, but flourish.

The findings imply that more needs to be done to seed success in increasing the numbers of Indigenous Australian students in higher education to be representative of the population and ensuring participation in higher education enables Indigenous students to succeed and flourish. The findings also imply that there is a dire need for further research to identify key drivers of success.

The study supports the need for increasing the number of Indigenous Australians participating in higher education and enhancing higher education strategies to enable Indigenous students to succeed and flourish.

Enhancing the participation of Indigenous students in higher education internationally can help to contribute to the well-being of individuals, Indigenous communities and nations.

This chapter provides an up to date analysis of the nature of Indigenous Australian participation in higher education and identifies potentially potent new ways forward to seed success that have international implications.