In our ‘adultist’ society, the voices and opinions of young people are regularly ignored. In schools, young people tell us they feel marginalised, and many examples of their participation have felt tokenistic and exclusionary. Focusing on the right of young people to contribute to decisions which impact them, this insightful study explores how schools can collaborate with young researchers for school improvement, moving from control to empowerment.

Written by a scholar with unique insight after starting a research career following 35 years of teaching in schools, Dave McPartlan explores how the advent of neoliberalism in education has altered school values towards control and meeting of external targets. Detailing the results of a collaborative project around the contribution young people could make to improving their schools as intellectual equals and experts in their lives, the author analyses the roles of young people as young researchers, their inputs on ideas, methods and processes for carrying out the research, and their role in collecting, analysing and reporting findings. Focused on the UK context, chapters also draw on McPartlan’s work with colleagues from several European countries and the USA which highlights that the lessons are the same throughout Western society.

An important book for harnessing the power of young people as a way of developing critical thinking and showing the broader implications of enabling young people as researchers, this is compelling reading for scholars of child and youth studies, education and adolescent mental health, and those interested in education policy and new methodologies.