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How Policy Positionality Helps Explain Policy That Does Not Fit Students

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Title: How Policy Positionality Helps Explain Policy That Does Not Fit Students
Language: English
Authors: Kate Phillippo, Caitlin Power, Matt Leo, Peter Piazza
Source: American Journal of Education. 2025 131(3):303-330.
Availability: University of Chicago Press. Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005, Chicago, IL 60637. Tel: 877-705-1878; Tel: 773-753-3347; Fax: 877-705-1879; Fax: 773-753-0811; e-mail: subscriptions@press.uchicago.edu; Web site: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/aje/about
Peer Reviewed: Y
Page Count: 28
Publication Date: 2025
Document Type: Journal Articles
Reports - Research
Descriptors: Educational Policy, Policy Formation, Public Schools, Admission (School), Policy Analysis, Student Needs, Student Participation
DOI: 10.1086/734908
ISSN: 0195-6744
1549-6511
Abstract: Purpose: By comparing concurrent youth and adult engagement in the same policy change process, we sought to inform efforts to substantively and productively involve youth policy actors in education policy formation. This study extends upon a robust research base centered on youth-specific policy activity. Research Methods/Approach: Using comparative case study methods, we identified and analyzed youth and adult engagement in selective public schools (SPS) admissions policy change in "Metropolis School District." Members of our diverse research team--students spanning from high school through doctoral levels, an active policy professional, and a university professor--interviewed student and adult policy actors and analyzed public documents. Findings: Gulfs between actors' experience positionality and policy formation positionality contributed to the adoption of policy that failed to match student-framed policy needs. Youth policy actors more directly experienced the policy in question and advocated for changes that would shape their schooling experiences. Yet they were structurally distanced from, marginalized within, and at times excluded by district policy formation structures and processes. Conversely, although adults had more distant SPS admissions experience positionality, their policy formation positionality was one of far more direct influence amid policy discourse that centered on adults. Implications: These findings inform the discussion of pathways toward fuller student policy engagement. We provide evidence of the powerful impact that relative policy positionalities have on policy formation. We also contribute data that distinguish forms of youth policy activity from district-sanctioned, adult-centered policy activity. Informed by these findings, we suggest ways for policy makers to authentically incorporate youth voice.
Abstractor: As Provided
Entry Date: 2025
Accession Number: EJ1472533
Database: ERIC
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  Value: <anid>AN0184995260;jrd01may.25;2025May09.05:20;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0184995260-1">How Policy Positionality Helps Explain Policy That Does Not Fit Students </title> <p>Purpose: By comparing concurrent youth and adult engagement in the same policy change process, we sought to inform efforts to substantively and productively involve youth policy actors in education policy formation. This study extends upon a robust research base centered on youth-specific policy activity. Research Methods/Approach: Using comparative case study methods, we identified and analyzed youth and adult engagement in selective public schools (SPS) admissions policy change in "Metropolis School District." Members of our diverse research team—students spanning from high school through doctoral levels, an active policy professional, and a university professor—interviewed student and adult policy actors and analyzed public documents. Findings: Gulfs between actors' experience positionality and policy formation positionality contributed to the adoption of policy that failed to match student-framed policy needs. Youth policy actors more directly experienced the policy in question and advocated for changes that would shape their schooling experiences. Yet they were structurally distanced from, marginalized within, and at times excluded by district policy formation structures and processes. Conversely, although adults had more distant SPS admissions experience positionality, their policy formation positionality was one of far more direct influence amid policy discourse that centered on adults. Implications: These findings inform the discussion of pathways toward fuller student policy engagement. We provide evidence of the powerful impact that relative policy positionalities have on policy formation. We also contribute data that distinguish forms of youth policy activity from district-sanctioned, adult-centered policy activity. Informed by these findings, we suggest ways for policy makers to authentically incorporate youth voice.</p> <p>Although youths and adults both engage with education policy, generational distinctions in their engagement appear across policy issues. Like adults, youths make public comments at school board meetings, solicit school leaders' and politicians' support, and protest. Unlike adults, youths under the age of 18 cannot vote in elections or bond votes that stand to shape education policy, nor can they run for public office. And youths uniquely engage in activism such as collective deliberate standardized test failures and dress code violations (Stolberg [<reflink idref="bib52" id="ref1">52</reflink>]; Valenti [<reflink idref="bib54" id="ref2">54</reflink>]), student-led education (Hale [<reflink idref="bib27" id="ref3">27</reflink>]), and walkouts (e.g., Danns [<reflink idref="bib21" id="ref4">21</reflink>]; O'Hara [<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref5">39</reflink>]). Although these examples anecdotally suggest distinctions and similarities between youth and adult policy-related activity, they have not been the central focus of systematic inquiry. Such knowledge stands to inform efforts to substantively and productively engage youth policy actors in education policy processes and thereby address student educational needs.</p> <p>The present study therefore compares concurrent youth and adult engagement in the formation of a new, highly contested academically selective public schools (SPS) admission policy in "Metropolis School District" (MSD). Informed by research evidence on youths as policy actors and policy cycles theory, we compare student and adult engagement in MSD's policy process. This comparison identified a mismatch in stakeholders' positionality within the process, expanding our understanding of actor positionalities and their relevance to the policy process. Student policy actors had richer, more intimate familiarity with the policy in question (which we call experience positionality) but were marginalized by official structures and actions that governed the policy formation process (policy formation positionality). The inverse was true for adult actors. Consistent with the use of the term "mismatch" by Deschenes et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref6">22</reflink>]) when describing school structures that did not meet young people's learning needs to their detriment, MSD's mismatch contributed to policy that addressed adult, more so than student, concerns and alienated students from the policy formation process. This study contributes needed empirical evidence of side-by-side student and adult policy engagement, illustrates the powerful impact of policy positionalities upon policy formation, and informs discussion of pathways toward fuller student policy engagement.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-2">Youths as Education Policy Actors</hd> <p>A rich body of scholarship chronicles student efforts to inform education policy that "students feel will better address the learning needs of themselves and their peers" (Conner et al. [<reflink idref="bib16" id="ref7">16</reflink>], 3). Because they interpret and enact education policy in their day-to-day schooling, students are policy actors just as adults are (Ball et al. [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref8">3</reflink>]), even though adult actors often see students only as passive policy targets or generators of policy outcome data (McMahon and Portelli [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref9">35</reflink>]). Mitra and Kirshner ([<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref10">38</reflink>]) describe a range of youth voice initiatives' focus of change, from leadership to activism. Across this range, tensions with adult stakeholders are a consistent theme. There is limited evidence on concurrent student and adult involvement in the education policy process, which the present study seeks to address.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-3">Leadership- and Activism-Oriented Student Voice</hd> <p>Leadership-oriented student voice endeavors often have "the goal of providing experiences for young people to learn how to become leaders and change agents within their schools and communities" (Mitra and Kirshner [<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref11">38</reflink>], 53). Such groups have helped young people to develop communication, policy analysis, and advocacy skills (e.g., Conner and Strobel [<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref12">18</reflink>]). More formal leadership opportunities include student board membership and state-level commissions, both with and without the same voting rights as adult members (Conner et al. [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref13">17</reflink>]). Such roles provide students a platform to raise concerns, make their comments part of public record, and potentially gain support from those with similar concerns (Conner et al. [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref14">17</reflink>]).</p> <p>Youth participatory action research (YPAR), another form of leadership-style youth voice activity, helps students to learn research strategies and then gather and disseminate data on student experiences, perspectives, and needs (e.g., Cammarota [<reflink idref="bib14" id="ref15">14</reflink>]; Rodríguez and Brown [<reflink idref="bib46" id="ref16">46</reflink>]). Students' verbal presentation of their findings has disrupted inaccurate narratives about students and has informed school leaders' and policy makers' understanding of student needs and priorities (Bertrand et al. [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref17">8</reflink>]; Ozer and Wright [<reflink idref="bib40" id="ref18">40</reflink>]). A youth voice program in New Orleans schools gathered and shared, via press conferences and a documentary film, student experiences of their neglected school, which influenced district leaders' improvements of student bathrooms and lunch offerings (Wholey and Burkes [<reflink idref="bib57" id="ref19">57</reflink>]). Yet tangible policy change like this remains elusive despite youth input (Bertrand and Lozenski [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref20">9</reflink>]; Holquist and Walls [<reflink idref="bib29" id="ref21">29</reflink>]).</p> <p>Policy change is the purpose of activism-oriented student voice efforts. Using an organizing approach—at times successfully—youth activist groups have effected change like school closure plan modification and punitive discipline policy discontinuation (Contractor and Staats [<reflink idref="bib19" id="ref22">19</reflink>]; Kirshner [<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref23">31</reflink>]). The VOYCE coalition of youth activists, for example, successfully lobbied Illinois legislators to pass a law that prohibits zero tolerance discipline policies and monetary student fines and that limits schools' ability to assign out-of-school suspensions (Rhodes [<reflink idref="bib45" id="ref24">45</reflink>]). This law required the change of hundreds of school districts' codes of conduct, driving a decline in suspensions (Warren [<reflink idref="bib56" id="ref25">56</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-4">Tensions Accompany Adult Involvement with Student Voice Efforts</hd> <p>Although adults have supported youth voice via efforts to share and build power (e.g., Bertrand [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref26">6</reflink>]; Domínguez and Bertrand [<reflink idref="bib23" id="ref27">23</reflink>]; Holquist and Walls [<reflink idref="bib30" id="ref28">30</reflink>]), they often operate in tension with the student voice process. Schools' top-down environment can limit youth voice by favoring activities that preserve schools' status quo, "helping" rather than empowering marginalized students, and reserving opportunities for students viewed positively by adults (McMahon and Portelli [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref29">35</reflink>]). Adults' hegemony also, ironically, manifests in YPAR, where they influence YPAR project foci despite YPAR's explicit youth focus (e.g., Call-Cummings and Martinez [<reflink idref="bib13" id="ref30">13</reflink>]). Adult engagement with YPAR recommendations has been found to be selective, tokenizing, and racialized (Bertrand [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref31">6</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref32">7</reflink>]; Bertrand and Lozenski [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref33">9</reflink>]).</p> <p>Further, youths involved in formal policy making encounter substantial adult-generated obstacles. Their capacity to effect change can be limited by minimal or no introductory orientation toward their roles or inadequate information to guide their work (Conner et al. [<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref34">17</reflink>]). Youths on policy-making boards and committees can find their created roles more superficial than substantive, their agency subverted, co-opted, or ignored while adults maintain control of the policy process (Conner [<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref35">15</reflink>]). Youth actors who publicly challenge existing structures have also faced adult educators' attempts to manipulate their participation and threats of retaliation, such as disclosure of disciplinary records (Hipolito-Delgado [<reflink idref="bib28" id="ref36">28</reflink>]). Adult suspicion of youth activists has also fueled pressure to appear "professional" according to white norms, undermining the involvement of youth of color (Freidus [<reflink idref="bib26" id="ref37">26</reflink>]). At times, youth opt for silence in response to adult efforts to constrain or direct their power (Cook-Sather [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref38">20</reflink>]).</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-5">Remaining Questions about Concurrent Youth and Adult Policy Engagement</hd> <p>Our understanding of how youth and adult policy actors work side by side remains limited. The empirical research reviewed above focuses on youth-specific initiatives or committee roles and on how adults enhance or impair youth efforts. Research has examined collaboration and partnership work between students and adults to effect educational change (e.g., Biddle and Mitra [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref39">10</reflink>]; Mitra [<reflink idref="bib36" id="ref40">36</reflink>], [<reflink idref="bib37" id="ref41">37</reflink>]; Sprague Martinez et al. [<reflink idref="bib51" id="ref42">51</reflink>]), yet few studies offer a comparative analysis of the two groups' respective contributions. We do not have a clear sense of how the two groups work concurrently, or the degree of that work's similarity or difference across groups. (Luttrell-Rowland et al. [[<reflink idref="bib32" id="ref43">32</reflink>]] address this matter in the sphere of social policy.) This understanding is essential, given efforts to bring students into policy activity alongside adults and the tensions adults introduce into student voice work.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-6">Conceptual Framework</hd> <p>Policy cycles theory, extended by the concept of policy positionality, focused our attention on student and adult actors' statements and actions. Further, these combined concepts helped us to identify intergroup similarities and differences amid the policy process. Policy cycles theory (Bowe et al. [<reflink idref="bib12" id="ref44">12</reflink>]; Vidovich [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref45">55</reflink>]) is one strain of thought on policy discourse, and it centers on how policy problems and proposed solutions are identified, presented, contested, and ultimately resolved (Bacchi [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref46">2</reflink>]; Piazza [<reflink idref="bib44" id="ref47">44</reflink>]; Sharp and Richardson [<reflink idref="bib49" id="ref48">49</reflink>]). It concerns how discourse dynamics shape policy in context-specific ways at different points during the policy process, with a particular focus on how actors with competing agendas and goals attempt to exercise power along the way. Germane to the policy formation process is what Vidovich ([<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref49">55</reflink>]) calls the context of influence, in which policy actors compete to influence policy development, particularly where the outcome is uncertain.</p> <p>Contention amid policy formation makes actors' positioning—relative to one another and to the formal process itself—central to how and whether they are able to shape the process and, therefore, resulting policy. As part of their broader theory of policy enactment, Ball et al. ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref50">3</reflink>]) assert that policy actors' positionality—where they stand in relation to others in their schools and broader society—influences their involvement in the formation of policy, their enactment of it, and subsequent policy outcomes. This concept highlights how actors' relative positionality could influence their perspectives and actions regarding policy, and how youth and adult positionality, contrasted against one another, stands to reveal characteristics of each party's involvement and ultimate influence on the policy formation process.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-7">Method</hd> <p>To expand upon current knowledge about youth engagement in policy formation compared with adult engagement, we pursued three research questions:</p> <p></p> <p>• 1.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> How do youth and adult policy actors respectively describe students' education policy needs within the policy formation process?</item> <p></p> </ulist> <p>• 2.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> What similarities and differences exist in these descriptions of student needs?</item> <p></p> </ulist> <p>• 3.</p> <p></p> <ulist> <item> What actions follow from these descriptions, and how do those actions resemble or differ from one another between youth and adult actors?</item> </ulist> <p>These questions oriented us toward young people's and adults' respective constructions of the same policy problem (particularly, what students' needs are) and their subsequent actions upon it during the policy formation process. To answer these questions, it was essential to identify a case of education policy formation that substantively and concurrently involved both youth and adults. Further, our conceptual framework drove us to consider and compare the acquisition and use of power by youth and adult actors. Comparative case study (CCS) methods (Bartlett and Vavrus [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref51">4</reflink>]) facilitated both of these endeavors. CCS creates space for multiple forms of data and participant groups, and it is attuned to matters of power, equity, and agency. This approach positioned us to "trace social actors, documents, or other influences across these cases" (Bartlett and Vavrus [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref52">5</reflink>], 14), and to compare youth and adult policy actions in formal and informal spaces where policy actors operate, rather than solely district-sanctioned policy-making spaces.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-8">An Ideal Case: MSD's SPS Admissions Policy</hd> <p>We analyzed data from our team's broader study of SPS admissions policy changes in MSD, a midsized, predominantly Latinx and Black urban school district. Because this case has been the subject of litigation as well as individual aggression against involved actors, we do not (per institutional review board [IRB] arrangements) publicly name or cite publications concerning the city, school district, associated individuals, or organizations. In recent decades, with the exception of short-lived admissions policies that explicitly sought racial balance, Black and Latinx youths and youths from lower-income households have been substantially underrepresented in Metropolis's SPS as a whole, which serves grades 7–12. Immediately prior to the present study, SPS admissions criteria solely involved applicants' grades and entrance exam scores.</p> <p>The COVID-19 pandemic and 2020's antiracist uprising contributed to conditions where the merit-based SPS admissions policy could not continue as it was. In-person testing was deemed too dangerous, as MSD school buildings remained closed. In addition, virtual testing created possibilities of cheating and unauthorized test content dissemination. Further, racial disparities in COVID-19's effects within Metropolis exposed vast disparities in students' educational and life experiences. Under these conditions, activists, community leaders, and some public officials called for MSD to pause its current SPS admissions practices.</p> <p>Subsequent changes to SPS admissions policy occurred twice. The superintendent first convened an all-adult "Inquiry Group" (IG), which recommended a temporary admissions policy (subsequently adopted). MSD paused the entrance exam, substituting prepandemic grades as criteria, and distributed seats by zip code, setting aside some seats for high scorers regardless of zip code. The board then commissioned a Selective Schools Subcommittee (SSS)—composed of student members along with parents, researchers, and school and community leaders—to develop and recommend a permanent admissions policy. During the SSS's operation, various opponents of the temporary policy sued the district (unsuccessfully), obtained and leaked school board members' private text messages to the media, and harassed and threatened policy actors. Individuals later identified as elected local officials attempted to use their authority over MSD's budget to influence SSS recommendations, causing public outcry. Ultimately, the SSS proposed, and the board unanimously approved, policy that maintained a standardized entrance exam but weighted grades more heavily, equally distributed open seats across socioeconomic groupings, and added points for applicants from high-poverty sending schools, residing in public housing, experiencing homelessness, or in state care.</p> <p>This process's public deliberation provided many routes for youth and adult participation, although we acknowledge factors that limited participation in our discussion section below. State public meeting laws require that all school board and subcommittee meetings occur in public. Each included a public comment period with unlimited two-minute speaker spots available. Pandemic-driven virtual meeting formats furthered these meetings' inclusiveness; those wishing to make public comments could join virtually. Local public media (radio and print) covered the story extensively, amplified by social media coverage. Media incorporated a wider range of voices and facilitated less formal commentary by "official" policy actors than what occurred during board-sponsored meetings. As such, this coverage was a highly valuable data source.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-9">Data</hd> <p>Data collection and analysis processes stressed the interrogation of institutionalized and organizational power, inequity, and agency. Members of our diverse team—students from high school, master's, and doctoral levels (one, six, and three, respectively), an active policy professional, and a university professor—interviewed publicly identifiable student and adult policy actors and analyzed documents. Student team members were either recipients of ongoing research assistantships or volunteers (responding to a departmental recruitment email or contacting the professor individually) seeking research experience. All team members participated in periodic collaborative qualitative research methods trainings supported by readings (primarily, Saldaña and Omasta [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref53">48</reflink>]) and sample documents (e.g., transcripts, data tables). Members selected their preferred activities on the team (e.g., interviewing, document collection, data analysis).</p> <p>Interviews (<emph>N</emph> = 24; see table 1) were conducted on Zoom or in person by the first, second, and fourth authors and an additional student team member. Interviews explored participants' involvement with SPS, their perspective on reasons the newer policies were developed when and how they were, who appeared to shape (and try to shape) the policy process, and written and unwritten rules that actors noticed. We invited all student and adult school board and school board subcommittee members to participate, along with other MSD leaders and local actors (e.g., community leaders, activists, elected officials, petition creators, report authors) publicly identified as involved with SPS admissions policy. Two participants (one adult and one student) were referred to us by other participants. Our privacy practices with interviewees were intensified due to this case's politically volatile nature. Our IRB commitments preclude us from sharing participant representation rates on school board committees, participant gender or race, or dual roles (e.g., parent on the school board), which could identify them or the school district. We use gender-neutral pseudonyms and pronouns for all individual interviewees.</p> <p>Table 1. Interview Participants, by Role and Ethno-Racial Identity (<emph>N</emph> = 24)</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><th style="border-bottom: solid thin black" valign="bottom" scope="col" rowspan="1" colspan="1" /><th align="center" style="border-bottom: solid thin black" valign="bottom" scope="col" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Number of Participants</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td colspan="2" valign="bottom" rowspan="1">Role:</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> School board member</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Selective Schools Subcommittee member</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Equity Subcommittee member</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">3</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> District educator</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">5</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> District parent</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">8</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> District student</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Community activist or leader</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">8</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Elected official</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Journalist</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Researcher</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">3</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> District alumnus</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">3</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Retired district administrator</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td></tr><tr><td colspan="2" valign="bottom" rowspan="1">Ethno-racial identity:</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> African American or African diaspora</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Asian American</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">5</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Latinx</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">7</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> White</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">7</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Graph</p> <p>1 Note. Role categories are not exclusive; most participants belonged to more than one.</p> <p>Our document set (table 2)—assembled by one doctoral student and the professor—includes public print media coverage (including conventional articles and self-authored media pieces such as editorials), research reports, published meeting minutes, and press releases. Documents were identified via weekly scans of Metropolis's major media outlets' and education news sources' websites using the names of the SPS, as well as the names of the subcommittees, and only included documents that pertained specifically to the SPS admissions policy process, from 6 months prior to the IG's initiation to 1 month after the permanent policy's approval. We repeated the same search using an internet search site (Google) to ensure we were not missing events or publications, thereby also locating national coverage. We eliminated multiple media stories about the same incidents (e.g., school board meeting) and rotated media sources when more than one covered the same event (e.g., across multiple local newspapers). We generated verbatim transcripts from recorded public meetings of the school board and its SSS (many of which lasted upward of 3 hours). Where comments pertained to student needs or actions taken regarding SPS admissions policy but the speaker's status as student or adult could not be ascertained, we did not add them to the present study's database. Verbatim comments in public meetings, media coverage, and specific policy language are modified, using synonyms and changed word order to preserve meaning while making statements unidentifiable.</p> <p>Table 2. Document Data Set (<emph>N</emph> = 219)</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><th style="border-bottom: solid thin black" valign="bottom" scope="col" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Document Type</th><th align="center" style="border-bottom: solid thin black" valign="bottom" scope="col" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Total</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">School board meeting transcript</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">16</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">School board subcommittee meetings transcript<xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn3">*</xref></th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">26</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">School board and committee public listening sessions</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Local media coverage<xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn4">†</xref></th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">151</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">National media coverage<xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn4">†</xref></th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">7</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Petition and GoFundMe appeal introductory text<xref ref-type="table-fn" rid="tfn5">‡</xref></th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">6</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Organizations' press releases and public letters</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Organization-published reports</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">MSD public reports, memos, and requests for proposals</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Published email exchanges</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Graph</p> <ulist> <item>2 Note. MSD = Metropolis School District.</item> <item>3 * To protect participants' privacy, we tallied together all subcommittees pertinent to selective public schools admissions.</item> <item>4 † This includes newspapers, news radio and television print releases, online news sources, and magazines.</item> <item>5 ‡ Because petition signers did not consistently comment at all or identify their role respective to the policy process, we did not include petition comments.</item> </ulist> <p>We reviewed Twitter posts related to this policy process (collected by a master's student team member using the same criteria described above). We determined that these posts were most often repostings of items already appearing in print media, and brief comments upon those repostings, rather than novel or multiperson social media conversations about our focal case. The only exception was a 2-week surge in Twitter posts (<emph>n</emph> = 64) after political controversy (see case description above) occurred shortly before the final school board vote. Tweets largely urged the school board to approve the proposed new policy, so we included them in our data set (beyond the 219 items in table 2), but we did not use them to answer research questions 1 or 2.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-10">Data Analysis</hd> <p>A research team subgroup (a high school student, three master's students, two doctoral students, a policy professional, and a professor) began data analysis with the collaborative review of interview transcripts and documents to identify themes (Saldaña and Omasta [<reflink idref="bib48" id="ref54">48</reflink>]). We next developed a list of codes, which combined structural, deductive codes, drawn from the broader study's literature review and framework (e.g., formal and informal power, rules of discourse, historical policy context) with emergent, inductive codes (e.g., denial of power, fairness, Metropolis neighborhoods; Saldaña [<reflink idref="bib47" id="ref55">47</reflink>]). Other codes indicate the speaker's role (e.g., school board member, student) and comments about different parties (e.g., "speaking about students"). Three team member pairs used qualitative coding software (NVivo) to code a sample of interview transcripts and other documents to establish intercoder agreement about the definitions and application of these codes, discussing discrepancies and adjusting code definitions where necessary. Once pairs reached an agreement, they applied all codes to the entire database. Coded data were shared with team members who did not have NVivo access (the high school student and the policy professional) to ensure that they had opportunities to provide feedback during those stages of the analysis process.</p> <p>To answer research questions 1 and 2, we created a "framing of student needs" code in which the speaker or writer asserted what students needed with regard to SPS admissions. The first three authors applied this code to all material already coded as "speaking about students." Interestingly, we applied the "framing of student needs" code to transcripts for 3 of 4 student actor interviewees but only 4 of 24 adult actor interviewees. Otherwise, this code was applied in a representative manner across other types of documents in our database. We then compared "framing of student needs" coded content between students and adults.</p> <p>To answer research question 3, we collaboratively compiled lists of actions taken by each group and then consolidated those to make categories of activity, some of which involved students and adults (school board and subcommittee membership, public comment, information sharing, organizing outside of MSD-sanctioned space, petitions, Twitter posts). Other activity categories involved only adults (conventional media interviews, school board votes, meeting leadership, and agenda creation). No categories involved only students. We then compared the nature of actions across groups, and also to each group's framing of student needs. Our document data did not allow us to identify the ethno-racial, gender, or social class identities of every speaker or author. We, therefore, disappointingly, could not analyze data from these perspectives. This limitation kept us from identifying ways these identities might have interacted with one another or the policy process.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-11">Trustworthiness</hd> <p>Because our study compares students' and adults' concurrent policy framing and subsequent actions, trustworthiness strategies were essential to our comparisons' soundness (Maxwell [<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref56">34</reflink>]). These efforts centrally involved our intersectionally diverse team's positionalities. Our identities included an age range from 17 to 55 years; multiple gender identities; parent and nonparent statuses; Metropolis residents and nonresidents; Asian American, Latinx (three different countries of origin, first- and second-generation immigrants), and European American ethno-racial identities; and diverse professional foci (policy, academic research, organizing, law, K–12 teaching, full-time student).</p> <p>Our varied positionalities with regard to youth-focused education policy formation created researcher triangulation (Archibald [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref57">1</reflink>]) and helped us interact curiously and critically with our data. Adult members' adultist perspectives likely informed our initially divergent images of a "successful" policy effort and of differences between adult and youth actions. To ensure rigor, we had to mitigate against status and age hierarchies on our team. The lead author solicited all members' input (speaking after others shared their impressions, questions, and opinions) in team meetings, code development and application, and comments on shared documents. Group members signaled when research or policy jargon was unfamiliar to them or might have been to others so that more accessible language could be used. Smaller work groups (e.g., coding teams) also helped to democratize intellectual power in the team. We endeavored explicitly to value and challenge all members' suggestions equally (Phillippo and Nolan [<reflink idref="bib43" id="ref58">43</reflink>]).</p> <p>Our CCS generated triangulated data (Flick [<reflink idref="bib25" id="ref59">25</reflink>]) across participant groups and across documents from a breadth of sources. We also engaged in member checks about our tentative conclusions with student and adult interview participants. During data collection, we used second interviews (which some participants requested due to availability constraints) to check the accuracy of first interviews and to share tentative conclusions based on data collected so far. We also vetted tentative conclusions with two SSS members and one veteran community leader. Finally, we obtained peer review of our work at academic conferences and via informal peer feedback.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-12">Findings</hd> <p>Gulfs between actors' <emph>experience positionality</emph> and <emph>policy formation positionality</emph> contributed to the adoption of policy that reflected adult (rather than student) framing of student needs from SPS admissions. Students more directly experienced SPS admissions policy and district policy in general, and they advocated for changes that would shape their schooling experiences, yet they were structurally distanced from district policy formation structures and processes. Conversely, although adults had more distant SPS admissions experience positionality, their policy formation positionality was one of far more direct influence. Students were marginalized within, if not excluded altogether by, district structures and adult-centered discourse about SPS admissions. The resulting policy, described above in greater detail, concerned only the contents of the SPS application portfolio (test scores and grades) and the distribution of open seats across applicants, priorities expressed predominantly by adults.</p> <p>To illuminate this mismatch, we first illustrate how students described their needs during the deliberation about possible admissions policy changes, highlighting their concern about a broad range of schooling issues that included but exceeded SPS access. Next, we contrast how adult policy actors described students' needs in a more abstract manner, concerned primarily with SPS access. We then describe adult actions related to admissions policy, which reveal adult domination of formal policy processes. Although students participated in some of the same formal policy spaces, their marginalization led some to more peripheral actions. We demonstrate how those student actions helped to provide mutual support and to publicize student concerns to a wider audience. In our write-up, we endeavored to balance word count for student and adult findings, a challenge given the disproportionate number of adult actors and policy actions.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-13">Student Framing of Student Needs: High Experience Positionality, Concern with Life in School</hd> <p>Throughout our data set, we found relatively few occasions where student actors addressed SPS access directly. Fourteen students (see table 3) addressed student needs at school board and SSS meetings and on one occasion in a coauthored (with an adult actor) news media release. They were outnumbered by adult speakers by a ratio of 10 to 1 and spoke on far fewer occasions (19 for students vs. 190 for adults). Strikingly, no media interviews directly engaged current MSD students.</p> <p>Table 3. Description of Student Needs from Selective Public Schools (SPS) Admissions Policy Process: Speakers and Nature of Their Comments, Drawn from Document Data Set</p> <p> <ephtml> <table><thead><tr><th style="border-bottom: solid thin black" valign="bottom" scope="col" rowspan="1" colspan="1" /><th align="center" style="border-bottom: solid thin black" valign="bottom" scope="col" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Students</th><th align="center" style="border-bottom: solid thin black" valign="bottom" scope="col" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Adults</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Total public speakers (some making multiple comments over time)</th><td rowspan="2" colspan="1">14 individuals on 19 occasions</td><td rowspan="2" colspan="1">137 individuals on 190 occasions</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Includes statements quoted in media coverage, school board, and SSS meetings (both members and public commenters)</th></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Total interview commenters pertaining to student needs</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">3 (of 4)</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4 (of 24)</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" valign="bottom" rowspan="1">Access to SPS:</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Emphasis on academic qualification (e.g., insistence on "bright" students' access to SPS, need for fairer measurement of qualification, need to "earn" seat academically)</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">10</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">68</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Concerns about proportions of seats awarded to different groups of students (e.g., maintain prepandemic SPS access, proportional representation in SPS)</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">49</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Concerns about provision of equitable opportunity (e.g., special consideration of students with unique needs and marginalized students, marginalized students' capacity to "handle" SPS rigor)</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">34</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Need for application process information</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Total</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">15</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">151</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" valign="bottom" rowspan="1">Educational needs other than SPS access:</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Stronger and more responsive school system overall, rather than simply expanded access to existing SPS</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">5</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">24</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Learning experience needs (e.g., learn the value of hard work, academic rigor, demographically diverse school peers)</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">15</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Students do not need to attend SPS to have an enriched school experience</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">2</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Total</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">7</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">39</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" valign="bottom" rowspan="1">Well-being needs:</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Holistic care related to broader issues such as the pandemic and poverty</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">3</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Harmfully treated by the admissions process</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">8</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">9</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Supportive and affirmative school climate</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">5</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">6</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Total</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">17</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">18</td></tr><tr><td colspan="3" valign="bottom" rowspan="1">Political process needs:</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Student voice/representation in policy formation process</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">1</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Elected school board</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">0</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1"> Total</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">4</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">5</td></tr><tr><th valign="bottom" scope="row" rowspan="1" colspan="1">Total comments across all categories</th><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">43</td><td valign="bottom" rowspan="1" colspan="1">213</td></tr></tbody></table> </ephtml> </p> <p>Graph</p> <p>6 Note. SSS = Selective Schools Subcommittee.</p> <p>The largest number of student comments about student needs (<reflink idref="bib17" id="ref60">17</reflink>) involved student well-being, within SPS and also throughout MSD. Although these comments often connected to SPS admissions, they sought policy action beyond SPS access (who would be admitted and why). These comments nearly equaled the number (<reflink idref="bib18" id="ref61">18</reflink>) made by the much larger adult speaker group. Although a few student comments in this section involved the needs of marginalized students amid the pandemic, most concerned negative student experiences of the SPS admissions process and specific SPS's interpersonal and racial climates. Student public commenters and representatives described the admissions process as stressful and at times belittling. An SPS student recalled the moments before their entrance exam, talking with a white student from another school: "He said that he took than more five practice tests, and quite a few test prep classes. Meanwhile, we had hardly any preparation at all. We had to study anything we could, going online and also talking to our friends' brothers and sisters who went to SPS." A student SSS member commented that students admitted to SPS were "uplifted," but they were considered "dumb" if rejected. SPS students also described negative experiences within SPS. One said that "it's simply not just the test that needs to change, but also the schools," speaking about a widespread marginalization of students of color, "bullying," "microaggressions," and "racist jokes." They asserted that students of color "want to go to a school that makes them feel comfortable, and that welcomes them." "It's a constant fight," Onyx (student interviewee of color) said about students of color in their SPS, "whether it be academics, race, your class." Onyx concluded, "No one really believes in our success."</p> <p>A slightly smaller group of students (<reflink idref="bib15" id="ref62">15</reflink>) addressed SPS access-related needs. These comments often focused on SPS access, and they largely concerned academic qualifications (10 of 15). Two suggested more inclusive academic qualification procedures, such as a lottery for all students with a B average or above, or an option to retake the entrance exam. Most of the students' access-related comments—like those made by many adult actors—decried policies that apportioned spots across Metropolis's neighborhoods and conveyed a sense of lost access to schools that they felt they earned via high academic performance. An aspiring SPS applicant asked the SSS, "If our hard work can't get us the best opportunities for our education, then what do we do to earn them?" More pointedly, a student denied admission to their preferred SPS stated, "The [temporary admissions] system is biased against Asian American and Caucasian families.... That is unfair. We work hard to get in." Four of 15 comments in this grouping concerned equitable access for underrepresented groups including homeless students, those in state care, lower-income students, and students of color. "Having been through the foster care system and homelessness, I am especially glad to see attention to those issues," a student representative said about the proposed permanent policy.</p> <p>Even though the policy process centered on SPS access, students voiced frustration with that narrow focus. Jordan (interviewee) felt that revised SPS access policy would be insufficient to improve student access or experiences at SPS: "This proposal won't do it justice, it won't bring in enough Black students into the schools ... the proposal also doesn't address the fact that the schools have a lack of funding.... What if these kids don't get into these [SPS] schools? You're going to send them to a school that doesn't even have a front door, full of police officers." Morgan (interviewee) expressed fatigue with "having to explain to adults who are already supposed to know this stuff why standardized testing is racist and why the current structure we were trying to temporarily change was never a structure that should have been in place to begin with." Pointedly, an SPS student speaking at a board meeting criticized officials' and attendees' heated debate over admission metrics rather than other urgent issues: "Where's the concern, protest, and outrage about our students who have to deal with homelessness, or who don't have enough food? ... Why are we more worried about an entrance exam this year, instead of about our city's real inequities?"</p> <p>We wondered whether this relatively small number of students' comments about access reflected their sense of limited voice in the policy formation process. Even comments about MSD's political processes—such as a student SSS member's desire for more MSD student "input about the decisions our group will make"—underscored students' wish for a greater voice in policy making. In addition, though, student comments focused on negative experiences during and after the admissions process, suggesting needs beyond access metrics (adults' predominant focus). Students' greater experience positionality, ironically, seemed off-topic in a largely adult conversation that centered on access metrics.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-14">Adult Description of Student Needs: Less Experience Positionality, Focused on Access</hd> <p>Adults' description of student needs numerically overpowered students' descriptions overall (see table 3), in two categories (access and educational needs other than SPS), and in the numbers of both speakers and occasions. A smaller proportion of adult interviewees (4 of 24 total) discussed student needs, focusing instead on the politics of SPS admissions and the policy revision process. Adults' comments about student needs largely concerned SPS access and, to a lesser degree, learning needs related to SPS access. These assertions rarely squared with student-framed needs, illustrating adult actors' more limited experience positionality regarding SPS admissions.</p> <p>Adults most frequently described student needs for SPS access (71% of all adult comments across all table 3 categories), which is ultimately what the SPS admissions policy addressed. These commenters had a wide span politically, ethno-racially, and geographically within Metropolis. Among their 151 comments about SPS access, nearly half supported academic performance as the key metric for access, even if they also wanted more inclusive policies. These comments included defense of an entrance exam ("Exams evaluate a person's skills and measure their knowledge. They make a person's socioeconomic status a lot less important"), concern about the use and validity of grade point average as a criterion for admission, and the rejection of a lottery system as inadequate. Adults pushing for merit-driven SPS access used language like "hard-working," "qualified," "smartest," and "deserving." One parent disparaged the geographic or demographic distribution of SPS seats, framing lower-income families as incapable and irresponsible: "Please give more support to the poorer families to help them become supportive, responsible, dedicated parents. To echo what the SSS chairperson stressed so many times, the kids who work hard are who deserve a seat at an SPS." Although some access-oriented adults acknowledged historic racial disparities in SPS admissions, they too encouraged the selection of a different entrance exam rather than no exam. An SSS member, for example, advocated for different uses of an entrance exam: "It could help determine what the applicant pool is for different neighborhoods, or a cut-off score, so that we could figure out different groups' ability to fully benefit from our SPS."</p> <p>Other adults emphasized students' proportional access to SPS (49 of 151 adults' access comments). These adults—elected officials, SPS alumni, educators, parents, and community advocates—called out SPS's historic underrepresentation of Black and Latinx students. A local advocacy organization's press release, for example, read, "Smart children live in every Metropolis neighborhood," naming neighborhoods historically associated with groups of varying socioeconomic status and ethno-racial identities. Other parents and community advocates also called for proportionate representation, but they focused on the number of seats in their neighborhoods "lost" as a result of the temporary policy. For example, a parent public commenter asserted, "Not even half of our zip code's top students will have access" to MPS's most prestigious SPS. No student speakers identified proportional SPS access as a need.</p> <p>A smaller subset of access-oriented adult comments (<reflink idref="bib34" id="ref63">34</reflink>) raised concerns about equitable student experiences among English-language learners, low-income students, and special education students. Some suggested marginalized students' limited capacity for rigorous academic work. One parent stated: "For students who get into an SPS but are not prepared, if the challenging courses are harder than they are capable of, the pressure on them will be huge. It could damage their self-esteem, cause them depression, it could lead to thoughts of suicide." Others saw admissions policy change as a necessary move toward equity. One adult, a researcher and parent, argued in favor of a lottery system and characterized the SPS admissions process as a system that pitted students against one another: "There would be less harm done to students if all secondary schools used lottery admissions, and they would not be labeled things like 'undeserving' and 'losers' while others are called 'hard-working' and 'winners.'"</p> <p>The second largest group of adult comments (<reflink idref="bib39" id="ref64">39</reflink>) involved student educational needs other than SPS access. A few asserted that students needed an improved, more responsive school system and that MSD would be better served by policy that could address system-wide concerns rather than only SPS. In some cases, this group expressed a sentiment that proposed policy would not generate or create enough change for most MSD students. A local leader and SPS alumnus illustrated this point: "I would like to see MSD restart the test, but also they should put attention on the areas that will help all of our students excel." Others—both those for and against efforts to diversify SPS enrollment—argued that SPS admissions reform was misguided, urging, instead, improvement of the "pipeline" between feeder schools and SPS schools.</p> <p>Interestingly, other adults (but no students) spoke of educational needs that concerned student values as a by-product of SPS admissions encounters. One parent compared dog training to the notion of rewarding high-performing students with SPS access: "If you want your dog to fetch, you must only give him a treat when he fetches correctly." This parent voiced concern that admissions policy driven by anything other than academic performance would falsely reward lower-achieving students. Other adult actors, mostly parents, argued that students would lose the motivation to study hard if they could not pursue SPS admission. These more abstract comments reflect adults' reduced policy experience positionality.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-15">Adult Actions: Central, Dominant Policy Positionality</hd> <p>Although adults operated at a greater distance from SPS admissions policy than students did, they dominated the policy change process. Their policy formation positionality was one of centrality and near total hegemony in both official and unofficial (e.g., print media coverage, social media) policy discourse spaces. Even before the formal policy review process began, a series of disputes about students occurred among adults, with no evident involvement of students themselves. The superintendent, the CEO of the testing company that had long provided the entrance exam, community leaders, and members of the MSD racial equity subcommittee (which had no student members) engaged in an extended dispute over the discontinuation of the current entrance exam, its replacement with another, and whether the district ought to administer an entrance exam at all. Every formal, public actor in this series of events was an adult, as were individuals speaking publicly in school board meetings and in media interviews. The closest to a student speaker was one SPS alumnus in their early twenties, quoted once in print media, who spoke critically of the challenges they had faced as an applicant of color. They found a way to prepare for the test, got admitted, and went on to an elite university, but they found the prepandemic policy "not a particularly fair way to judge students' knowledge."</p> <p>Once the school board voted to explore SPS admissions, subsequent formal actions included but also marginalized youths. MSD's superintendent and school board convened two groups (the IG and the SSS) to weigh options about SPS admissions and make recommendations, first for a temporary policy and then for a longer-term policy. The IG had no student representatives. An adult school board member questioned that arrangement. The (adult) board president responded that the quick timeline made it impossible to include students, explaining, "We agree that our students have useful perspective to share. As I already mentioned, though, the IG is already meeting." At this point, both board members moved on without further attention to IG student membership. The SSS had some student representation (below 20% of total membership), after agitation by the board's youth representative, a student organization, adult board members, and public commenters. Stacy, an adult SSS member interviewee, shared that very little was done to orient student SSS members (which Stacy ultimately did), leaving them largely on their own to participate and contribute.</p> <p>Adults also dominated the SSS's solicitation and review of information and policy recommendation development. The adult SSS chairpersons formulated recommendations to the board based on the group's perceived consensus, without a final vote among members that might have more clearly demonstrated student members' positions. The superintendent selected a recommendation to present to the board, which only adult board members cast their votes to ratify. Even the conflicts over the policy process—legal challenges; leaked text messages; accusations of SSS members' poor qualifications, racial bias, and ulterior motives; and elected officials' alleged attempts to manipulate the SSS's recommendation—involved solely adults.</p> <p>So, too, public discourse about SPS admissions policy was conducted almost entirely by adults. As discussed above (table 3), adults constituted the vast majority (137 of 151) of public commenters about student needs. Media coverage was likewise adult-saturated. In addition to the (adult) journalists who created media pieces (articles, radio stories), all of their interviewees were also adults. In the Twitter firestorm after elected officials' alleged attempt to sway the SSS's recommendation, all but one of the dozens of tweeters was an adult (parents, elected officials, professional organizers, and educators). Adults' more distant experience positionality appeared almost irrelevant to their central policy formation positionality. Unsurprisingly, then, adults' emphasis on SPS access as the most important student need was reflected in access-centered policy text.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-16">Student Actions: Marginalized and Then Repositioned Policy Formation Positionality</hd> <p>Students participated in the policy process through both formal pathways and student-led actions. When district-sanctioned pathways constrained the extent to which students could participate in policy formation, some strategically and self-protectively moved toward student-led political education and activism. From this more distant location, student actors experienced more agency but saw few of their stated needs reflected in the final policy.</p> <p>Student actors' formal policy process involvement was extremely limited. The school board had only one student representative, who, unlike adult members, was neither compensated nor eligible to vote. A student public commenter asked: "Isn't it ironic that MSD's only elected board member is this student who has no vote? Who represents me and thousands of other students and you're telling me that only they don't have a vote? This turns the idea of student voice into just lip service."</p> <p>Further, all student interviewees described a lack of latitude in their attempts to engage through formal pathways. Onyx warned students against joining the SSS because "whether you're on it or not, it's going to have the same result every time." They occasionally had access to key decision makers, but over time they lost confidence that their access would result in change:</p> <p>I wanted to introduce what I was thinking, and I don't know, in some dumb way I thought [the mayor] would be like, 'Yeah, you're right.' ... I wish I can mind control the mayor and have this type of access ... the way these white people are (with the mayor), where I can also push in a way that makes the mayor feel like they will win, they will benefit off what I say because my voice and my power is just as strong, but I mean, look at me. Off the bat, no one's going to take that type of thing seriously.</p> <p>Students who did engage in the policy formation process described their roles as highly performative and often unacknowledged. Morgan, a one-time student representative, described their experience: "After those official meetings had ended, we were like, what the hell just happened? Everything went in one ear and out the other. That was a waste of time. What are we even doing here?" Student SSS and school board representatives spoke up regularly in meetings, but their comments were structurally and numerically overwhelmed by adult input. Similarly, some student public commenters expressed that they felt ignored. An SPS student delivered a student petition with hundreds of signatures to the school board, and the board's first response was the board president's acknowledgment days later, during a public board meeting, and only after the student public commenter mentioned it publicly.</p> <p>Information access was a major barrier to students' formal participation. Lee (interviewee) shared, "Students who weren't a part of [SPS student] groups like student council didn't know what was going on." Some, like Onyx, described this lack of information as racialized: "Families still don't know about it [policy formation process]. There's already so many problems, so many hurdles created mainly for Black families that don't know about this, because the white families definitely do, they were all logging on [to virtual meetings], talking shit about it [proposed policy revisions]."</p> <p>When district pathways failed to meaningfully engage students, some turned to actions that rejected the legitimacy of MSD's processes for incorporating student voice. A group of Black and Brown student representatives collectively resigned from their positions and spoke publicly about the harm they had experienced during their participation in district decision-making spaces. Morgan described this process, saying that other student representatives "were just so tired of the adultism and feeling like whatever they had to say wasn't being received by the people they were working with. They just left."</p> <p>Interviewees described political action within MSD but outside of district-created structures. They spoke of information sessions with peers, a Black Student Union (BSU), student-initiated petitions, and public media activity. We learned in interviews (rather than via MSD meetings or media coverage) of most of these student-initiated and student-led activities. This difference suggests that formal policy spaces were not necessarily the locus of student voice or empowerment. Morgan heard from peers expressing confusion and frustration about proposed policy changes. In response, they held an information session about the policy and how students could engage, explaining, "We have the responsibility to reach out to our constituents in whatever capacity we can and let them know in a way that they understand that x, y, and z is going on and let them know how they can get involved if they want to." Onyx shared that the BSU was a space for "teaching them [students] about the school board because ... none of these students know about the school board, they have no idea that their lives are being voted on." Students understood this information-sharing as peer empowerment to navigate district systems and take their own action, Morgan explaining, "If you feel some type of way about it, here's what you can do to express your opinions."</p> <p>Other students stayed engaged with the formal policy process, which they used to call attention to and counter the process's lack of student voice. An SSS student representative requested to host a student listening session to get input from students on the policy, and an adult on the SSS asked, "Why not make it a formal listening session?" The session was held, but Stacy (an SSS member aware of the session) described district promotion of the event as minimal, adding, "Not a lot of people showed up as a result of that." Another student representative coauthored (with an adult colleague) a public statement of "dissent" following the SSS's admissions policy recommendations. They presented an alternative policy vision that advocated for test-blind, lottery-based admissions and the addition of system-wide practices emphasizing decolonization of curriculum and a whole-district performance assessment system centered on learning opportunities such as "community service, collaborative research, and inquiry-driven learning," which they felt would support learning via more rigorous and relevant instruction. Collectively, student actions during the admissions policy process showed substantial engagement and a desire to influence change, but from a greater distance. This distance, both created by MSD structures and claimed self-protectively by students, contributed to a policy that did not respond to the broader needs related to SPS that most student actors identified.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-17">Discussion and Implications</hd> <p>The present study compares student and adult policy actors' involvement in the process of forming new SPS admissions policy in MSD. Comparison of each group's (<emph>a</emph>) framing of student policy needs and (<emph>b</emph>) actions taken during the policy formation process reveals telling differences that help explain the ultimate approved policy. Even though students possessed greater experience positionality (direct experience related to the policy in question) than adult actors did, adult actors' description of student needs was more tangibly reflected in the finalized policy, which focused exclusively on SPS access. This mismatch pairs with adult actors' much more powerful policy formation positionality, in which they (rather than students) took most actions that produced and ratified the new admissions policy. Marginalized and tokenized during the policy formation process, students did not realize their calls for policy that involved greater attention to student well-being within and beyond the SPS admissions process. Although we recognize potential absences from our study's data, our study's findings inform important implications in the areas of policy formation theory, youth engagement in policy formation, and youth voice scholarship.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-18">Limitations: Absent Voices</hd> <p>Before we elaborate on our study's contributions, we attend to those absent from our data set. Our knowledge of youth actors only occurred via public meetings and documents. This necessity led our team to rely on data that yielded an adult-heavy sample, given that adults made all media comments and most public meeting statements. Our interview data also skewed toward adults, given students' limited public involvement in the policy formation process. Youth actors we could identify contributed meaningfully to our learning, but they were outnumbered. In addition, student interviewees highlighted that many student actions, voices, and solutions were excluded from the formal policy processes or simply ignored, so our noninterview data set may have missed other student activities. These limitations underscore the marginalization that student interviewees described. The lack of student data to even analyze concretely demonstrates limited channels for student engagement.</p> <p>We also note the likely absence of students and adults who may have not participated in the public policy formation process via public meetings, statements, or media interviews. Although MSD-sponsored meetings were well attended and had high levels of engagement through public comment and subsequent media coverage, individual actors in our data set represent only student and adult actors who knew about and were able to engage in the policy formation process. We missed other policy actors either because they did not participate in interviews with us or because they did not participate in public meetings (or participated but did not fully represent their viewpoints). Others, particularly students, may have gone underrepresented because media sources did not solicit or describe their input (itself a reflection on policy problem framing). Multiple adult policy actors declined interview invitations, explaining by phone (to avoid a written record, they said) concerns about harming either their own careers or the policy process itself. Also noteworthy are individuals fearful of public attention due to their documentation status and those concerned about negative repercussions within their schools, their children's schools, or their places of employment.</p> <p>The absence of stakeholders who perceived themselves as vulnerable—something we can only speculate apart from prospective interviewees' stated reasons for declining—reflects today's heightened nature of political scrutiny. Although public meetings offer rich participation opportunities, their documentation via accessible videos and transcripts creates lasting surveillance potential. A lawsuit against MSD over its temporary SPS admissions policy made that sense of surveillance tangible—a topic from our broader study that we address elsewhere (Phillippo et al. [<reflink idref="bib41" id="ref65">41</reflink>])—as has the US climate of trolling school board members and district leaders (Borter et al. [<reflink idref="bib11" id="ref66">11</reflink>]). These study limitations reflect the heightened risks of public civic engagement. Such absences may skew the data that inform policy decisions and thereby impair subsequent policy's responsiveness to constituents, yet another mismatch. Further, the need to de-identify our participants and selected case caused a fainter portrayal of Metropolis's local contexts and stakeholders, shaping what others can learn from it.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-19">Positionality: A Window into Forms and Uses of Power during the Policy Process</hd> <p>Our findings also convey how power manifests and operates within policy spaces. Although the notion of policy positionality is not new (Ball et al. [<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref67">3</reflink>]), the present, comparative study of concurrent student and adult engagement extends this knowledge, identifying distinctions in kinds of policy positionality. Scholars have explored different kinds of policy actor positionality, including institutional, ethno-racial, geographic, nationality, professional background, political value, developmental, and socioeconomic (Martínez [<reflink idref="bib33" id="ref68">33</reflink>]; Phillippo et al. [<reflink idref="bib42" id="ref69">42</reflink>]; Sheppard [<reflink idref="bib50" id="ref70">50</reflink>]). Our study, aided by the novel incorporation of policy cycles theory (Bacchi [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref71">2</reflink>]), identifies policy experience positionality and policy formation positionality. In combination (high experience positionality alongside low policy formation positionality for students, the inverse for adults), these facilitated adult domination of the policy process and a policy that reflected adult framing of student needs. When identified and used analytically, such positionalities can help policy actors and scholars identify points of potential policy attunement, leverage, benefit, and harm.</p> <p>By identifying experience and formation policy positionality, and the mismatch between the two, we also highlight greater nuance and detail in the "context of influence" (Vidovich [<reflink idref="bib55" id="ref72">55</reflink>]) among invested individuals jockeying for position. Neither neutral nor binary, the relative positioning of actors engaged in the context of influence did shape who could engage in different policy formation activities (e.g., IG membership), the nature of actors' potential involvement, and whether these spaces even felt habitable. Although others have insightfully illustrated how power shapes policy formation process outcomes (e.g., Bacchi [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref73">2</reflink>]), we offer comparative, empirical evidence of contextual, relative determinants of power. Talk of structures and policies may inaccurately render adult actors innocent, even though policies are human creations. Our findings illustrate the multiple channels through which adults' vision became policy.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-20">Policy Positionality Is Malleable</hd> <p>Although policy formation positionality tilted SPS admissions policy toward adult actor priorities, this situation was sturdy but not inevitable. Adult actors' dominance of MSD's policy formation process highlights spaces where policy structures could more fully incorporate student actors and their perspectives. One approach could build authentic student inclusion into existing structures. Districts could alter the ways in which they gather student input, for example, by increasing the number of student school board representatives, providing authentic orientation to the role, compensating them, allowing them to vote, and providing for a student- rather than adult-driven selection process. Likewise, districts could structure student input into school leadership, educator hiring, or school change efforts.</p> <p>These types of changes, however, represent more incremental approaches that tinker with existing structures (Tyack and Cuban [<reflink idref="bib53" id="ref74">53</reflink>]) without disrupting preeminent power distribution (McMahon and Portelli [<reflink idref="bib35" id="ref75">35</reflink>]). While YPAR-type projects are poised to guide districts toward more substantive change, extant scholarship (e.g., Bertrand and Lozenski [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref76">9</reflink>]) highlights how adult policy actors not only appreciate but also dismiss youth-generated information. Our findings of student alienation from the policy process lead us to caution districts to resist the superficial incorporation of youth voice into adult-driven authority structures and institutional logics. Instead, we encourage districts to integrate authentic youth input about how and to what extent students can be involved in policy formation and what structures could facilitate such efforts. The scholars cited in our literature review provide excellent strategies for youths to gather and share information; it is incumbent upon adult policy makers to truly make use of it.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-21">Youth Voice Scholarship Contributions</hd> <p>This study also expands upon scholarship in the student voice space that raises questions about what counts as legitimate youth policy engagement. We contribute data that place student policy actors in real time alongside adult actors, extending from literature that considers more youth-specific activities like those summarized by Kirshner ([<reflink idref="bib31" id="ref77">31</reflink>]) and Mitra and Kirshner ([<reflink idref="bib38" id="ref78">38</reflink>]). In so doing, we demonstrate how adults overshadow even the framing of student needs, the ostensive policy problem at hand, making student concerns seem, ironically, peripheral. In turn, adult actors generated policy that did not substantively address student experience. Like scholars before us (e.g., Cook-Sather [<reflink idref="bib20" id="ref79">20</reflink>]), and informed by empirical data, we call on education leaders, researchers, and policy makers to critically consider how the processes and dynamics of policy formation manage, erase, and delegitimize the kinds of political activity young people enact. Fielding ([<reflink idref="bib24" id="ref80">24</reflink>]) questions the values and power systems embedded in spaces or sites of policy making, and the present study's student participants brought those power systems, and their effects on the policy process, to life. Our evidence extends from these questions, demonstrating that student policy engagement spans a range of sites, tactics, and genres.</p> <p>Importantly, our findings reveal that student-initiated policy action often operates outside of formal policy-making spaces and addresses students' needs via activities that students experience as safer. These spaces are pertinent to policy concerns but may go overlooked. For example, public comment is often treated as a primary, legitimate way for stakeholders to engage in policy formation, whereas other kinds of direct action to which student participants were drawn, like political education, petitions, and smaller student groups, were scarcely visible during the public policy formation process. We also highlight the continued relevance of space (both physical and virtual) to both policy formation and student voice literature, suggesting that the intersection of power and physical sites of decision making can meaningfully shape youth policy engagement and disengagement.</p> <hd id="AN0184995260-22">Conclusion</hd> <p>After describing how educators historically grouped and taught children in ways that were ineffective if not damaging, Deschenes et al. ([<reflink idref="bib22" id="ref81">22</reflink>], 528) wrote, "We are convinced that unless practitioners, policy makers, and researchers question how problems are framed, including misconceptions and omissions, they may implement solutions ... that may hurt children rather than help them." They characterized such unattuned efforts as a "mismatch" with the students' living and learning contexts. We also see a mismatch in Metropolis's process of revising the SPS admissions policy. Although this process and its results met many stakeholders' goals for increasing equitable access to SPS, it was tailored more to adults' priorities and understandings of student needs. Students, although drastically underrepresented in the policy formation process, made their needs known, but those needs appear faintly in the ultimate policy. As so many press for young people's attendance, engagement, and growth in schools, we would do well to more fully heed students' efforts to explain their experiences and needs. If we do not, we should not feel surprised if they reject what schools offer or engage only superficially.</p> <ref id="AN0184995260-23"> <title> Notes </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref57" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Kate Phillippo is a professor in the Schools of Social Work and Education, and associate dean of graduate studies, at Loyola University Chicago. 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  Label: Title
  Group: Ti
  Data: How Policy Positionality Helps Explain Policy That Does Not Fit Students
– Name: Language
  Label: Language
  Group: Lang
  Data: English
– Name: Author
  Label: Authors
  Group: Au
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Kate+Phillippo%22">Kate Phillippo</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Caitlin+Power%22">Caitlin Power</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Matt+Leo%22">Matt Leo</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Peter+Piazza%22">Peter Piazza</searchLink>
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  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22American+Journal+of+Education%22"><i>American Journal of Education</i></searchLink>. 2025 131(3):303-330.
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  Data: University of Chicago Press. Journals Division, P.O. Box 37005, Chicago, IL 60637. Tel: 877-705-1878; Tel: 773-753-3347; Fax: 877-705-1879; Fax: 773-753-0811; e-mail: subscriptions@press.uchicago.edu; Web site: http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/journals/aje/about
– Name: PeerReviewed
  Label: Peer Reviewed
  Group: SrcInfo
  Data: Y
– Name: Pages
  Label: Page Count
  Group: Src
  Data: 28
– Name: DatePubCY
  Label: Publication Date
  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
– Name: TypeDocument
  Label: Document Type
  Group: TypDoc
  Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Research
– Name: Subject
  Label: Descriptors
  Group: Su
  Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Educational+Policy%22">Educational Policy</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Policy+Formation%22">Policy Formation</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Public+Schools%22">Public Schools</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Admission+%28School%29%22">Admission (School)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Policy+Analysis%22">Policy Analysis</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Needs%22">Student Needs</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Student+Participation%22">Student Participation</searchLink>
– Name: DOI
  Label: DOI
  Group: ID
  Data: 10.1086/734908
– Name: ISSN
  Label: ISSN
  Group: ISSN
  Data: 0195-6744<br />1549-6511
– Name: Abstract
  Label: Abstract
  Group: Ab
  Data: Purpose: By comparing concurrent youth and adult engagement in the same policy change process, we sought to inform efforts to substantively and productively involve youth policy actors in education policy formation. This study extends upon a robust research base centered on youth-specific policy activity. Research Methods/Approach: Using comparative case study methods, we identified and analyzed youth and adult engagement in selective public schools (SPS) admissions policy change in "Metropolis School District." Members of our diverse research team--students spanning from high school through doctoral levels, an active policy professional, and a university professor--interviewed student and adult policy actors and analyzed public documents. Findings: Gulfs between actors' experience positionality and policy formation positionality contributed to the adoption of policy that failed to match student-framed policy needs. Youth policy actors more directly experienced the policy in question and advocated for changes that would shape their schooling experiences. Yet they were structurally distanced from, marginalized within, and at times excluded by district policy formation structures and processes. Conversely, although adults had more distant SPS admissions experience positionality, their policy formation positionality was one of far more direct influence amid policy discourse that centered on adults. Implications: These findings inform the discussion of pathways toward fuller student policy engagement. We provide evidence of the powerful impact that relative policy positionalities have on policy formation. We also contribute data that distinguish forms of youth policy activity from district-sanctioned, adult-centered policy activity. Informed by these findings, we suggest ways for policy makers to authentically incorporate youth voice.
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  Group: Date
  Data: 2025
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  Data: EJ1472533
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  BibEntity:
    Identifiers:
      – Type: doi
        Value: 10.1086/734908
    Languages:
      – Text: English
    PhysicalDescription:
      Pagination:
        PageCount: 28
        StartPage: 303
    Subjects:
      – SubjectFull: Educational Policy
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Policy Formation
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Public Schools
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Admission (School)
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Policy Analysis
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Needs
        Type: general
      – SubjectFull: Student Participation
        Type: general
    Titles:
      – TitleFull: How Policy Positionality Helps Explain Policy That Does Not Fit Students
        Type: main
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      – PersonEntity:
          Name:
            NameFull: Kate Phillippo
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            NameFull: Caitlin Power
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            NameFull: Matt Leo
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            NameFull: Peter Piazza
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          Dates:
            – D: 01
              M: 01
              Type: published
              Y: 2025
          Identifiers:
            – Type: issn-print
              Value: 0195-6744
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              Value: 1549-6511
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              Value: 131
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              Value: 3
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            – TitleFull: American Journal of Education
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