Conference Program

In this paper, I draw from my research exploring how adolescents in Italy make sense of their relationships with teachers to discuss the potentialities and challenges of engaging with students reflexively to gain a deeper understanding of school experiences.

I conceive student-teacher relationships (STR) as a dynamic, affective and dialogic relationship between individual students and teachers emerging from their reciprocal (re)actions within the physical, social and ideological setting of the school (Cook-Sather, 2002; Woods, 1978). I extend these ideas to the research framework, drawing from the student voice notion of dialogue as listening and speaking seriously and with respect, recognising the legitimacy of both adult and youth perspectives (Bourke and Loveridge, 2018; Grion and Cook-Sather, 2013). Respect has been a core value and the methodological foundation for foregrounding students’ perspectives in the research and its output, without fully relinquishing interpretative power as the researcher. To translate these premises into practice, critical reflexivity has been embedded in the research from the planning stages to the analysis of the data, following the principles of reflexive thematic analysis. 42 semi‑structured interviews were conducted with middle and high school students (ages 13–17) and teachers, online and in-person, between January and April 2025. During the interviews, participants were asked to complete a blank classroom diagram, placing their teachers/students, themselves, and factors that contribute to shaping STRs. Inspired by socio‑spatial mapping and relational diagramming approaches, the task allowed participants not only to represent their perceived relational space of the classroom but also to convey experiences through verbal and non-verbal means, supporting those who have a harder time expressing themselves (Donnelly, Gamsu and Whewall, 2020; Bagnoli, 2009; Umoquit et al., 2008). In addition, two focus groups with volunteer student participants were conducted in late May 2025 to establish a dialogue among them, the researchers and the ongoing analysis.

The research presented tried to address the tensions of engaging with young people in a study led by an adult researcher. On the one hand, using the diagrams as part of semi-structured interviews helped different voices to emerge and foster respect and reflexivity throughout the research. Framing relationships in context, the diagram allowed for mediating abstraction and situatedness, as participants represent relationships and dynamics that are meaningful to them within the context in which they exist. Not less importantly, it helped the researcher and participants explore and reflect on aspects of experience that would otherwise have remained untapped. Indeed, the diagram became a tool for reflecting on my positionality as a former student and researcher in becoming, as I created one ahead of the first interview. Nonetheless, the research process presented ethical and practical dilemmas of participation and epistemological power, heightened by the demands of working between two countries (the UK and Italy) with different education systems, cultures, and policies, such as the recruitment of student participants and the power dynamics of the interview encounter.

Ultimately, the paper offers methodological insights into how we can value young people’s perspectives while navigating the ethical dilemmas of their participation in research.