A scoping review of student involvement in curriculum development and reform: the silent majority?

Abstract

This scoping review, covering literature published from 2003 to 2023, maps existing research on student involvement in curriculum development and reform and calls for deeper inquiry into their agency in decision-making. Curriculum development and reform are an important focus of education systems around the world. Yet curriculum making is a complex process, occurring across diverse contexts and involving multiple actors. Within schools, teachers and students play key roles in enacting curriculum. However, students frequently remain peripheral to development and reform processes. Efforts to involve students can be tokenistic or lack substantive impact, while research continues to neglect the role of student voice, leaving gaps in understanding how learners contribute to curriculum development, enactment and evaluation. Our review of 35 publications revealed that students are most frequently positioned as evaluators of curriculum reform, less often as informants and least as active participants, with only a few studies describing student engagement across two or all three roles. This review highlights the need for future research to embed student perspectives as a systemic, representative and democratic force in curriculum reform, rather than reducing them to a silent majority.