Mayes, E. & Groundwater-Smith, S. (2013). Performing alternative positions: Student voice, reflection and reform. In Grion, V. and Cook-Sather, A. (Eds.), Student voice: Prospettive internazionali e pratiche emergenti in Italia Milano, Italy: Guerini. 1 English translation of full reference: Mayes, E., & Groundwater-Smith, S. (2013). Performing alternative positions: Student voice, reflection and reform. In V. Grion & A. Cook-Sather (Eds.). (2013). Joining the movement: Bringing student voice to educational theory and practice in Italy. Performing alternative positions: Student voice, reflection and reform Eve Mayes and Susan Groundwater-Smith Abstract This chapter is a reflection on the first three years of a student voice project where Year 9 students were positioned as co-researchers in a low socio-economic school. Three vignettes of students’ performances are explored in order to consider the significance of adopting alternative positions for reflection in individuals and schools. We argue that student voice opens a space where students and teachers can step outside of their conventional roles, shifting the traditional ‘script’ of deficit messages in school environments. At the same time, the vignettes also point to the multiplicity of possible responses to the invitation to adopt an alternative position. Introduction In this chapter we reflect upon the first three years of a project undertaken by a team of school based practitioners, led by the first author of this paper and facilitated by an academic partner, the second author. In school environments where roles are firmly hierarchical and fixed and deficit messages about students are ubiquitous, we argue that providing opportunities for students to step outside of their conventional roles within the school and ‘perform’ alternative positions has the potential to foster reflective shifts in a sense of identity. This is a move beyond a focus on ‘voice’ as opening a space for students to speak from their personal experiences, to a view that sees the re-positioning of young people and teachers as generative. We explore three examples of such student performances of alternative positions in the form of vignettes, one from each year of the project, in order to reflect on the significance of adopting alternative positions for reflection in individuals and schools. We focus on the reflective shifts in students, with an acknowledgement that more could be said about the shifts in teachers, parents and the wider school community. The ‘script’ and ‘roles’ in the low socio-economic school A certain ‘script’ and set of ‘roles’ operate in schools with a high percentage of students from low socio-economic backgrounds. The deficit messages, low expectations and the focus on teacher control and surveillance of students in these has been well documented (Fair-Go- Team, 2006; Munns, 2007). Traditionally, students at schools with a high proportion of students from a low socio- economic background have received deficit messages about knowledge, ability, control, place and voice than function as “discourses of power” (Fair-Go-Team, 2006). Deficit discourses and pedagogies have been linked to student resistance, low aspiration, a culture of blame and a struggle against ‘the system’ (Connell, Ashenden, Kessler, & Dowsett, 1982; Munns, Zammit, & Woodward, 2008, p. 158). The ‘script’ of social interactions within the school positions students and teachers in set roles. Haberman has critiqued the “pedagogy of poverty” and pointed out the divide between the role of teachers as “in charge and responsible” and the role of students as subjects (2010 [1991], p. 83). Even when there is a desire to relax the