Title: Reclaiming Voice: Power, Representation, and the Politics of Collaboration in Educational Policy
Auhor: Daljit Gill-Badesha, EdD
Abstract: This article critically explores the tensions between collaboration and representation in educational policy development. Drawing on practitioner research and creative expression, the author examines how collaborative spaces can reinforce systems of inequity by privileging certain voices over others. Through personal reflection from the author’s doctoral journey, social constructionism, and Critical Race Theory, the author interrogates who is invited to speak, who is heard, and whose knowledge is legitimized in policy processes. The article includes a poem titled ‘Don’t Speak for Me’ to illustrate the emotional and political dimensions of being spoken for. Ultimately, it calls for an ethical and reflexive approach to collaboration, one that honours lived experience as a form of authority and power.
Keywords: Educational Policy, Voice, Collaboration, Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, Positionality, Representation, Social Constructionism, Lived Experience, Power.
Introduction
Educational policy increasingly invokes the language of collaboration, equity, and inclusion. Yet the lived experiences of those most affected by these policies are often left out of policy development or are included only in tokenistic ways. This disconnect is more than a design flaw; it reflects a deeper epistemic and political tension: who gets to speak, who is spoken for, and who is authorized to represent “community” within education policy?
This article critically examines these problematics through a personal and scholarly lens. As a racialized woman working in multi-organizational settings, I have repeatedly seen how educational policies attempt to include diverse voices while simultaneously silencing or even co-opting them. Drawing on my dissertation research and the poetic expression ‘Don’t Speak for Me’, I explore how power, positionality, and discourse shape collaborative practice and stakeholder participation. Using a social constructionist and intersectional framework, I reflect on what it means to bring one’s full self into policy and collaboration, and perhaps more importantly, what is lost when we do not.
In doing so, this article does not merely advocate for better inclusion mechanisms. It offers a reimagining of collaborative policy development that is not only technically inclusive but emotionally and politically accountable.
Reflective Practice
The UBC – EDLP (University of British Columbia, Educational Leadership and Policy) program is designed to provide doctoral students with space to reflect on their practice, through theory and back to practice. The journey affords the opportunity to find one’svoice in writing and research. The program allowed me to unpack my beliefs, biases, and assumptions so that I am not bound by my limiting definitions of leadership. The process enabled me to identify values that influence me as a practitioner and researcher (Harding, 1992; Saban, 2000; Smith, 2005). The process of exploration and uncovering my assumptions (Butin, 2010) shifted how I understand and frame my practice. Having this reflexive standpoint helped me to situate my location and shaped the questions I asked(Harding, 1992), such as – who am I? And what do I bring to my practice and my research study as a racialized woman?
This line of inquiry fostered a deeper exploration to unpack my identity, history, and roots and empowered me to write from the positionality of a racialized woman. I found my voice as an educator, collaborator, and activist in my research and practice (Joshee, 2008). I gained a deeper understanding of my leadership and values. I reimagined leadership that embodies my roots as a South Asian leader, incorporating dil (a Punjabi word that means heart), rueh (a Punjabi word that means spirit or emotional health, pronounced roo), seva (a Punjabi word that means selfless service) and kaum (a Punjabi word that means community, collectiveness or nation). I unpacked how, in addition to my academic and professional experiences, my worldview is shaped by my experiencesgrowing up as a South Asian woman who comes from an immigrant family from India. My cultural identity and religious background, as a Punjabi Sikh woman, is steeped in an Eastern worldview that is deeply personal and foundational, underpinning my leadership practice.
If the goals of educational policy are to be inclusive, then utilizing Arnstein’s typology of citizen participation with the metaphorical “ladder,” with each rung representing increased levels of citizen agency, control, and power, provides a continuum of how to get from exclusion to inclusion. Arnstein’s ladder of citizen participation (1969) outlines a range or continuum of participatory power that moves from nonparticipation (no power) to degrees of citizen participation (actual power). This range can be informative to outline where and how individuals are given voice and access to power, and to make decisions for themselves and their communities. It is a part of enabling democratic participation in policy. However, power can take many forms and orientations (Gray and Purdy, 2018),and at times, power over can dominate in our current structures. For example, when designing services for refugee children and their families, it is often the decision-makers (with or without lived experience) who choose service models, without including those being served in the planning process (Gill-Badesha, 2023). Gill-Badesha’s (2023) dissertation outlines a case study where co-design by including the intended service recipients, helped inform the positive planning and trajectory of a multi-agency collaborative involving stakeholders from education, health, government, and non-profits.
I argue that the goals of diverse participation require individuals to undergo reflective practice to locate themselves in planning and design, to enable inclusive educational policies and collaborations, from the outset. It is an interrogation that becomes crucial,and questions such as, who is allowed/has power/has privilege to speak and who speaks for others, must be asked if inclusion is an intended outcome. As a racialized leader, I have not always spoken up for myself and have conceded to the powerful and dominant voices in the room and seen this happen with other racialized leaders who are not given authority or credit for their viewpoints. For example, a racialized non-profit leader speaks out on behalf of their clients who are refugees and is overlooked until a dominant, White voice amplifies their message (Gill-Badesha, 2023). Reflecting on my experiences has strengthened my voice, where I feel empowered to include more of my whole self in public policy environments, and reflective practice can benefit other racialized leaders to do the same.
Educational policies aspiring for individual and systemic mechanisms of inclusion require a shift in power for all to participate. In situations of collaboration, Burr’s (2015)social constructionism surfaces where leadership behaviours are constructed within a social space and through interactions with others. These interactions with others shape our behaviours and actions. We need to consider how these interactions ultimately shape leadership and educational outcomes. Furthermore, Burr (2015) asserts that the “different constructions of the world can be judged only in relation to each other and not by comparison with some ultimate standard or truth” (p. 93), a sentiment consistent that there is no one leadership approach in education and richness arises from a multiplicity of voices and approaches.
The doctoral journey spurred a creative voice where I found authenticity and positionality to feel real and sometimes raw but grounding to who I am as a racialized woman. I have discovered a space to voice my power, while acknowledging my positionality. With a renewed sense of voice, the power of poetic expression serves as a tool for holistic expression. My voice is not limited to creative writing, and in fact, flows into my leadership practice and impacts how I show up as a racialized leader. I share one poem that embodies my voice, representation, and power.
Don’t Speak for Me
I have a voice.
Don’t speak for me,
you don’t know my dreams,
my worries,
or my hopes.
Don’t speak for me,
if you haven’t taken the time to understandhow I think,
how I act,or how I love.
Don’t speak for me
if you haven’t felt the pressure of being not enough,
or have been told to your face,that you are less than others.
Don’t speak for me
if you have not walked beside me,
or helped me get back up,
or shared my burden,
so I that I am not carrying it all alone.
Don’t speak for me
if you have not stumbled,
or fallen,
or been so hurt that your insides achethat your outside world crumbles.
Don’t speak for me
if you haven’t had to apologizefor something you did not do,
but it was your dutyto take the responsibility
on behalf of others.
Don’t speak for me
if you haven’t had to keep a secret,
in order to preserve the family,where their honour meant more than yours.
Don’t speak for me
if you haven’t held me close,
while I wailed from the depths of my soul,
and longed to be nurtured,
but you didn’t help me.
Don’t speak for me
if you haven’t touched my handand felt the spark of love flowing from my heart,
waiting to envelope all around me,
and to be validated into existence.
Don’t speak for me
If your privilege is more powerful than mine.
Don’t speak for me.
Because if you have not done these things,
you don’t know me.
Which means,
you can’t represent me.
Don’t speak for me.
I have my own voice.
And I’ll find my own privilege.(written by the author)
Through this poetic expression, I argue individuals must be given space to speak for themselves, and attempts to represent others do not, in any way, bring the lived and diverse experiences, in particular, racialized women, to the forefront. In socially constructed collaborative spaces, reflection and power, rooted in nontraditional forms and experiences, can invite participation supporting inclusive aims.
Collaboration and Intersectionality
Collaboration, as a practice, is situated in the broader socio-political-economic and historical policy ecosystem, which are rooted in Western notions of competition, individualization, and marketization that are part of the calls for collaboration (Weaver-Hightower, 2008). Community-based contexts and policies continue to move towards collaboration across diverse stakeholders, stemming from policy aims, creating both opportunities and challenges for organizations and individuals alike. The K-12 Anti-Racism Action Plan, a provincial initiative launched in 2023, serves as one policy example where the goal is to have safer and more inclusive schools by addressing systemic racism and centering the voices of Indigenous, Black, and other racialized communities in education through increased representation, inclusion and collaboration(Government of British Columbia, 2023).
With the increasing focus on diverse participation in collaboration, the issues of power and positionality become essential to discuss. Having participated in many variations of multi-stakeholder collaboration, it has been an essential aspect of my leadership practicefor decades. However, situations of power over, exclusion, and marginalization are real, with pressure to conform and support the dominant voices and approaches.
Diverse individuals bring ideologies to collaboration that can increase effectiveness or increase potential sources of conflict. Collaborative planning processes can include what Rittel and Webber (1973) consider a planning task built on figuring out the “right thing to do” (p. 159). They suggest the complexity of these processes is, in part, about the political negotiations in planning when it comes to addressing the intractable social issues of our society. In their view, the conflict in collaboration is about individuals and their “versions of goodness” (Rittel & Webber, 1973, p. 169), and I ask, how does one articulate these “versions of goodness” without space to reflect on personal values and ideals? Planning processes often have limited space, if at all, to discuss and navigate these negotiations.
Power Dynamics and Collaboration
In my dissertation (Gill-Badesha, 2023), I explored the notion of participant experiences of power dynamics within multi-stakeholder collaboration and how these experiences intersect within the broader socio-political-economic policy ecologies. This study highlighted that the power of interpersonal relationships, emotional connections to project goals, and the importance of personal commitments to overall project aims can alleviate and mitigate some of the negative power dynamics often occurring in collaborative spaces (Gill-Badesha, 2023). While the notion of collaboration is often presented as a seamless, productive, and homogenous practice of interdependent stakeholders who navigate differences, interests, and values to achieve mutual aims (Gray, 1989; Gray & Purdy, 2018); it is also a contested space where individuals negotiate clashing values, differing interests, varying power and politics, that can emerge to undermine and contaminate individual and group experiences. Individuals risk being blamed if things go awry or of critiquing the structural, power, or policy contexts. Individuals are left to negotiate and navigate a middle ground (Gray, 1989) without regard for the blurred boundaries, entanglements, and personal incongruences that can arise. I faced these challenges and the pressure to conform, while leaving my lived experiences and values out of the discussions. This only adds further complexity to an already messy practice, thwarting the potential of collaboration and distressing the individuals involved, or how individuals make meaning of their experiences.
Participant experiences can be understood considering Vivien Burr’s writings (2003; 2015) on social constructionism, a critical stance in the face of taken-for-granted ways of understanding the world, including oneself. As part of postmodern philosophy, social constructionism seeks to understand the processes by which people describe, explain, and, ultimately, view themselves and the world (Anderson, 2014; Legg & Stagaki, 2002). From a social constructionist perspective, there are no set or universal truths; rather, there are multiple “truths” that should be understood as socially, historically, and culturally constructed; what we view as the “truth” shapes how individuals view their personal circumstances and possible future courses of action (Larson & Anderson, 2019). It is this negotiation of multiple truths and positions that can shape participants’ experiences and the outcomes of collaboration.
Intersectionality and Collaboration
The consideration of an intersectional lens of Critical Race Theory (CRT) can help to illuminate additional complexities and dynamics of power related to, but not limited to,race, colour, class, culture, gender, sexuality, religion, immigration status, and abilities (Tate, 1997). This lens can allow for a deeper examination of participants’ experiences and worldviews that may lead to an understanding of the challenges and tensions they experience, while also creating space to reflect and honour the histories, experiences, and knowledge that participants. Intersectionality also points to the political structures, systemic oppressions, and tropes that are at risk of being perpetuated in collaboration. A social constructionist approach combined with an intersectional framework can identify other circulating discourses present in institutions and overall political and societal constructions that are material conditions that can inform or intrude as policy is shaped. An intersectional examination could provide space to interrupt systems of oppression and privilege, as the configuration of individuals and institutions coming together is often representative of broader societal structures of privilege, domination, and oppression.
In her article in the Washington Post entitled “Why Intersectionality Can’t Wait,” Crenshaw (2020) identified intersectionality as an analytical way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power for those reflecting on racism, sexism, class oppression, transphobia, ableism, and more, that generates debate and controversy. Cho et al. (2013) argued that intersectional approaches bring insights and processes into education and research that can illuminate the hidden and multilayered structures of power and domination through which knowledge is produced and disseminated. Educational policies aiming for inclusion can benefit from this analysis.
Warmington et al. (2018) explored the personal reflections of educators and contributors who have worked to shift policy on race equality in educational policy in England over 20 years. And they concluded that “the vagaries of race equality policy in education could only be understood in relation to the wider politics of race, the wider history of race in Britain” (p. 424), arguing that there “is a need to examine the state of contemporary education in the ‘post-multicultural’ context, through a critical race-conscious lens” (p. 424). Their project interviews suggest that ‘the de-racialisation’ of research and policy has led to a slippage in tackling racial inequities” (Warmington, 2018, p. 424) and validates the notion of incorporating an intersectional conceptual framework to understand equitable participation in the systemic and political structures that may or may not create safe spaces for engagement. Aligned with this, Cho et al. (2013) assert that intersectional dynamics and discursive debates are important to impact future movements and social justice initiatives, and as part of the politics of knowledge.
Furthermore, if we consider the role of gender in collaboration, and if there are women of colour involved, then Ngunjiri and Hernandez’s (2017) study illustrates the complexity of enacting authentic leadership for immigrant women of colour who are leaders within predominantly White institutional contexts. They include Black feminist thought to inform intersectional analysis for individuals to unpack their experiences at the nexus of gender, race/ethnicity, national origin, age, and other identities that are salient in the context of predominantly White institutions. While their focus was on contributing to authentic leadership theory, their study provides a consideration of incorporating intersectionality to situate the experiences of women and people of colour. They made recommendations on “striving for authentic leadership that utilizes multifocal lenses and lived experiences and fluidity of identities as standpoints from which to lead” (p. 403)within the context of lived experiences of systemic racism. The opportunity to locate oneself in histories and experiences can provide insight into the challenges and tensions of being a racialized woman leader. I include my poetry as an example to highlight this experience and encourage policymakers to consider how lived experiences can be amplified in educational policy and settings, not marginalized or muted.
Conclusion
If educational policy aspires to be inclusive and collaborative, it must do more than invite diverse voices to the table – it must critically examine the structures that determine whose voices are amplified, whose are muted, and whose are ventriloquized. My poem ‘Don’t Speak for Me’ captures the emotional and political cost of being spoken for, rather than heard. It is a protest and a plea – one that reflects broader systemic dynamics in education and public policy.
Through this article, I argue that collaboration in policy is not simply about designing better systems or consultation processes. It requires a radical shift in how we understand knowledge, voice, and power. Drawing on Critical Race Theory and social constructionism, I propose that educational policy must confront its complicity in reproducing inequalities. It must create space not only for lived experience but for lived authority, where there is recognition that people from marginalized communities are not objects of policy but co-creators of meaning, knowledge, and practice.
To collaborate authentically in educational contexts means to grapple with discomfort, to question who we assume we speak for, and to intentionally centre those who have historically been silenced. It means recognizing that voice is not just an input into policy but a form of power and legitimacy. And ultimately, it means acknowledging that no meaningful collaboration is possible without space for diverse voices and relational accountability.