This article outlines the debate in the UK about student voice and choice, the interest in consulting students about their learning. It argues for a different approach to student voice and pedagogy which develops the theory of Basil Bernstein about pedagogic democratic rights and as the criteria with which to judge democratic educational provision. It outlines a research project in two secondary (high) schools which employed these notions of rights to ask male and female students for different socio-economic backgrounds how they experienced teacher-student communication, the power relations within education and the possibilities of agency. The article concludes with the view that student consultation processes need to consider different types of talk, different mechanisms for the elicitation of student voice, and an awareness of how social inequalities can be aggravated by neo-liberal interests in voice and choice.