Reflections on student power: An absurdist viewpoint

Abstract

This exploration takes a look at how students in higher education are disempowered through regimes of social power that are always already extant and ubiquitous within educational regimes. Moreover, this exploration pays particular interest and attention to students in higher education because in many cases throughout relevant research, these student populations are conceived as being the most empowered students within a broad educational landscape, which this piece foundationally challenges. Fundamentally, this article uses a Camusian or Absurdist notion of power and social identity to make sense of how students in higher education take up space within seemingly disempowered educational spaces only to insistently and futilely call to themselves and other students as empowered, although such insistences are empty fallacies of specific social humanities hailing towards their only perceived means of ‘valuable’ social interaction defined by modern conceptions of humanity always already within power relations.

Shifts in Power Relations across Group Work Activities for Gas Laws

“…These shifts mean that students now must decide how to work together in solving problems where they will have to use persuasive discourse, communicate persuasively to reach an end goal, and achieve ownership of ideas . Many studies focus on the benefits of the teacher acting as a facilitator. ,, However, there is a need for more research, beyond studies in mathematics education, sociology, and educational psychology, − focused on how the transition of authority affects students’ work with each other and how student power dynamics shift in group settings, particularly in science classrooms.…”