Students as political actors? Similarities and differences across six European nations

Abstract

Drawing on data from students, higher education staff and policymakers from six European countries, this article argues that it remains a relatively common assumption that students should be politically engaged. However, while students articulated a strong interest in a wide range of political issues, those working in higher education and influencing higher education policy tended to believe that students were considerably less politically active than their predecessors. Moreover, while staff and policy influencers typically conceived of political engagement in terms of collective action, articulated through common reference to the absence of a 'student movement' or unified student voice, students' narratives tended not to valorise 'student movements' in the same way and many categorised as 'political' action they had taken alone and/or with a small number of other students. Alongside these broad commonalities across Europe, the article also evidences some key differences between nation-states, institutions and disciplines. In this way, it contributes to the comparative literature on young people's political engagement specifically, as well as wider debates about the ways in which higher education students are understood.

University as a Site to Learn Citizenship from the Perspectives of Students in the UK

“…Some participants also expressed their concern that the short-term positions in the students' union may not allow real change. This supports the finding of Brooks et al [20], that elected officers in students' unions have less power than permanent staff members because short-term positions make it hard to ensure strategic continuity.…”

“…Abrahams and Brooks [19] compare how likely students identify themselves as political actors and how their political activity is seen in policy texts in England and Ireland. Brooks et.al [20] compare students, higher education staff and policymakers from six European countries, and explore their views of students as political actors.…”

Constructing the Higher Education Student

“…The construction of 'student as consumer' is often held in tension with that of the student as a political actor. Indeed, in many societies, there is now an assumption that students should be politically active, driving social change and challenging enduring inequalities, and students are often criticised -by journalists, HE staff and other interested parties -when they are perceived not to be acting in this way (Brooks et al, 2020b). Nevertheless, as Williams (2013) has argued, this conceptualisation of students as political actors became common only in the 1960s, and is frequently based on a misreading of that particular period -a misreading that incorrectly assumed a majority of students were involved in the US and European campus protests of the 1960s and early 1970s (Sukarieh and Tannock, 2015).…”

Mecanismos de articulación de las universidades con el estado-regulador, los mercados y la sociedad civil para asegurar la calidad de la educación superior

“…Si sus expectativas han sido satisfechas, si la formación recibida es percibida de calidad, si los egresados se sienten exitosos y agradecidos de su universidad, es probable que se expresen cuando ya son profesionales y decidan colaborar con su universidad. Una universidad tiene buena reputación cuando sus estudiantes y egresados tienen una buena reputación de ella (Brooks et al, 2020).…”

“…En ese contexto de cambios, hoy más que nunca, las Instituciones de Educación Superior (IES) deben asegurar la calidad en todos sus procesos. En muchos países el Estado-Regulador, entiende su función de garante de la calidad monitoreando a las IES mediante un creciente número de registros y controles públicos y sometidas a evaluaciones que incluyen ejercicios de licenciamiento, acreditación, alimentación de bases de datos oficiales y sitios dedicados a la transparencia de las IES (Brooks et al, 2020). De modo paralelo, parece ser una tendencia internacional, que los entes reguladores delegan una parte del control sobre la gobernanza de las universidades a los actores del mercado y a los ciudadanos que escudriñan ejerciendo un control social activo (Engwall, 2020).…”