Are student governments or student movements better at enacting policy change?
Some other aspects to consider:
How do these two concepts overlap? How are they different and how are they similar? What are some examples that would help provide answers to this question?
No they are not. They are more effective at creating a ground, platform and motivation for such. Student political organisations (not the school representative council) rally, protest, and demand for change in policies. Management at the University could either succumb to the pressure due to the damage caused and delay in administrative and overall proceedings of the University's daily operations or they could use a deterrent strategy, involve law enforcement and repress the movement, leading to no changes in policy. University management could also decide to engage the leaders of these said political organizations pushing for change and negotiate. This of course could conclude with a compromise on both sides, with the demands not being fully met but with the policy change being enacted with some minor adjustments from the initial demand. If your question is about student movements beyond the institutions of higher learning to influence government policy change then they are more likely to receive support from unions and political parties sharing their ideology giving their movement more weight. However, there hasn't been an exact study as to how they are factored in on the national government when addressing their issues and amending the policy they have brought attention to, to the national government. Usually political representatives of the government in power simply releases political statements to the media as a response to their protests, but that's about it.
Dear Justin Patrick,
As farr as I can understand it, whether student governments or student movementsis better to enact policy change, stidemt government can serve better to enact policy change.
Best Regards
Desalegn Abraha
In my opinion, there are student movements that sometimes form political coalitions at certain points in university student life.
Both, the student organization must have union and social purposes.
Thank you everyone for your responses. It seems we have a variety of perspectives on this topic, ranging from viewing student movements as more effective, student governments as more effective, or that both organizations are equally important. Here are some other factors to consider:
Student movements can be beneficial in the short term, but their informal nature makes them difficult to sustain over multiple years or decades. They can also take a variety of forms that vary in terms of the quality of their collective decision-making, or some may not have collective decision-making at all. For more on this, see: Altbach, P. G. (1989). Perspectives on Student Political Activism. Comparative Education, vol. 25, no. 1, pp. 97-110.
On the student government side, my understanding is that the main challenge is that its potential largely has yet to be realized. There was the case of the University of Bologna in the Middle Ages where students took control of the entire university for a few hundred years, but instances like these have been rare. Often, even student governments that are incorporated as non-profit organizations are on the outside looking in when it comes to education decision-making.
Both student governments and student movements often have difficulties engaging their student populations to rally to a particular cause. While the numbers of some protests may be impressive, it may be beneficial to view it as a percentage of the entire student body involved.
While both have their benefits and challenges, I believe each has their role in ensuring students are represented in education systems. Student governments, with their collective decision-making through collectively agreed upon guiding documents, can be helpful in ensuring long-term continuity of initiatives toward the enactment of the student voice. Student movements may be more effective in times of crisis when turnaround times are limited.
Some further questions to consider pertain to the interrelatedness of student governments and student movements. Would it be ideal for student governments to foster student movements on their campuses? Should both be geared toward an end goal of ensuring that students have structural and proportionate roles in education decision-making?
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