Research project The school student movement and school democracy

The project explores the conditions and expressions for students’ democratic influence over schooling and educational policy during the years 1952-1989. Drawing on a wide array of sources, it attempts to describe how and why students have been protesting against or agreeing with the condition of schools. Four research questions guide the project:

1. How have students formed a collective?
2. What problems in schools have students protested against?
3. What repertoires of contention have students developed?
4. To what degree have students’ voices been heard in public life?  

Theoretically, the project is based on research about social movements. It will be used as a way to theorize the conditions for collective protest and the particular forms that theses protests have taken, as well as to discuss the absence of protests.

Empirically the study is dominated by document analysis and is divided into four substudies dealing with student's magazines, the student government, student campaigns, and newspapers.

With a few exceptions, the school based student movement has been neglected in previous research. Studying its history can contribute with new insights into the historically changing conditions of democracy as well as new knowledge on the history of schooling, youth and childhood.

Full title: The school student movement and school democracy: Collective formation processes, repertoires of contention and public response 1952-1989.