Students

Students are a defining feature of higher education (HE) institutions. It is students in relationship with teachers that allow the university to exist as a formal place of learning and students’ intellectual achievements that are rewarded with the certification a university bestows. Students, then, are those individuals who are engaged in the study; those devoted to the application of mind, of serious mental effort, in the pursuit of greater knowledge and understanding of a subject. Yet, such a simple definition does not reflect the different meanings and realities behind the term. Indeed, the university student can be seen as a contested, value-laden entity, embodying different, and sometimes contradictory, meanings in different times and contexts. This entry focuses on the concept of the student in HE ...