Student Activism

Student activism describes a wide range of activities organized by young people in educational settings with the intent of some form of social, political, or ecological change. There is no distinct and rigidly defined field of study encompassed by this description; rather, the definitions for both the categories of student and activism are highly flexible and vary greatly between contexts. For example, in traditional public school settings, student most often refers to children from elementary school age to 12th grade. In community and political organizations, student members may range from 15 to 29 years old. Some of the difficulty in defining the student/youth category more narrowly relates to an interaction of overlapping generational, institutional, and economic factors.

Increases in college and university tuition have generated student protests both in the United States and elsewhere. In this March 2, 2011, photo, students at California State University, Northridge march off campus during a rally protesting budget cuts and higher tuition.

Source: Michael Owen Baker/ZUMA Press/Corbis.

Members of the category of youth rarely use that term as a self-descriptor, suggesting that it is primarily a social construction by adults. Like other labels, it overgeneralizes traits, predicts behavior, and unfairly categorizes a diverse range of individuals into a simple assemblage based on age. Further, a number of cultural theorists have labeled the current generation of students and youth using terminology and accompanying descriptors to define shared characteristics, including ‘tweens, Millennials, Net Generation, Generation Y, and Echo Boomers. This discourse has the effect of grouping and judging people based merely on their date of birth.

Social scientists have noted a growing extension of the related concept of adolescence, as more young people are living with their parents for longer periods of time. In slow economic times, with fewer employment opportunities and the increasing need for postsecondary education, more people of college age are delaying the purchase of their own residence. For many young adults remaining under the same roof as their parents, there is a delaying of adulthood in this generation, thereby expanding the upper limit on our collective conception of students and youth. Government and other agencies have raised the top age for their youth programs from an upper limit of 21 years old just over a decade ago, up to 30 years old in some instances. For rail and other travel in Canada and Europe, a student youth pass and special youth fares are usually available to anyone under 26 years old.