Student Participation in University Life and Governance

Abstract

This paper uses several different perspectives to investigate how students participate in university life. In the first section we propose a few conceptual and taxonomic stipulations on the different ways of participating. A number of different modes of participation are analyzed and subsequently divided into three typologies: the first distinguishes among four generic types of participation; the second sets the modes of student participation at the university depending on the purpose; and the third typology uses a criterion referring to the ways such participation is carried out. In the second section, we place participation at the university within a broader framework of young people’s participation in general. We then present data on young people’s participation and the typology of the political activism they most often carry out and on the knowledge, use, and valuation of certain kinds of systems of student participation at the university. The third section presents two studies on what students think about participation. In the last section, we formulate a set of questions open for debate and reflection on this topic.