Professional paper
Towards Democracy? Academic Activism as a Struggle to Re-create Collective Values
Aleksandra Belina
orcid.org/0000-0002-7465-8046
; Warsaw University
Abstract
The research is concerned with one of the signs of a globally evolving democracy: social movements. It is embedded in the paradigm of social constructivism and tackles a dynamically developing scientific discipline: higher education policy. The article examines the University’s dynamics of change through protests of academic communities. The author analyzed selected academic movements in the context of their socio-political impact and deep-seated ideology. As Johan P. Olsen claims, we are now witnessing “policy making processes that take University dynamics beyond the frame of single universities and nation states” (Olsen, 2005: 2). The University as a democratic community could be portrayed as an instrument allowing representation and active participation. Since 1960s the vision of The Academy as a representative democracy was mainly caused by students’ protests and their criticism of the oppressive authority and dominance of senior scholars. Current global involvement of students is an interesting proof of inclination from the academic community to democratization and solidarity, challenging widespread academic capitalism and rapidly progressing commercialization of science (Nussbaum, 2016; Szkudlarek, 2007; Newfield, 2008). Such movements have flourished in many parts of the world; thousands of students and scholars have been demonstrating in the United States, Chile, the United Kingdom and other countries in the name of reforming education. The major research question is whether examined acts of student activism are efficient movements with the capacity to re-shape social order or self-delusion of its creators. Taking the long-term impact and scale of the movement into account, the author argues that they could be defined as dynamically emerging, long-lived local actions rather than radical steps towards democratization of higher education system and its policy as a whole. Even though the research exposed partial instability and illusion of examined protests, it also presented academic activism as a unique struggle to re-create collective values in democracy at a turning point.
Keywords
academic activism; democratic University; student’s protests; Chilean Winter
Hrčak ID:
204252
URI
Publication date:
26.7.2018.
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