comparative framework for the analysis of international student movement_gill and defronzo

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A Comparative Framework for the Analysis of International StudentMovementsJungyun Gilla; James DeFronzoa

a Sociology Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA

To cite this Article Gill, Jungyun and DeFronzo, James(2009) 'A Comparative Framework for the Analysis of InternationalStudent Movements', Social Movement Studies, 8: 3, 203 — 224To link to this Article: DOI: 10.1080/14742830903024309URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14742830903024309

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A Comparative Framework for the Analysisof International Student Movements

JUNGYUN GILL & JAMES DeFRONZOSociology Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA

ABSTRACT Recent theory and research on revolution indicate that leadership and ideology playcrucial roles. Much of the leadership and ideology for contemporary revolutions developed withinthe context of student movements. But previous research on student movements has often beenlimited to developed Western societies and has yielded typologies of student activism that have littleapplication to revolutionary movements worldwide. Based on an analysis of student movements inmany societies during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a new typology of studentmovements is formulated. The typology, which allows differentiation among reform studentmovements, identity radicalism student movements, structural revolutionary student movements, andsocial revolutionary student movements, appears capable of identifying the essential contrasts aswell as key similarities among a wide range of student movements in many societies. Conditionsfostering each type of movement are described. The paper concludes with a discussion of casestudies in several countries and how these student movements are categorized in the new typology.

KEY WORDS: Student movements, revolutionary movements, typology, culture, social structure

Introduction

Student movements are diverse and range from protests against university administrations

to revolutionary movements that contribute to the downfall of governments. They have

often tended to be leftist in their ideological orientation, but there has also been significant

rightist student activism such as student support for fascist and Nazi movements during the

1920s and 1930s in Italy and Germany. While viewed as a significant political force in

Western countries in the 1960s, students were key players in nationalist independence

struggles in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Altbach, 1989). Participation in student

activism has had personal as well as political consequences. For example, McAdam (1989)

found that students who participated in high-risk activism tended to be politically active

throughout their lives.

In contrast to the large number of empirical studies on student activists, theoretical

systemization of student movements has rarely been attempted. Many studies of student

movements conducted between the late 1950s and early 1970swere limited to an examination

of activists’ backgrounds and psychological characteristics (Westby & Braungart, 1966;

1474-2837 Print/1474-2829 Online/09/030203-22 q 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/14742830903024309

Correspondence Address: Jungyun Gill, Sociology Department, U-2068, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT

06269-2068, USA. Email: [email protected]

Social Movement Studies,Vol. 8, No. 3, 203–224, August 2009

Downloaded By: [University of Lincoln] At: 17:22 1 March 2011

Lipset, 1969, 1976; Braungart, 1971). Recent research on student movements has usually

involved a case study of a specific student movement in a single country. Few scholars

have applied theoretical insights from social movement literature to student movements

(Wood, 1974; Soule, 1997; Van Dyke, 1998a, b, 2003).

Most studies of student movements were conducted in Western societies and dealt with

relatively moderate forms of student activism. These were generally reform movements in

which participants aimed to change institutional policies, replace leaders of institutions

such as government officials, or provide wider access to participation in institutions, but

not to replace existing institutions with different ones, such as a radically different type of

political system or economic system (DeFronzo, 2007, p. 8). But around the world many

student movements have been revolutionary and have often played major roles in bringing

about successful revolutions by providing leadership, ideology, and organizational

networks. Major revolutionary leaders such as Fidel Castro (Cuba), Carlos Fonseca

(Nicaragua), Mao Tse Tung (China), and Chris Hani (South Africa) either adopted or

began to formulate revolutionary ideologies and often formed close ties with other

future revolutionaries as students. Examples of the development of revolutionary

networks within the contexts of student movements include the 1915–19 New Youth

Movement in China, and the Fedayeen-e Khalq (Martyrs of the People) and the

Mujadeen-e Khalq (Islamic Army of the People) during the early stages of the Iranian

Revolution.

In line with Jack Goldstone’s (2001) observation that a number of factors can lead to

regime destabilization and that theories of revolution need to specify separate models for

different aspects of the revolutionary process, we identify conditions that foster distinct

types of student movements and develop a comparative framework which constitutes a

new more comprehensive typology of student movements. We illustrate the typology with

a number of case studies.

Research on Student Movement Activism

Relying mostly on social psychological perspectives, scholars attempted to explain the

motivation of student activists in terms of generational conflicts and psychological

characteristics. The literature in regard to generational conflict seems to have had two

major explanatory themes: generational conflict as a consequence of students’ exposure

to new social environments, and generational conflict caused by an unconsciousness

psychoanalytic factor, the Oedipal conflict. The former perspective hypothesizes that

rapid social changes, such as economic advances and the increase in physical security,

result in divergence between youth values and the dominant values, specifically those of

parents (Inglehart, 1981), leading to generational conflict in industrialized Western

countries. In developing nations, students’ educational exposure to ‘modern’ values and

the knowledge of their country’s position in the international system led many to oppose

the traditional values and existing institutions supported by their parents’ generation

(Lipset, 1967).

In the psychoanalytic approach, generational conflict is rooted in the Oedipus complex.

According to this view, the hate toward the father which students experienced in their

childhoods was later extended to larger objects such as social systems or values that the

older generation held dear. In other words, existing institutions occupied by the older

generation are substitutes for students’ fathers, and student protesters seek unconsciously

204 J. Gill & J. DeFronzo


to revolt against their fathers by challenging, for example, the government or university

administrations (Feuer, 1971, pp. 26–27).

The generational conflict approach to explaining the motivations of student activists,

however, cannot fully account for why student movements exist at times when there is no

rapid social change, and why some students engage in activism while others do not.

Activism has usually been limited to a minority of students at a university, meaning that

the majority conformed to the dominant values and did not engage in protest. Also, some

hypotheses derived from generational conflict theories have often been contradicted by

empirical findings. According to Flacks (1970), the primary constituency for the American

student movement of the 1960s came from families in a new middle-class which was

composed of individuals who had critical attitudes toward the dominant culture. He found

that parents of student activists were characterized by a strong commitment to

intellectuality, political liberalism, and skeptical attitudes about traditional middle-class

values and religious orientations (Flacks, 1970, pp. 347–348). His findings imply that

American student activists of the 1960s defended what they had learned from their parents

rather than resisted their parents’ values. Furthermore, Klineberg and associates argue that

there is an ‘intergenerational solidarity’ rather than generational conflict between

participants in US student movements and their parents (Klineberg et al., 1979, p. 9).

If the generational conflict approach is incorrect, then why do students often seem to

participate in revolutionary movements more readily than other population groups?

Students’ involvement in revolutionary movements may be partially accounted for by a

process involving youthful idealism. DeFronzo explained youthful idealism by applying

Piaget’s (1932) intellectual development theory and research. According to the theory of

idealism, when children turn their new deductive capability onto moral generalities

internalized at an earlier period of life, they tend to develop expectations that turn out to be

in conflict with aspects of social reality. As a result they experience ‘a type of moral

dissonance or frustration which requires some form of adjustment’ (DeFronzo, 1970,

p. 323). One type of response, fostered by certain social conditions, is to conclude that the

social system is morally deficient and in need of change. The social circumstances

characteristic of being a student, somewhat independent of both parental supervision and

the pressing financial requirements of family life, permit idealism to temporarily flourish

along with a potential receptiveness to radical ideologies which propose a revolutionary

means for bringing society into greater conformity with moral ideals and, thus,

accomplishing major social change.

Allerbeck (1972) proposes a structural analysis for the existence of student movements

that parallels DeFronzo’s approach discussed above. He begins by presenting evidence

that youthful age in itself is not the primary determinant of student involvement in protest

movements. He sites survey data that young people of the same age as students calling for

change often had sharply more conservative and anti-movement views. According to

Allerbeck, it is the social structural situation of students who, in comparison to members of

other social groups, are freer from occupational and family constraints to engage in

activism in pursuit of moral ideals, which is the essential condition for the development of

student movements, not a supposedly inherent youthful rebelliousness.

In addition to the uniqueness of their structural situation, students in higher educational

environments are often exposed to new ideas which make them more likely to participate

in movements. Critical appraisals of contemporary society are especially encountered in

certain fields of study. Throughout the world, students majoring in the social sciences and

Analysis of International Student Movements 205


the humanities seem to have a greater tendency to participate in movements than those in

hard sciences. According to Lipset (1967) and Altbach (1967, 1989), students’ exposure to

new ideas and ideologies can play an especially powerful role in lesser developed societies

where the percentage of highly educated persons is relatively low. Learning about

alternative political or economic systems or cultural values can lead students to question

aspects of traditional society and authoritarian governments and give birth to new

ideologies such as revolutionary nationalism later adopted by wide sectors of the

population or egalitarian concepts that undermine traditional structures of inequality. Thus

student movements in developing societies have often had greater political impacts than

those in the more technologically advanced nations.

Studies also indicate that in many societies more freedom of expression has been given

to university students than other groups. Lipset (1967) notes that the tradition of university

autonomy operated to allow illegal revolutionary groups to hold meetings in universities

without police interference in tsarist Russia. The 1918 Cordoba movement by Argentine

students (Van Aiken, 1971; Bernasconi, 2007), which promoted autonomy of the

university from government control, democratic participation of students, staff and alumni

in university governance, and a focus on research and commitment to social reform, was a

major impetus to Latin American student activism. The Cordoba reforms, which soon

spread to other Latin American nations in varying degrees, coupled with an influx of

students from middle-class backgrounds, who were generally more leftist politically and

more in favor of democracy instead of dictatorship than students from wealthy families,

contributed to greater secularization of public higher education and increased student

politicization and activism. In addition to students’ relative physical, intellectual and

political freedom, research has indicated that the existence of a large number of students at

one location provides student activists with organizational advantages by facilitating rapid

communication and mobilization.

Beyond the factors promoting student activism described above, scholars have tried to

identify other conditions affecting student movement development. Levy (1989) observes

that in Latin America, except in authoritarian regimes that suppressed all student political

activity, student movements were more likely to develop in public than private educational

institutions. Following an upswing in student activism after the success of the Cuban

Revolution in 1959, a wave of educational privatization commenced aimed primarily at

providing a less disruptive, more depoliticized educational environment than typical of

public institutions. Private institutions, which generally had more restrictive admissions

and academic standards, higher quality of instruction, and tougher exam requirements,

allowed less time for student activism (Levy, 1989). Van Dyke (1998a, b), however, in her

study of locations of US student protest in the 1960s found that student–staff ratio was not

a significant factor. Rather, she concluded that history and culture influenced student

activism. In other words, when students of a university had a tradition of political activism

and the activism subculture was maintained, they were more likely to participate in student

protests.

Broader social conditions were examined in other research on student movements.

According to Altbach (1989, p. 5), how the larger society responds to student movements

dependsonhistorical traditionsofactivism: ‘InmanyThirdworldnations,where studentswere

an important part of independence movements and have an established place in the society’s

political mythology, activist movements are seen as a normal part of the political system’,

while ‘in the industrialized nations, students are not seen as legitimate political actors’.



Altbach (1989, p. 14) also points out that since few developing nations have fully

functioning democratic systems, students are often viewed as ‘spokespersons for a broader

population’ and ‘a conscience of their societies’, which can facilitate movements

originating among students expanding to mobilize larger populations.

Martinelli and Cavalli (1972) stress the importance of historical, political and cultural

factors for the development and character of student movements. They suggest

that transformations in international power relations or perceptions of threat can affect the

development of student movements. For example, a reduction in Cold War tensions and the

fear of communismmay have provided increased political opportunity for the rise ofWestern

student movements. They also note that the economic dependence of developing societies on

certain advanced countries tended to result in higher education in the dependent states being

structured to serve the interests of the dominating advanced nations and to spread their

cultural values and norms. This situation in turn can lead to students in developing countries

formulating unique student subcultures which ‘either reappraise the traditional values to form

anewnationalist ideologyor embraceMarxismas themost powerfulweaponagainstWestern

imperialism’ (Martinelli & Cavalli, 1972, p. 305). The level of protests and the ‘character of

their ideological opposition’ are affected by student perception that ‘endogenous’ factors

(such as a repressive regime) which block social development are linked to ‘exogenous’

factors (such as an advanced foreign nation which exploits the students’ homeland.).

We agree with the view that the existence, character and influence of student movements are

determined in important ways by historical factors and aspects of social structure and culture.

Defining the Student Movement

Previous attempts to develop typologies in the area of student movements have almost all

yielded typologies not of student movements but of student activists (Block et al., 1969;

Smith et al., 1970; Klineberg et al., 1979), and have also generally tended to pay

insufficient attention to the importance of the structural and cultural contexts in which

student movements develop and of which they are, in great part, a product.

Before developing a context-based comparative framework for student movements, we

need to delineate a definition of what a student movement is. We approach this task by first

examining how previous scholars have defined social movements in general. Employing a

type of Marxist model, McAdam defines social movements as ‘rational attempts by

excluded groups to mobilize sufficient political leverage to advance collective interests

through non-institutionalized means’ (McAdam, 1982, p. 37). Like McAdam, Wood

defines student movements as ‘the engagement by students in non-institutionalized

political activities such as illegal demonstrations against the Vietnam War, illegal civil

rights protests, strikes, sit-ins, and so forth’ (Wood, 1974, p. 12). However, some scholars

have criticized McAdam’s approach because it excludes social movements that have

cultural goals and strategies. They argue that challenges to non-state institutions should

also be objects of social movement studies and be encompassed within a definition of

social movements. Other questionable aspects of McAdam’s definition are the limitation

of participation in social movements to ‘excluded groups’ and to ‘non-institutionalized

means’. History seems replete with examples of non-excluded groups participating in or

lending support to social movements and using whatever means were most advantageous,

including those which involved the least social cost, whether or not the means were

‘institutionalized’.



Diani, in comparison, regards movements as ‘networks of individuals and groups,

based on shared collective identities, engaged in political or social conflicts’ (Rochon,

1998, p. 32, original emphasis). This clearly is a much broader definition of social

movements than that provided by McAdam. Rochon (1998), for example, questions

whether involvement in either political conflicts to the exclusion of social conflicts or

social conflicts to the exclusion of political conflicts is the truly adequate defining

characteristic (distinctive trait) of movements. He argues that ‘the collective actions that

we commonly identify as movements all share the trait of being engaged in both political

and social conflict’ (Rochon, 1998, p. 32, original emphasis). Therefore, he identifies two

areas of movement activity: the social arena in which the goal is to influence cultural

values and the political arena in which the aim is to influence government policies.

However, Rochon’s use of the expression ‘social arena’ appears misleading because the

term ‘social’ is generally understood to cover all areas of activity, including cultural

and political, whereas Rochon seems to confine his meaning of ‘social’ to only the

cultural aspects of society. In our view, the expression ‘cultural arena’ seems clearly

preferable to Rochon’s ‘social arena’ in developing a definition and typology of social

movements.

Another important flaw in Rochon’s approach and in the work of many other social

movement theorists is that they limit their conception of political arena to influencing

government policies. However, the political goals of many social movements

internationally have been not only to affect government policies but often to change

governments or even the structure of the political system, as well as other aspects of social

structure, such as the nature of a society’s economic system. This overly narrow spectrum

of political activity on the part of Rochon and others probably stems from their focus

mainly on developed societies. But in many developing countries, social movements

sometimes have far more sweeping goals. Rochon’s ‘political arena’ would not even

encompass the transformation of political systems in Eastern Europe in 1989.

The conceptualization of the scope of political action of social movements in general

and student movements in particular should be wide enough to include all structural goals.

Similarly, the conceptualization of the scope of cultural action in social movements should

be wide enough to include all types of cultural goals.

Reflecting these observations and criticisms, we define a student movement as a

relatively organized effort on the part of a large number of students to either bring about or

prevent change in any one of the following: policies, institutional personnel, social

structure (institutions), or cultural aspects of society involving either institutionalized or

non-institutionalized collective actions or both simultaneously. ‘Policy’ in this definition

refers to a course of action adopted by government or any other major institution,

including decisions such as waging or ending a war, or discriminating or forbidding

discrimination against a category of people. ‘Institutional personnel’ refers to those

holding positions within an institution such as particular government leaders, military

commanders, or university administrators. ‘Institutionalized’ ‘collective actions’ refer to

actions in pursuit of movement goals carried out by people acting within existing

institutional means such as supporting and voting for certain political candidates or

working through the court system to challenge the constitutionality of existing policies.

‘Non-institutionalized’ ‘collective actions’ refer to actions outside of existing institutional

means taken by people in pursuit of movement goals such as illegal demonstrations,

building occupations, acts of sabotage or other violence.



Antecedent Conditions of Student Movements

We propose that the type of student movement that develops in a particular society at a

particular point in its history is, to a significant degree, the product of two general

categories of prior contexts. One is the nature of the conditions provoking student

opposition and the other is the source of the conditions. The nature of the conditions is

conceived in terms of two dimensions: a structural dimension and a cultural dimension.

Along the structural dimension, the nature of an antecedent condition can be either

structural or non-structural. In other words, the nature of the condition that provokes an

opposition student movement may be a non-structural element of the social environment

such as a policy of government, for example a decision to go to war or to ban a certain

activity, or a policy of executives of major economic or social institutions. In contrast,

a major social structure, such as a society’s type of political system or economic system,

may be the source of oppression or may be an impediment to the realization of full human

rights or aspirations. Or the condition may have a cultural origin. Along the cultural

dimension, a government policy or even the functioning of an existing social institution

might result in consequences which conflict with widely shared cultural norms or values.

On the other hand, the antecedent cultural condition might be a culturally rooted

systematic pattern of discrimination against a group or the entire population of a society on

the basis of factors such as race, gender, nationality, religion, or some other physical or

cultural characteristic.

The source of the condition is conceived of as either internal to the society, or external

(a foreign source), or both internal and external. An internal source refers to the situation

in which the source of the condition (policy, personnel, structural, or cultural) that

provokes a student opposition movement is internal to the society. The typical internal

source is the government within a society. An external source can be a foreign government

or economic entity. The source is both external and internal when the domestic

government or other domestic institution serves the interests of the foreign government or

economic entity. When structural and cultural conditions are similar in two societies, a

revolutionary student movement is more likely to develop in the society in which the

government is perceived to serve the interests of a foreign power to the detriment of large

segments of the society’s population. In such situations, the revolutionary ideology that

develops is typically infused with either a strong nationalist or religious (i.e. Islamic

fundamentalism) theme capable of uniting otherwise diverse population subgroups and

classes in a revolutionary effort. Thus perception of the nature and source of the conditions

causing student discontent contributes to determining what type of student movement

tends to develop.

Types of Student Movements

Based on the review of previous theory and research, and the definition of student

movements formulated above, we attempt to develop a new, more comprehensive

typology for classifying student movements. Our intention is to more clearly specify the

dimensions and categorize the varieties of student movements so as to facilitate

the process of explaining the development of particular types of movements.

The classificatory scheme, then, is an attempt to improve the specification of the

dependent variable in student movement research. In the rest of the paper we explore how



the typology functions in identifying contextual factors relevant to each type of

movement. The typology is based on movement goals along structural and cultural

dimensions, each of which range from moderateness to radicalism. Figure 1 shows four

types of student movements identified in terms of the structural and cultural dimensions.

Structural radicalism involves the goal of structural change (such as replacing the

existing political system with a new one) while structural moderateness includes the less

disruptive aim of changing government or university policies or personnel. Cultural

radicalism involves the goal of changing a system of meaning of the dominant culture by

reformulating a group’s public identity and possibly aspects of the personal identities of

group members, sometimes through the adoption of a whole new set of values and norms,

while cultural moderateness involves new emphases on or interpretations of values of the

dominant culture or attempts to bring policies or the structure of institutions into alignment

with cultural values. The categories of student movements represent ideal types reflecting

the dominant goals of most movement participants, although in real life a minority of

participants may have aims which differ from those of other activists.

Reform Student Movements

Reform student movements (in which participants are oriented toward influencing

institutional policies or replacing personnel and/or advocating new emphases on or

interpretations of existing cultural values, but not radically changing institutions or aspects

of culture) are located in the quadrant of Figure 1 where the structural change orientation is

low and the cultural change orientation is also low.

Reform student movements are most likely to develop when the nature of the issue that

provokes an opposition student movement is perceived to be the result of a policy or

policies of the domestic government, educational institutions, or of executives of major

economic or social institutions. This type of student movement is also most likely to occur

in the context of student perception of a relatively democratic political system which may

respond positively to student mobilization. Past episodes of citizen or student mobilization

which succeeded in changing government policy encourage reform student movements.

Figure 1. Types of student movements.



Reform student movements arise when students object to a policy which either directly

affects students and/or is perceived as contradicting cherished moral principles. But the

objectionable policy is defined by student movement leaders as due to faulty political or

other institutional leadership or information on which decisions were made and not due to

structural characteristics of the society. Reform student movements in the relatively recent

history of the USA include student anti-war, civil rights, divestment from South Africa,

and anti-sweatshop movements. Another example of a reform student movement was the

1918 Cordoba movement by Argentine students described above.

Structural Revolutionary Student Movements

Structural revolutionary student movements are located in the quadrant of Figure 1 where

the structural change orientation is high, but the cultural change orientation is low.

Structural revolutionary student movements focus primarily on changing one or more

major social institutions such as the political system or economic system, rather than just

changing institutional policies or replacing the leaders of existing institutions. This type of

movement reflects existing cultural values which the student activists feel have been

betrayed by pre-revolutionary institutions. The goal of changing cultural values is not a

primary focus of such movements. For example, pro-democracy student movements in

Eastern Europe in the 1980s advocated abandoning the one-party government system and

instead switching to a multi-party democratic political system (Ganev, 2006). The Chinese

student democracy movement of 1989 also fits this pattern (Hartford et al., 1992; Calhoun,

1994; Pieke, 1998; Zhao, 1998; Wright, 2006). The South Korean student movements in

1960 and 1987 against corrupt dictatorships in favor of democracy are additional examples

of structural revolutionary movements (Kim & Kim, 1964; Brandt, 1987; Kim, 1989;

Kluver, 1998; Lee, 2006). All of these movements were based on the cultural value of

democracy which was already widely accepted in all three societies before the movements

began. Students believed that their countries’ pre-movement political systems

contradicted and repressed true democracy.

Student movements which focus on freeing a country from foreign control without

advocating bringing about sweeping cultural change, such as the pro-independence Indian

student movement, from about 1920 to 1947, also fit in this category. The Indian student

movement virtually collapsed after the nation became independent. Freeing India from

British rule had been the central goal of the student movement, and, once this was

achieved, not only did the dominant motive for student activism disappear but leaders of

the Congress Party actually ‘urged students to stay out of politics’ (Altbach, 1966, p. 453).

Structural revolutionary student movements are most likely to develop when the

condition that provokes an opposition student movement is institutional in nature, such as

when the type of political system or economic system with its associated structured

inequalities or both is the source of deprivation of basic human rights and/or economic

deprivation for large segments of the population. A structural revolutionary student

movement may develop whether the source is purely internal to the society or is both

internal and external, as when a domestic regime is supported by and serves the interests of

a foreign power.

One social process leading to the rise of structural revolutionary student movements is

student exposure to information describing alternative political systems or economic

systems which display attractive attributes, or students witnessing directly or indirectly the



operation of such alternative systems, thus undermining the legitimacy of pre-

revolutionary institutions. In contrast, perceived external military or economic threat

from an aggressive foreign power can serve to shore up support for the existing systems

and minimize the likelihood of a structural revolutionary student movement if the existing

political system is viewed as taking effective action to resist the foreign threat. But in the

absence of such external threats or when the pre-revolutionary government itself is viewed

as being an instrument in service to foreign powers, structural revolutionary student

movements are more likely to develop. A structural revolutionary student movement

aimed at changing a society’s political system is also likely to develop when other

social institutions change or are in the process of changing, while the political system

remains static.

Identity Radicalism Student Movements

Identity radicalism student movements are located in the quadrant of Figure 1 where the

cultural change orientation is high, but the structural change orientation is low. Identity

radicalism focuses primarily on destructing given identities, ways of thinking, values, and

discursive practices which are regarded by protesters as the means and products of group

subordination. Not only do radical identity politics attempt to create a new group identity

that provides a sense of empowerment, pride, self-confidence and equality, but also this

type of movement focuses on confronting the larger public’s norms, beliefs,

behaviors, and ways of thinking. Students’ involvement in the Black Muslims (Nation of

Islam) is an example of identity radicalism. This group rejected the culture of African

Americans as being the product of slavery and functioning to create obedient

second-class citizens believing in their own inferiority. Instead, the Black Muslims

created a new culture based on their version of the religion of Islam and adopted African

names. Identity radicalism would also include fundamentalist Islamist student movements

such as the ones that developed in Egypt before World War II or which existed in

Afghanistan among college students prior to the 1978 leftist coup (Goodson, 2001;

DeFronzo, 2007).

Identity radicalism student movements are most likely to develop when the nature of

the condition that provokes an opposition student movement is a culturally rooted

pattern of systematic discrimination and when the source of the discrimination is

internal: that is, the discrimination is the product of domestic culture, in particular

a negative stereotype of the group embedded in the dominant culture, and domestic

institutional policies.

Identity radicalism can develop among people who perceive themselves to be the target

of extreme discrimination due to an ascribed characteristic such as race, nationality,

physical characteristics, sex, or sexual orientation, or other relatively fixed traits. After

years of being treated as inferior people, members of the group come to believe that not

only must social policies toward the group be changed but also explicitly that both the

larger cultural conceptions of the group and the psychology and self-concept of the group

members themselves, typically shaped by long-term adjustment to discrimination, must

also be changed. Circumstances which can help give rise to identity radicalism student

movements are exposure to concepts of freedom and liberation that were intended for the

benefit of other groups, but have direct liberation implications to the members of another

subordinated group.



Social Revolutionary Student Movements

Social revolutionary student movements are located in the structurally and culturally

radical quadrant of Figure 1. A social revolutionary movement is a movement which aims

at replacing both major social institutions, such as the political system (and often the

economic system), and also much of the culture of the society. Major examples of this type

of student movement are the pre-1979 Iranian student movement, the Chinese student

movement leading to China’s Communist Revolution, and the later phase of the student

movement in tsarist Russia. The Chinese Communist Party had its origins in the

New Youth Movement from about 1915 to 1919, and the May Fourth Movement

(Chow Tse-Tung, 1980; Meisner, 1986; Short, 2000), which opposed both the country’s

emperor-centered political system and the aspects of traditional Chinese culture which

supported it. The New Youth Movement’s leaders advocated adopting Western norms,

values, educational practices and political forms, calling for ‘Democracy and Science!’

But the character of the movement shifted abruptly in reaction to the Versailles Treaty

ending World War I, which instead of returning German-controlled territory in China

allowed Japan to take it. Three thousand Chinese students staged a protest demonstration

against the treaty on 4 May 1919. Many in the student movement tuned to Marxism and

Lenin’s theory of capitalist imperialism. Leaders of the New Youth Movement proclaimed

a new movement, the May Fourth Movement, which led to the creation of the Chinese

Communist Party in Shanghai in 1921.

Many students in Russia participated in anti-tsarist organizations and even terrorist

attacks on the regime. Lenin’s twenty-one-year-old brother Alexander, a university

science student, was executed for involvement in a plot to assassinate Tsar Alexander III

when Lenin was seventeen (Volkogonov, 1994). But according to Kassow (1989) and

Lenin (Chopra, 1978), the Russian student movement did not initially openly espouse

revolutionary goals. Rather, leaders of the student strike in 1899 called for reforms, in

particular for university authorities and the government to end corruption in the awarding

of financial assistance and to prevent police mistreatment of students. It was the refusal of

the regime to sufficiently grant reforms, coupled with other repressive aspects of Russian

society and governmental behavior, which convinced many students that their goals could

not be achieved unless Russian institutions were changed, including the political system,

as well as major supporting elements of traditional culture such as the Russian Orthodox

Church. Thus, over time, the Russian student movement and many of its leading activists

came to play prominent roles in the coming social revolution.

Social revolutionary student movements are most likely to develop when the conditions

that provoke an opposition student movement are institutional in nature and are also

cultural (i.e. a culturally rooted pattern of systematic discrimination or oppression). Social

revolutionary student movements since about the mid-twentieth century have most often

occurred in less developed countries dominated by foreign powers where the source of the

dual conditions of institutional oppression and culturally based discrimination was

perceived to be both internal and external. This type of situation may exist when a

domestic regime is supported by and serves the interests of a foreign power with a different

cultural system. In such cases the domestic regime is often viewed as both an instrument of

imperialist collaboration and a mechanism through which foreign cultural values infiltrate

the local population, particularly its elite elements. The social revolutionary student

movement is oriented both toward eradicating the political and economic structures that



oppress the local population on behalf of the imperialist foreign power and the

collaborating domestic elite, and toward combating the cultural influences of the

imperialistic power which portray the domestic culture and its adherents as inferior.

Examples of Types of Student Movements

Reform Student Movements: The Anti-Vietnam War Movement

Beginning in the 1950s, activist minorities of US students mobilized in a series of reform

movements to force change in government policies. First came large-scale black and white

student involvement in the modern Civil Rights movement (Lipset & Altbach, 1967;

Clayborne, 1981, 2006; Buhle, 1989; Flowers, 1998). Later, students initiated anti-war

movements including mobilizations against US involvement in Vietnam (Lipset & Altbach,

1967; Buhle, 1989; DeGroot, 1998) and US policy regarding Central America in the 1980s

(Altbach&Cohen, 1989).ManyUS students also attempted in the 1980s to force universities

to divest in South African companies in order to end the apartheid system.

One of the most important US student reform movements was that directed at ending the

Vietnam conflict. Thismovementwas student based for several reasons. Onewas the fact that

the military draft put young people at risk of being forced to participate in the war. Another

was that information aboutVietnamand its historywhich conflictedwith the pro-war Johnson

andNixon administrations’ narrativesdepicting the conflict inVietnamasawar of communist

aggression often emanated from the USA’s institutions of higher learning. Thus college

students tended to be among the first Americans to become aware of the enormous gap

between pro-war rhetoric and historical and contemporary realities, eliciting moral outrage

and motivating many to become involved in anti-war protest activities.

When President Lyndon Johnson committed US forces to a major military intervention

in Southeast Asia, student protest erupted on a number of campuses. One of the first major

anti-war actions was the 21 May 1965 Vietnam Day protest at the University of California

at Berkeley in which over 10,000 participated (DeGroot, 1998). The student anti-war

movement spread to other campuses in California and other regions of the USA. By the

end of 1968, it appeared that at many major universities outside of the South most students

had turned against the war. The anti-war attitudes of college students, coupled with the

1968 Tet offensive by communist-led Vietnamese forces which seemed to indicate that the

war could not be won, contributed to growing anti-war sentiment among the larger

population. But the assassination of major opponents of the Vietnam War in 1968 –

Reverend Martin Luther King Junior and presidential candidate Senator Robert Kennedy –

distressed many student activists. Some shifted to more extreme tactics, such as calling on

students to boycott classes to preventDowChemical, themaker of napalmusedby theUSA in

Vietnam, from recruiting employees on campus. But many students and faculty viewed

attempts to shut down classes as irrational and self-defeating. In the early 1970s, a

significantly diminished anti-VietnamWar student movement continued until the policy that

the movement opposed – US involvement in the Vietnam conflict – came to an end in 1973.

Structural Revolutionary Student Movements: The South Korean Democracy Student

Movement

The South Korean democracy movement (Kim & Kim, 1964; Brandt, 1987; Kim, 1989;

Kluver, 1998) is illustrative of a structural revolutionary student movement where the



source of the condition provoking the oppositional student movement was viewed as being

both internal (a conservative, anti-communist military elite) and external (the US

government which, in the context of the Cold War, was believed to back repressive right-

wing dictatorships such as that in South Korea). The goal of the movement was clearly

structural rather than cultural. Movement participants aimed to create a democratic

political system and, in so doing, achieve a political institutional realization of existing

democratic cultural values and conceptions of human rights.

Kluver (1998) notes that students in countries characterized by a Confucianist cultural

system, like South Korea, tend to view themselves as being a conscience for their larger

societies. Since university education prepares them to play important roles in their

developing nations, many see their temporary situation as students, relatively free from

family and job responsibilities, as providing them with both a unique opportunity and

responsibility to engage in morally motivated political activity.

Following Japan’s defeat in World War II, US forces occupied the southern half of the

Korean peninsula and helped to create the Republic of Korea with the promise of a

democratic political system. After the Korean War of 1950–53, large numbers of US

troops remained and there was a widespread belief among South Koreans that military

actions, including takeovers of the South Korean government, could only occur with US

consent.

A major concern of conservative South Korean military leaders was the recurring

demand of many students to actively seek improved ties with North Korea with the goal of

relatively rapid reunification. Conservative officials accused leftists of being pro-

communist and used security forces against them. The denial of a truly democratic

political system to the people of South Korea was widely viewed as the primary cause of

the South Korean student movements. The apparently massive voting fraud in the March

1960 presidential election in which Syngman Rhee was supposedly elected president for

the fourth time provoked high school and university students to stage large-scale protests.

In response to the historic 19 April student uprising, Rhee resigned and a parliamentary

election in July resulted in Chang Myon becoming Prime Minister (1960/61). The 19 April

1960 student uprising became a source of inspiration for other student democracy

movements in the 1970s and 1980s. But on 16 May 1961 during student demonstrations in

favor of opening discussions with North Korea and other protests over economic issues

such as unemployment, Major General Park Chung Hee staged a military coup,

overthrowing the Chang Myon government. The Korean Central Intelligence Agency

(KCIA) was used against opponents of the new dictatorship. The next major occasion for

protest was the 1965 Normalization Treaty with Japan which was opposed by most South

Koreans who believed that the South Korean government was overlooking Japanese

repression and atrocities in Korea in return for economic aid from Japan. Normalization

with Japan, many Koreans demanded, should occur only after a sincere apology by Japan

for its past colonial rule and brutal actions in Korea. In 1969 the Constitution was amended

to allow Park Chung Hee a third presidential term. In response, university students staged

new protests against the regime.

In 1971, Park Chung Hee became President for a third time in the last direct presidential

election until 1987 by defeating his opponent apparently through fraud and voter

intimidation. In December, during protests against election fraud and government

corruption, Park declared a national emergency. This was followed in 1972 by Park

declaring martial law, suspending the national assembly, dissolving all political parties,



and establishing presidential rule-by-decree. Throughout the 1970s students continued to

demand a true democratic political system. As further repression seemed likely in the face

of nationwide protests against Park’s rule, the director of the KCIA assassinated Park

Chung Hee on 26 October 1979. This event was soon followed by a new military coup

d’etat in December by Major General Chun Doo Hwan.

On 18 May 1980, in response to continuing protests, Chun Doo extended martial law

through all of South Korea, banned political activity, and arrested Kim Dae Jung, a

prominent pro-democracy activist. In response, the people of Kwangju, the provincial

capital of South Cholla province, demanded political freedom. The protest developed into

a citywide rebellion known as the Kwangju People’s Uprising. This popular resistance,

involving mainly students, was crushed by South Korean special forces troops with great

loss of life – nearly 200 killed according to the official count, although many residents

believed the number was considerably higher (Kim, 1989). This repression was later

referred to as the Kwangju Massacre. Since most Koreans believed that the South Korean

armed forces would not dare take such brutal action without the consent of the US military,

many South Korean students came to view the USA as an impediment to South Korean

democracy. According to Namhee Lee (2006, p. 807):

One of the more pronounced features of the pro-democracy movement in the 1980s

was its changed view toward the United States. Before the Kwangju Massacre of

1980, the majority of Koreans saw the United States as an ally in their struggle

for democracy. But the tacit (at a minimum) support by the United States of the

military repression caused this view to change. The perceived role of the United

States as an accomplice in the suppression of Kwangju transformed the struggle for

democracy into a ‘nationalist struggle for independence from foreign intervention,

and eventual unification’ (Shin 1995, 514) rather than simply opposition to the

military dictatorship.

At many universities throughout South Korea, students organized independent study

groups designed in part to provide a more factual historical and political education to

compensate for what was widely perceived to be the selectively incomplete and severely

distorted pro-regime instruction received in high schools. Within the student movement,

first- and second-year students participated in anti-regime demonstrations typically

organized by juniors and seniors. Top movement leaders were reportedly selected

secretly from among the most dedicated participants among third-year students (Brandt,

1987). Their identities were kept as secret as possible for fear of expulsion, arrest and

imprisonment.

Student movement leaders sometimes attempted regional or even national coordination

of student protests and shifting to highly mobile demonstrations to keep police off

balance. Some students sought and received help from pro-democracy Korean Christian

groups, particularly after the Kwangju Massacre. Hundreds of student movement activists

attempted to contact, educate and obtain support from industrial workers by concealing

their true identities and educational credentials and getting jobs as factory workers

(Kim, 1989). Other students helped organize groups of farmers.

In May 1985 seventy-two South Korean students from several universities occupied the

United States Information Service (USIS) building in Seoul for three days, accusing the

US government of a role in the Kwangju Massacre and demanding an apology.



In April 1987, President Chun Doo Hwan announced that he would suspend discussion

on revising the Constitution which would have again allowed direct popular election of

the President. In protest, many citizens then joined students in weeks of nationwide

demonstrations, known as the 1987 Grand March of Democratization. Before the end of

the summer, the government agreed to an immediate constitutional amendment for direct

popular election of the President. The presidential election took place in December.

Eventually the renewed democratic system led to the election of the formerly imprisoned

and once sentenced to death democracy activist Kim Dae Jung as President of South Korea

in 1997 and to improved relations between the Koreas. Kim met with the North Korean

leader in 2000 in the North Korean capital and Kim’s government agreed to promote

reconciliation and economic cooperation between the North and the South (Lee, 2006).

Major student organizations involved in the democracy movement included the

National Democratic Youth and Student Federation which planned protests in 1974

against the Park Chung Hee regime, the Youth Coalition for Democracy Movement

created by former student activists in 1983, and the National Student Alliance established

in 1985, which included students from sixty-two universities (Lee, 2006). The National

Council of University Students, which was founded in 1987 after the reform of the

electoral system, worked for reunification of the Koreas and for further democratizing

reforms.

The success of the South Korean student democracy movement appeared to be the result

of both repeated large-scale internal demands for a democratic political system and the

greater willingness of the US government to permit democracy in South Korea as the Cold

War and the threat of conflict with the USSR diminished in the late 1980s.

Identity Radicalism Student Movements: The South African Black Consciousness

Movement

In the struggle against apartheid, several types of student of movements developed among

indigenous South Africans (Bundy, 1989; Diseko, 1992; DeFronzo, 2007). Many students

were attracted to the major identity movements, the African nationalist Pan

Africanist Congress (PAC), created in 1959, and the Black Consciousness Movement

(BCM) organized by student activists such as Steve Biko as a nationwide movement

in 1971, after the PAC had been declared illegal and had turned to armed struggle.

The PAC held

that the psychology of black South Africans . . . crippled by decades of oppression

and humiliation at the hands of whites, could only be rejuvenated by having the

nation’s blacks ‘act alone in reclaiming South Africa from white domination’

(Davis, 1987, p. 11); the PAC’s ideology gained popularity because it enhanced

feelings of pride and importance among many young Africans and engendered a

special sense of mission. (DeFronzo, 2007, p. 375)

The PAC’s African nationalist orientation contrasted with the multiracial approach to

ending apartheid of the African Nationalist Congress (ANC) and its ally the South African

Communist Party (SACP). Both of these organizations included not only the numerically

dominant indigenous Africans in their organizational leadership but also some Asians and

whites.



The BCM also adopted the African nationalist approach but, unlike the PAC, its

members avoided violence until after the crushing of the Soweto student uprising and the

killing by white security forces of some of their leaders, including Steve Biko in 1977.

BCM leaders argued that white rule had created a culture and psychology of subservience,

and a sense of inferiority among black South Africans that had to be replaced with pride in

African heritage and the psychological capacity to confront and defy white authority. Thus

the BCM strove to bolster a sense of empowerment and a positive identity among black

South Africans.

Disillusioned with the multiracial National Union of South African Students (NUSAS),

which discriminated against black students, Biko left NUSAS and established the South

African Student’s Organization, SASO, for black college students in 1968. According to

Bundy (1989, p. 28), SASO’s ‘clarion call to black identity and black pride had strong

appeal’. SASO members engaged in a number of activities. These included criticisms of

and attempts to change the apartheid-structured educational system to make education

better serve the interests of South Africa’s black population. SASO activists

communicated BCM ideas to large numbers of students and also worked to spread the

movement’s concepts, including pride in African identity and culture and black self-

reliance, to the larger population. White authorities eventually restricted Biko’s freedom

of movement and organizational activities in 1973.

The movement helped instill self-confidence and a defiant attitude among many black

students in the period immediately preceding the decision of the apartheid government to

require that half of school subjects be taught to African students in Afrikaans, widely

viewed as the language of white domination and oppression. On 16 June 1976 thousands

of African students in Soweto staged a demonstration against the new instructional

language policy. During the next several days police attempts to suppress the Soweto

Uprising resulted in the deaths of many students (Halisi et al., 1991). Another

student movement, which included mainly high school students, the South African

Students’ Movement (SASM), and had initially been oriented towards achieving

greater student input into school policies, adopted BCM concepts during 1972

(Diseko, 1992).

After the 1976 Soweto Uprising, in which SASM members played significant roles,

many BCM groups, including SASM and SASO, were declared illegal by the white

government. Biko was arrested and died in police custody from maltreatment and lack of

needed medical care. Many of the students that Biko inspired then joined the ANC, while

others joined the PAC.

Social Revolutionary Student Movements: Iranian Student Movements

As described above, social revolutionary student movements are most likely to develop

when the conditions that provoke an opposition student movement are institutional in

nature and are also cultural in nature, especially when the source of the dual conditions of

institutional oppression and culturally based discrimination are both internal and external.

In such cases the domestic regime is viewed as both an instrument of an imperialist foreign

entity and the means through which foreign cultural values are spread to the local

population. The social revolutionary student movement is oriented both toward

eradicating the political and economic structures that oppress the local population on

behalf of the imperialist foreign power and the collaborating domestic elite, and toward



combating the cultural influences of the imperialistic power which portray the domestic

culture as inferior.

In the struggle against the Iranian monarchy, the Pahlavi dynasty, and the imperialism

and moral contamination for which many Iranians blamed the monarchy and the ruling

family, several social revolutionary student movements developed. The Fedayeen-e Khalq

(Martyrs of the People) was a Marxist-oriented student movement whose members viewed

the monarchy and its international collaborative relationship with capitalist nations, such

as the USA and Great Britain, as institutional structures that oppressed the Iranian people

(Keddie, 1981; Abrahamian, 1982, 1985, 1989; Hussain, 1985; Milani, 1994; Ansari,

2003; DeFronzo, 2006, 2007). They also viewed Iran’s capitalist economic system as a

source of oppression and a target for change. The Fedayeen evolved from leftist student

movements among university students in three cities: Tehran, Mashad and Tabriz. Many

students who formed or joined the Fedayeen-e Khalq had college majors in fields such as

social science or the humanities and their parents typically had careers in modern

middle-class professions (doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, etc.) and often had been

members of leftist political groups such as the Iranian Communist Party (Keddie, 1981;

Abrahamian, 1985). As secularists, the Fedayeen opposed not only imperialist cultural

influences but also the imposition of religious culture on society. The Fedayeen-e Khalq

were inspired in part by Che Guevara’s theory of the Guerilla Foco. The group’s members

thought that engaging in revolutionary violence against high-ranking military officers and

government officials would show the people that the dictatorship was vulnerable, attract

popular support to their revolutionary movement, and eventually lead to a successful

revolution. The Fedayeen-e Khalq initiated armed violence against the Iranian shah’s

regime in February 1971 with an attack on security forces in the village of Seyahkal. Many

viewed the Fedayeen attack as the beginning of the anti-Shah revolution. The movement

carried out a number of robberies, assassinations, including that of the chief of the military

tribunal carrying out trials of dissidents, and bombings of the offices of foreign

corporations (Milani, 1994; DeFronzo, 2007). The Fedayeen was decimated by security

forces, but many members survived to play a significant role in the final weeks of the

struggle against the shah’s regime.

In addition to the secular Marxist student movement, many religiously oriented Iranian

students were inspired by leftist interpretations of Islam, especially the ideas of Ali

Shariati, a prominent Iranian sociologist, theological innovator, and political activist, to

create the Iranian Mujadeen-e Khalq (Islamic Army of the People) revolutionary student

movement. Shariati’s father was a Shia socialist who conveyed to his son the view that

Shia Islam could ‘inspire a revolutionary transformation to an equalitarian society’

(DeFronzo, 2006, p. 419). In contrast to Marxist-oriented views of religion, Shariati felt

that in some nations dominated by foreign powers, such as Iran, ‘local religious traditions

could motivate and unite the people in a powerful revolutionary movement’. Shariati

taught his students that the Prophet Mohammad had the goal of creating

a relatively classless society that would strive toward progress, especially the

elimination of social injustice, but that these original goals were later subverted by

greedy and false leaders of Islam. According to Shariati, Shia Islam, properly

interpreted, was a revolutionary religion inspiring believers to embrace democracy,

the pursuit of scientific knowledge, and equality of power, wealth, and opportunity.

(DeFronzo, 2006, p. 419)



In asserting that correctly interpreted Shiism is supportive of economic socialism, political

democracy, and the adoption of modern technology

and is in fact a weapon against domestic tyranny and foreign exploitation, Shariati

became a major architect of Modernist Shiism and convinced many of the more

secular opponents of the monarchy that Shia Islam could be an important component

of the anti-shah revolutionary alliance. Shariati’s lectures, in both recorded and

transcribed versions, inspired hundreds of thousands of young Iranians to support

and participate in the revolution against the shah. (DeFronzo, 2006, p. 419)

Young Iranians, many of whom had college majors in technical fields such as engineering

and whose parents were often members of the highly religious traditional middle-class

(fathers who owned Bazaar craft shops, carpet weaving businesses, restaurants, medium-

sized farms, etc.), developed the Shia modernist oriented Mujahideen movement in the

late 1960s and the early 1970s (Keddie, 1981; Abrahamian, 1985). One of their leaders

stated that ‘it was the duty of all Muslims to continue the struggle begun by the Shia imams

to create a classless society and destroy all forms of despotism and imperialism’

(Abrahamian, 1985, p. 163). The Mujahideen launched armed actions against the Iranian

monarchy in August 1971. These included the assassinations of officials of the shah’s

regime and some foreigners, bombings of Iranian government buildings, and bank

robberies (Milani, 1994). Like the Fedayeen-e Khalq, Mujahideen members viewed the

monarchy and its relationship with capitalist nations as institutional structures that

repressed and exploited the Iranian people and also viewed Iran’s capitalist economic

system as a source of oppression. The Mujahideen opposed imperialist cultural influences,

but advocated modernist Shia religious concepts rather than Shia fundamentalism.

The other Iranian student group which played a major role in the revolution and

ultimately provided many leaders for post-revolution Iran was composed of Islamic

theological students who were inspired by the fundamentalist version of Shia Islam,

particularly the ideas and leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini (Keddie, 1981; Milani, 1994).

Fundamentalist-oriented students became increasingly outraged by what they perceived as

the repeated violations of their religious ideals by the shah’s regime. These included the

1976 attempt to change Iran’s calendar from the Islamic calendar to an ‘imperial’ calendar

(one based on the founding of the Persian Empire) and the monarchy’s attacks against and

slanders of Ayatollah Khomeini’s reputation by means of a newspaper article in January

1978. In response, theological students staged a protest in Qom where some were killed by

the shah’s armed forces, further inflaming millions of people against the regime and

initiating the series of nearly continuous and increasingly massive protests that forced the

shah to flee Iran on 16 January 1979. Fundamentalist religious students viewed the

monarchy and its perceived imperialist relationship with the USA as structural sources of

oppression. They also rejected certain cultural influences from foreign non-Islamic nations

and advocated the spread of Shia fundamentalist culture. Unlike the Fedayeen-e Khalq and

the Mujahideen-e Khalq, the fundamentalist students generally did not view the capitalist

system as inherently oppressive or target it for replacement by a socialist economic

system. After the shah fled Iran, thousands of young religious men joined the Islamic

Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), an armed militia which eventually had an estimated

200,000 members. All three social revolutionary student movements, sharing an

overwhelming hatred of the monarchy and its perceived role as a tool of imperialist



exploitation, allied to accomplish the overthrow of the Iranian monarchy. But once the

shah was gone, neither the Fedayeen-e Khalq nor the Mujahideen had anywhere near the

level of popular support enjoyed by the fundamentalists nor the number of armed

supporters to match the enormous fundamentalist IRGC. The IRGC functioned to protect

fundamentalist leaders, such as Khomeini, intimidate or suppress rival revolutionary

groups, and prevent Iran’s professional army from carrying out a possible counter-

revolutionary coup.

Conclusions, Discussion, and Suggestions for Research

Emerging perspectives on the theory of revolution have emphasized the importance of

factors such as revolutionary leadership and ideology in combination with social structure,

broad cultural factors, and characteristics of the international environment in bringing

about successful revolutions. In this paper we observe that student movements have often

played major roles in developing leadership and ideologies for revolutionary struggles.

Previous research on student movements has tended to focus on Western societies and

generally has yielded results that have little relevance for either student movements

outside the USA and Western Europe or for successful revolutions. In particular, previous

work on student movements had not produced a comprehensive typology of student

movements or one that was useful in identifying the central dimensions that link particular

types of student movements to particular types of larger radical social movements. Our

analyses of revolutions and student movements suggests that the key bases for developing

a typology of student movements are the dimensions of structural moderateness–

radicalism and cultural moderateness–radicalism. The classificatory system, an

innovation aimed at improving the specification of the dependent variable in the study

of student movements, can be utilized to help identify explanatory factors particular to

each movement category.

Student democracy movements, for instance, are major examples in relatively recent

world history of structural revolutionary student movements. They have played significant

roles in helping to bring more democratic forms of government to a number of societies,

including South Korea and the countries of Eastern Europe. Student movements in

Iran during the 1970s are prime examples of students playing major roles in social

revolutionary movements in which both institutions and major aspects of culture are

targets for change and in which the source of the conditions targeted were both internal

and external. In the case of Iran, the internal source identified by revolutionary students

was the monarchy and the external source was Western capitalist societies which

supported the monarchy and whose interests student revolutionaries believed the

monarchy served. The major Iranian revolutionary student movements also attempted to

counter the moral corruption they believed was spread by the shah’s regime, whose

ultimate source they perceived to be the Western imperialist nations.

The typology also draws attention to the theoretical task of explicating the conditions

under which a student movement in one category might transform its ideology to the point

that it shifts into a different type. For example, under what conditions might an identity

radicalism student movement transform into a social revolutionary student movement or a

social revolutionary student movement into a student movement that is no longer radical

on the cultural dimension or structural dimension or both? Other topics for research

suggested by the typology include whether different types of leaders and leadership



functions are characteristic of different types of student movements, and whether and how

the different types of student movements might vary in terms of aspects of their

organizational structure.

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Jungyun Gill is a PhD candidate in the Sociology Department of the University of

Connecticut. Her specialty areas include social movements, the family, and gender. She is

the author of ‘Student and youth movements, activism and revolution’, in: J. DeFronzo

(Ed.) Revolutionary Movements in World History: From 1750 to the Present (Santa

Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006). Her dissertation research is a study of adoptive mothers’

mothering of adopted Asian children.

James DeFronzo is emeritus faculty in the Sociology Department at the University

of Connecticut. He is the editor of Revolutionary Movements in World History: From

1750 to the Present (2006), a three-volume encyclopedia, and the author of Revolutions

and Revolutionary Movements (3rd edition, 2007) and The Iraq War: Origins and

Consequences (2009).



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