University student protests have recently regained significant global attention, particularly in light of the renewed escalation of the Israel-Palestine conflict following the attacks of October 7th. Yet students in higher education have long played pivotal—and at times transformative—roles in political mobilization across the world. The 2024 July uprising in Bangladesh, which led to the fall of the autocratic Awami League regime, once again underscored their revolutionary potential. More recently, large-scale student-led mobilizations in Serbia have placed the government under immense pressure, highlighting once again the capacity of student movements to challenge entrenched power structures and catalyze broader civic resistance.
Despite these developments, research on student politics remains scattered and often narrow in scope. Existing studies predominantly focus on progressive student movements demanding social or economic justice, frequently drawing on the romanticized legacy of the anti-imperialist 1968 protests in the Global North and the anti-colonial movements in the Global South. What is still lacking is a systematic, comparative, and globally informed conceptualization of the social position and various political roles of higher education students.
As educated young adults, higher education students constitute a distinct subcategory within youth studies and represent a specific, transitional phase in the life course—one that is institutionally bounded and typically time-limited, often culminating in graduation or entry into the labor market. In contrast to other key social groups such as the working class or peasants—both of which have long been the focus of dedicated scholarly inquiry—students remain comparatively underexamined. Yet their specific characteristics demand closer attention: they are highly mobilizable due to their age, physical capacity, and the spatial concentration of their everyday lives around campuses and student housing—and they possess, under certain conditions, the capacity for collective violence. Their high degree of social media literacy, embeddedness within university (infra)structures, and physical and social mobility enable them to maintain expansive networks and exercise discursive influence that extends from the campus to the urban sphere, and further into national, regional, and international spaces—including interactions with state actors, institutions, and political parties.
Sociologically, many students maintain connections to working-class or rural communities, particularly in societies that have recently undergone a rapid expansion of mass higher education. During their studies, they often possess relatively limited financial means—comparable in some respects to those of the working class—which can reinforce a sense of identification or solidarity with subaltern groups. At the same time, however, students typically pursue upward social mobility and educational capital that positions them within a broader aspirational trajectory. As a result, they primarily constitute an aspiring middle class increasingly embedded within national, transnational, and global elite networks and discourses.
This dual orientation places students in a socially and symbolically ambivalent position: while often still linked to subaltern backgrounds or self-perceptions, they are simultaneously exposed to and engaged with elite institutions, ideas, and forms of cultural capital. Like sponges, they absorb not only formal knowledge but also political and cultural narratives, often articulating these with a high level of ideological literacy and motivation. Although both students and the institutions they inhabit are shaped by neoliberal and capitalist logics, their political engagement does not conform to the reductive greed versus grievance paradigm. Instead, student activism is frequently propelled by normative or ideological commitments and can function as both an amplifier and a catalyst for broader societal change, including through participation in what have been conceptualized as ‘radical’ or ‘counter spaces’. At the same time, their visibility and discursive prominence have made students a common object of social aversion and backlash, particularly among rural or less formally educated segments of society, who may perceive them as mainstream, culturally hegemonic, detached, privileged, or even threatening to traditional values.
About the workshop
This workshop serves as an initial networking and brainstorming platform for scholars interested in examining students as a distinct social group in the context of social cohesion, with particular attention to global and comparative perspectives. We aim to explore the diversity of student groups and actors—ranging from progressive left-wing formations to right-wing or even extremist movements—and the role of identity markers such as class, gender, religion, ethnicity, and colonial or historical legacies in shaping student politics and mobilization.
A specific focus will be placed on the spatio-temporal dimensions of student agency, seeking to understand the legacy of student activism across local, regional, international, and transnational contexts. While the workshop will primarily concentrate on the 20th century and contemporary manifestations, contributions tracing longer historical trajectories are also welcome.
This is an interdisciplinary project, combining perspectives from history, sociology, anthropology, and other fields (e.g., social psychology). By bringing together researchers working on student agency, social polarization, and political mobilization, this initial meeting aims to establish a foundation for a broader collaborative research agenda in the political sociology of students across diverse regimes and regional settings.
Workshop Details
Date & Time: Thursday, 25 September 2025, 9:00–12:00
Venue: Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe), STROHSACK Passage, Nikolaistraße 6–10, 04109 Leipzig
The specific room will be announced once participation numbers are confirmed.
For any questions or to register, please contact:
Dr. Julian Benedict Kuttig