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Book part
Publication date: 19 July 2021

Didem Türkoğlu

Welfare state retrenchment in advanced industrialized countries seeks to expand market-like logics in public services, based on the assumption that public services benefit from…

Abstract

Welfare state retrenchment in advanced industrialized countries seeks to expand market-like logics in public services, based on the assumption that public services benefit from non-state initiative and competition. This logic gained a stronghold in policymaking, but its implementation nevertheless struggled to find acceptance. Public university tuition is one such case where policymakers aimed to increase investment in human capital through cost sharing. While students in some countries accept them as a necessary evil, opposition arises in others. Students in Germany and Turkey took to the streets in support of tuition-free higher education. Despite differences in their political contexts and the differential mediating role political culture plays, student mobilization reversed right-wing parties' policies. This article focuses on how opposition to tuition policies is covered by the news in both countries. Using a mixed-methods approach combining topic modeling with qualitative analysis, I show that student protests and tuition policy discussions are reported separately. In both countries, student protests involving confrontation were highlighted whereas reports on institutional actors dominated policy discussions. However, when movements pressure political parties to “own” an issue in their platform, party endorsement subsequently amplifies issue salience even if movement organizations and parties are not covered together by the media. This indicates an indirect effect of movements' collective action on news coverage. Political party endorsements mediate the amount of coverage movement issues receive. This finding provides insights into how opposition to welfare state retrenchment might navigate difficulties in closed media cultures that heavily favor institutional actors.

Details

The Politics of Inequality
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83909-363-0

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Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2023

Roberto S. Salva

Using an ecological model of child participation and drawing on newsletter data from schools across the United States of America (USA), this chapter statistically explores five…

Abstract

Using an ecological model of child participation and drawing on newsletter data from schools across the United States of America (USA), this chapter statistically explores five state factors linked with school protests against gun violence: (1) children’s neighbourhood opportunity; (2) race/ethnicity; (3) voter preference for either a Republican or a Democratic president; (4) child participation policies; and (5) gun laws/violence/ownership. The chapter explores factors linked to both student participation in protests and student nonparticipation in protests that take place at their schools. Three factors were found to be associated with participation and nonparticipation: children’s neighbourhood opportunity, voters’ preference, and participation policies. Findings suggest that Democratic-voting states, mediated by education opportunity, predict the frequency of student protests against gun violence. In Republican-voting states, where education opportunity does not mediate the frequency of school protests, students still organised and participated in protests but to a lesser extent. In addition, states with high overall children’s neighbourhood opportunity and voting student education board members are highly likely to have non-protesting students in schools with protests. The chapter presents five conclusions from these results for the positive and negative exercise of child participation rights and considers what further multilevel explorations can be done to further test the framework employed for this analysis.

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Childhood, Youth and Activism: Demands for Rights and Justice from Young People and their Advocates
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-469-5

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Book part
Publication date: 6 July 2021

Gabriela González Vaillant and Fernanda Page Poma

This paper analyzes the relationship between the Chilean student movement and state force action during the period 2000–2012, placing specific attention on three waves of student

Abstract

This paper analyzes the relationship between the Chilean student movement and state force action during the period 2000–2012, placing specific attention on three waves of student contention that took place at the turn of the century. During the decade under study, the Chilean students became more contentious, they broadened their demands beyond specific grievances to encompass a critique to the education system as a whole, their alliance system grew (gaining from these denser networks of collaboration more resources to mobilize), and they managed to win public opinion on their side. However, the relationship with state forces has not been static across time, and both students and state forces have experienced changes in how they interact with each other. The results of this paper are based on a mixed method approach that drew on a quantitative database of student contention in Chile (n = 491 student events) and 15 in-depth interviews with leader activists from the most salient recent Chilean student movements of three periods under study, in addition to some key informants. The findings confirm that when student protests target the government, when they use disruptive strategies that affect the status-quo, and when they mobilize alongside other challenging actors, they are more likely to be met with direct repression by authorities. The research shows that there is a “dialect of repression” at play by which state forces' direct repression of protest can be two-fold: on the one hand, it gives students visibility in the public opinion, but on the other, it can be negative for ushering support if the media and authorities are successful in portraying them as violent or a threat to public order. In this sense, the figure of the “encapuchado,” students who disguise their identity and purposefully seek confrontation with authorities during mobilizations is problematized by the movement itself. How to win public opinion and use that visibility in their favor is related to decision-making mechanisms that the movement puts at play but also to the calculations done on the part of the government and security forces about the leverage of the movement.

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Four Dead in Ohio
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-807-4

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Book part
Publication date: 12 July 2023

Laura J. Heideman

We are long overdue for a conversation about ethical treatment of student researchers. Ethical treatment of research participants has been carefully defined through decades of…

Abstract

We are long overdue for a conversation about ethical treatment of student researchers. Ethical treatment of research participants has been carefully defined through decades of public conversation, and ethical practices have been institutionalized through mechanisms like mandatory ethics trainings and Institutional Review Boards. Student researchers deserve the same level of consideration. While there are many types of ethical violations of student labor in research projects, there are two that are of particular concern to social movements researchers: use of volunteer labor without clear academic or professional benefits, and failure to ensure the safety of student researchers. The first of these ethical violations is especially common in social movements research because of the emergent nature of protests: new rounds of protests begin and researchers seek to rapidly collect data on a tight timeframe, making grant funding to pay student researchers challenging. The second situation emerges when faculty researchers do not consider the ways students' race, gender identity, or other characteristics, or the nature of the protests themselves might create potential risks for students.

In this paper, I propose using the Belmont Report principles to create guidelines for ethical treatment of student researchers. While these principles were developed for the purposes of protecting research participants, the principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice help us to clarify the risks and benefits for student researchers, to find ways to maximize the benefits of student research participation, and to understand and address the inequalities that plague graduate student training.

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Methodological Advances in Research on Social Movements, Conflict, and Change
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80117-887-7

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Article
Publication date: 29 July 2014

Christopher M. Seitz and Robert W. Strack

Although the threat of protest may be a barrier toward implementing a tobacco policy on college campuses in the USA, the prevalence and severity of such opposition has yet to be…

Abstract

Purpose

Although the threat of protest may be a barrier toward implementing a tobacco policy on college campuses in the USA, the prevalence and severity of such opposition has yet to be investigated. The purpose of this paper was to determine how often campus communities protest against smoke-free policies and rate the disruptiveness of the protests.

Design/methodology/approach

Researchers located and analyzed news reports regarding 21 protests over newly implemented or proposed policies on college campuses in the USA.

Findings

Protests over college campus smoking policies are typically non-disruptive and consist of a small group of students who publicly smoke tobacco products and attempt to gain support of fellow students.

Practical implications

Those advocating for campus tobacco policies should be aware that the campus community may protest, but that a heightened concern of a protest's effect on the campus community may be unfounded.

Originality/value

To authors’ knowledge, research studies regarding opposition to anti-tobacco policies cannot be found in the literature. This paper may be used as a practical resource by advocates to educate campus administrators about the low turnout and lack of severity of any possible protest to a new campus tobacco policy.

Details

Health Education, vol. 114 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-4283

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Book part
Publication date: 24 October 2022

Maria De Jesus Mora

The national immigrant rights campaign of 2006 stands as one of the largest mobilizations by people of color in US history, yet less scholarly attention has been given to…

Abstract

The national immigrant rights campaign of 2006 stands as one of the largest mobilizations by people of color in US history, yet less scholarly attention has been given to systematically comparing these mobilizations at the local level. To develop an understanding of what led to sustained mobilization, a comparative case study analysis of seven cities in California's San Joaquin Valley is employed. The empirical evidence is based on interviews with key organizers and participants, newspaper documentation of protest events, census data, and other secondary sources. I find that the presence and size of policy threats explained the initial protest during the spring of 2006 in all localities, but cities with elaborate resource infrastructures (preexisting organizations, histories of community organizing, and coalitions) had more enduring levels of collective action.

Book part
Publication date: 20 September 2014

Jonathan S. Coley

Social movement scholars have increasingly drawn attention to the process of “bridge building” in social movements – that is, the process by which activists attempt to resolve…

Abstract

Social movement scholars have increasingly drawn attention to the process of “bridge building” in social movements – that is, the process by which activists attempt to resolve conflicts stemming from different collective identities. However, most scholars assume that social movements primarily attempt to resolve tensions among activists themselves, and thus that bridge building is a means to other ends rather than a primary goal of social movement activism. In this chapter, I challenge these assumptions through a case study of a “bridging organization” known as Bridge Builders, which sought as its primary goal to “bridge the gap between the LGBT and Christian communities” at a Christian university in Nashville, Tennessee. I highlight the mechanisms by which Bridge Builders attempted to facilitate bridge building at the university, and I argue that Bridge Builders succeeded in bridging (a) disparate institutional identities at their university, (b) “structural holes” between LGBT- and religious-identified groups at their university, and (c) oppositional personal identities among organizational members. As I discuss in the conclusion, the case of Bridge Builders has implications for literatures on bridge building in social movements, cultural and biographical consequences of social movements, and social movement strategy.

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Intersectionality and Social Change
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-105-3

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Article
Publication date: 27 August 2020

Jenshuo Hsu

This paper explores how the student movement in Taiwan transformed after the abolition of martial law. After democratization, there were three large-scale student protests, in…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper explores how the student movement in Taiwan transformed after the abolition of martial law. After democratization, there were three large-scale student protests, in 1990, 2008 and 2014. This paper explores the development through this period of student movement organizations, issues and interrelations between organizations and individuals.

Design/methodology/approach

The study of the process of transformation and development is based on an analysis of newspaper and magazine articles and books about the student movement. To provide an insider's view, magazines, statements and meeting memos written by activists are also included.

Findings

As a legacy of the student movement in the 1980s, the 1990 Wild Lily protest advocated democratization and organized a cross-school alliance. This pattern declined, however, because it proved hard to recruit participants after democratization. Instead, student activists returned to education-related issues, and the scale of student organizations remained small. The 2008 Wild Strawberry protest was carried out by autonomous, self-organized groups, which reflected the emergence of individuals as activists. Afterward, student movement organizations attempted to create multiple networks consisted of various issues and participants. These groups built solidarity by cooperating on education and political issues and became the base for the 2014 Sunflower protest.

Originality/value

This paper explores the rarely described historical context for the student movement between large-scale student protests in Taiwan and provides a more comprehensive understanding of the interrelation of organizations and individuals in contemporary social movements.

Details

Asian Education and Development Studies, vol. 10 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2046-3162

Keywords

Expert briefing
Publication date: 19 March 2015

The outlook for protests and civil society in Myanmar.

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