Comparative Framework For The Analysis of International Student Movement - Gill and DeFronzo

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Social Movement Studies

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A Comparative Framework for the Analysis of International Student

Movements
Jungyun 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 International
Student Movements', Social Movement Studies, 8: 3, 203 — 224
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Social Movement Studies,
Vol. 8, No. 3, 203–224, August 2009
A Comparative Framework for the Analysis

of International Student Movements
JUNGYUN GILL & JAMES DeFRONZO
Sociology Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA
ABSTRACT Recent theory and research on revolution indicate that leadership and ideology play
crucial roles. Much of the leadership and ideology for contemporary revolutions developed within
Downloaded By: [University of Lincoln] At: 17:22 1 March 2011
the context of student movements. But previous research on student movements has often been
limited to developed Western societies and has yielded typologies of student activism that have little
application to revolutionary movements worldwide. Based on an analysis of student movements in
many societies during the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, a new typology of student
movements is formulated. The typology, which allows differentiation among reform student
movements, identity radicalism student movements, structural revolutionary student movements, and
social revolutionary student movements, appears capable of identifying the essential contrasts as
well as key similarities among a wide range of student movements in many societies. Conditions
fostering each type of movement are described. The paper concludes with a discussion of case
studies 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 1970s were limited to an examination
of activists’ backgrounds and psychological characteristics (Westby & Braungart, 1966;
Correspondence Address: Jungyun Gill, Sociology Department, U-2068, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
06269-2068, USA. Email: Jungyun.Gill@UCONN.edu
1474-2837 Print/1474-2829 Online/09/030203-22 q 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/14742830903024309
204 J. Gill & J. DeFronzo
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
Analysis of International Student Movements 205
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
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 Córdoba 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 Córdoba 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
depends on historical traditions of activism: ‘In many Third world nations, where students were
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 communism may have provided increased political opportunity for the rise of Western
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
a new nationalist ideology or embrace Marxism as the most powerful weapon against Western
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 Córdoba 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). Many US 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. This movement was student based for several reasons. One was the fact that
the military draft put young people at risk of being forced to participate in the war. Another
was that information about Vietnam and its history which conflicted with the pro-war Johnson
and Nixon administrations’ narratives depicting the conflict in Vietnam as a war 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 prevent Dow Chemical, the maker of napalm used by the USA 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-Vietnam War 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’état 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).

Comparative Framework For The Analysis of International Student Movement - Gill and DeFronzo

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Social Movement Studies

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A Comparative Framework for the Analysis

Research on Student Movement Activism

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

Defining the Student Movement

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

Antecedent Conditions of Student Movements

Types of Student Movements

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

Reform Student Movements

Figure 1. Types of student movements.

Structural Revolutionary Student Movements

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

Identity Radicalism Student Movements

Social Revolutionary Student Movements

Examples of Types of Student Movements

Structural Revolutionary Student Movements: The South Korean Democracy Student

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

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

At many universities throughout South Korea, students organized independent study

Identity Radicalism Student Movements: The South African Black Consciousness

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

Social Revolutionary Student Movements: Iranian Student Movements

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

Conclusions, Discussion, and Suggestions for Research

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

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

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