A Comparative Framework for the Analysis of International Student Movements

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 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.