Beyond bad behaviour? Towards a broader understanding of school student activism

Abstract

This paper explores UK school students’ protest activism relating to their schools’ policies and practices, drawing on two datasets: 1) a newspaper analysis of media reports relating to school protests between 2000 and 2021; 2) a survey of 800 secondary school pupils in Wales. Drawing on social movements literature and adapting concepts for the school environment, we present a framework for exploring children’s protest repertoires that distinguishes between institutionalised, legitimated and disruptive forms of activism. Our analysis outlines trends in pupil protest activities and explores stated motivations for protesting. We find that pupils are using a broad range of protest actions, often in combination, to voice concerns about school-based issues. Our data also suggest that pupils link their grievances to wider themes of social justice, rights, fairness and solidarity. Using principles of critical pedagogy, our study challenges hegemonic and deficit-laden ideas about children’s (mis)behaviour as potential mis-readings of activism.

Keywords:

• Children’s rights
• activism
• protest
• social movement
• school uniform
• school behaviour

Acknowledgements

We would like to extend special thanks to Florence Hampton for their fantastic work on the Nexis database. This paper also draws on research supported by the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research and Data (WISERD). WISERD is a collaborative venture between the Universities of Aberystwyth, Bangor, Cardiff, South Wales and Swansea. The WISERD Education Multi-Cohort Study is funded by the Welsh Government. Laura Arman, Catherine Foster and Zoe Rozelaar assisted in the collection of data.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.