Political Subjectivation, Generation, and Postmemory: Understanding the Activists of the 2011 Chilean Student Movement

Analysis of the life stories of three activists involved in the 2011 student mobilization in Chile reveals a particular articulation of the painful memories of their parents, who had been political radicals before or during the Pinochet dictatorship, that allowed them to build a perspective on their own struggle and develop effective narratives that fueled their activism. The research sheds light on the nature of postmemory and political subjectivation in transitional societies. El análisis de las historias de vida de tres activistas involucrados en la movilización estudiantil de 2011 en Chile revela una particular articulación de los dolorosos recuerdos de sus padres, quienes fueran radicales políticos antes o durante la dictadura de Pinochet. Esto les permitió construir una perspectiva sobre su propia lucha y desarrollar narrativas efectivas para alimentar su activismo. La investigación se enfoca en la naturaleza de la posmemoria y la subjetivación política en las sociedades en transición.

Initiatives of Skills University and significance for youth empowerment in India

India can become a major skilled youth workforce provider catering to global needs and its own needs. In past, education and skilling stand as parallel and independent streams. Need based frame work has to be developed to upgrade skill education to global standards by working in the lines of Government of India`s Skill Mission. This study analyses how promoting excellence in Skill Education in close association with industry, and boost economic status of youth by enhancing employability or establish as an entrepreneur. So, setting up skills universities will address the challenge of student mobilization through National Standard Qualification Framework. A skills university must have the dynamism to follow a demand-driven model following the work-integrated training model or the institutional model or a combination of both. Findings provide a unique insight into the requirement of Skills University. Findings highlights that Skills University canemerge as one of the common platform to provide skilled manpower by imparting quality skill education and bridging the gap between demand and supply of skill acknowledged by industry, globally. Skills University promotes academic growth by offering certificates/ Diploma/ state of the art graduate / under graduate cources for connecting the supply of skilled human resources based on regional demands.

The Contentious Politics of Higher Education

This chapter provides an overview of the analysis of transformation in higher education (HE) policies and student politics, linking them to research on the policy outcomes of social movements. HE policies have been shaped by various waves of student mobilization. Students have often been important actors in contentious politics, mobilizing on all main cleavages in society and often stimulating spin-off movements, as well as affecting institutional politics at large. Student protests are therefore affected by public policies at least as much as they affect them. This book focuses on these complex interactions, aiming at understanding the development of student protests within neoliberal universities. It explores four episodes of student contestation over HE reforms, which have recently taken place in Chile, Quebec, England, and Italy.

Contesting Higher Education

This close investigation of student protests represents the first comparative review of the subject. Setting the wave of demonstrations within the contexts of student activism, social issues, and political movements, the book casts new light on their impact on higher education and on the broader society. The book begins with an overview of the analysis of transformation in higher education (HE) policies and student politics, linking them to research on the policy outcomes of social movements. HE policies have been shaped by various waves of student mobilization. Students have often been important actors in contentious politics, mobilizing on all main cleavages in society and often stimulating spin-off movements, as well as affecting institutional politics at large. Student protests are therefore affected by public policies at least as much as they affect them. The book focuses on these complex interactions, aiming at understanding the development of student protests within neoliberal universities. It explores four episodes of student contestation over HE reforms, which have recently taken place in Chile, Quebec, England, and Italy. In light of the findings, the book reflects on the impacts of neoliberal policies in contentious politics and point at the relevance of coalitions for a sustained impact of mobilization campaigns. The discussion also points toward the student movements' effects in terms of empowerment, the triggering of spill-over movements, and transformations in electoral and party politics. Offering sophisticated new theoretical arguments based on fascinating empirical work, the insights and conclusions revealed in this study are of value to anyone with an interest in social, political, and related studies.

Professional Advocacy in Education. The Legacy of the 1960s Students’ Protest and the Forging of a Social-Professional Identity among Teachers (Spain, 1970-1982)

Students eventually finish their degrees and are incorporated in the labour market. The impact of ex-activists of student movements on their workplace is a relatively unknown aspect of student mobilization. This article looks at how the exciting university years and the experience acquired in collective actions and protest are introduced in professional spheres. It uses the case of Spanish teachers to see how the spirit of the 1960s influenced professional mobilization in the Spanish Education system in the 1970s and 1980s. The article begins with contemporary discussions regarding professions and advocacy. It explores this notion across several professions, culminating in how it is used today with regard to teachers’ professionalism. The next section of the article looks at the students’ movement in Spain and how it combined international demands with the national struggle against the dictatorship. The relationship between the students’ movements and the mobilization of primary and secondary education is the issue of the following section. Finally, it looks at the struggle of teachers around several issues such as the access to and quality of education, the opening of preschools centers and teacher training in order to illustrate the effort to forge a social-professional identity tied to wider social struggles.

LETTERS “TO THE AUTHORITIES” AS A SOURCE ON THE HISTORY OF STUDENT LIFE DURING THE CIVIL WAR

The article is devoted to student letters "to the authorities" in 1918 – early 1920s, taken as a source for studying the student corporation during the Civil War. The research is limited to the Cossack regions of the Russian South – Don and Kuban, centers of the armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. Higher education institutions were founded there shortly before the revolution. As a result of a powerful intellectual migration from Petrograd and Moscow, new universities were founded in 1918–1919. Student letters used in the study were obtained from the archival funds of higher educational institutions, government and administrative bodies of the State Archive of Krasnodar region, the State Archive of Rostov region, and the Professional Education Department Main Collection of the State Archive of the Russian Federation. Recipients’ and addressee’ statuses, time, subject, and motivation for writing are taken as parameters and considered in the analysis of letters. Attention is given to notes, official inscriptions on the documents, as well as accompanying letters, official answers, autobiographies, questionnaires, etc. The content of letters is examined within the context of the higher education space formation, along with migration processes of the revolutionary years, and the situation of civil confrontation in the South of Russia. Later, the authors of some letters became known in various fields; the discovered texts help recreate the milestones of their early biographies, especially since many tried to conceal the fact of their life and schooling on non-Soviet territories. The research reveals specific themes and plots of student letters "to the authorities", their value as an authentic source of information. These themes are admission / transfer to another institution, student mobilization, ways of solving material problems, and the activities of student organizations. The author notes how the contradictions within the anti-Bolshevik camp (clearly pronounced on the Don and Kuban) influenced the content of the texts. This is especially true for collective messages "to the authorities" that defended the interests of particular groups or students as a whole. It is shown that the interpretation of certain events and processes was determined both by the real needs of the authors of the letters and by the current political situation. In general, letters "to authorities" are an important source for reconstructing students’ daily life and the vital functions of higher education institutions in extreme conditions.

Radical Political Communication and Social Media

This chapter aims to analyze the practices of radical political communication within the context of social mobilizations whose emergence and initial spreading are inherently associated to social media. On the basis of a case study -the #YoSoy132, a university student mobilization during the 2012 electoral campaign in Mexico- the text analyzes the main uses of social media as part of the mobilizations and the interrelationships between online (communication) and offline collective action. The author concludes that, despite the importance of social media and the collective actions based on their use, even the participants recognize the necessity of going beyond the online space. Although social media pluralize the actors of political communication and even force its traditional actors to participate in alternative communication spaces, collective communicative action cannot be confined to the digital space, but it must be understood within the processes of social mobilization, in all its articulations and mediations.