The Ambivalence of "Studentification": Cultural Sociology of Higher Education Student Incivility

• In Event: Narratives of Crime and Criminal Justice

Abstract

Known as the “town and gown” divide, it is often easy to distinguish the boundaries of the academic and non-academic population within a university town. Studies of “studentification” – the residential concentration of higher education (hereafter HE) students – explain how HE students’ presence in cities is part of the neoliberalization of cities meant to enhance the symbolic and cultural aspects of the city. Other studies suggest that the prevalence of low-level nuisance crimes in “studentified” areas is used as a moral panic to legitimate specific political motives. Whether HE students enhance the image of the city or are a nuisance to its residents, it is clear that their presence is often treated with ambivalence. This paper examines how language, narratives, and symbols are mobilized to justify the formation, regulation, and policing of “studentified” areas. Drawing on participant observation of city council meetings, local media resources, municipal laws, and printed and online materials, this paper examines the deployment of Alexander’s “binary discourse of civil society” around the ethical treatment of HE students in London, Ontario. This case demonstrates how the symbolic coding of students as “anticivil” plays a significant role in justifying strategies at containing student areas.

Author

• Daniel Kudla, University of Guelph