Impacts of Student Government Malpractice on Student Political Attitudes

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Saturday 8:00 am Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: The Role of Schools in Promoting Youth Voice and Civic Learning (Table 9)

Abstract

Student government is often an individual’s first experience with politics in which they have full political rights, but its potential for political education has not been fully realized in academic discourse. Moreover, what happens when student democracy is in crisis? Interviews with individuals who participated in an anticorruption student movement within the micropolitics of their university student government suggest that bad student government has a negative impact on students’ propensity for any kind of political participation, making them less willing to get involved in political activities after graduation. Participants advocated for stronger democratic accountability in student government structures that allow for more bottom-up, horizontal measures to hold representatives and unelected staff in check.

Author

• Justin Patrick, University of Toronto