The political agenda in the participation of college students in the Spanish State Council of University Students

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. During the last decade, the student movement in Spanish universities has evolved from an associative and assembly-participatory based model to a system of student councils as representative bodies with a strong influence on university governance. In addition, the State Council of University Students (CEUNE) was created so student interests could be directly promoted and mediated with the government. As the highest representative student body at the national level, it has enabled its members to pursue a political agenda throughout the last decade. METHOD. The aim of this work is to reconstruct the contexts in which student university policies have developed in order to describe and analyse the evolution of the debates, agreements and disagreements that have emerged within this Council. Through discourse analysis, we triangulate information from CEUNE meeting minutes, student manifestos, media coverage and interviews with key informants. RESULTS. We discuss the role of CEUNE in influencing university policy through classic issues (scholarships and public prices) and its capacity to introduce new issues to the agenda. DISCUSSION. Lastly, we analyse whether different administrations have planned their activities in cooperation with student representatives.