ABSTRACT
Students’ associations have a long history in New Zealand. As institutions that represent students individually and collectively, these associations have traditionally provided support and advocacy on academic and welfare issues, coordinated social activities, advocated for student interests and mobilised student support for wider local, national and political causes (Bégin-Caouette and Jones, 2014; Brooks et al., 2015a). In New Zealand, participation in students’ associations has often been viewed as a rite of passage for many of the nation’s political leaders, and students’ associations have played a significant role in mobilising citizens to support predominantly socially liberal, political campaigns, notably against apartheid sporting contacts between New Zealand and South Africa, New Zealand’s nuclear free movement, indigenous Maori rights movements, and protests against the introduction of tuition fees and student loans (Boraman, 2008; Coutts and Fitness, 2013). In the past decade, however, membership of students’ associations has fallen
dramatically and the role and function of students’ associations have been transformed in complex, sometimes conflicting ways. In this chapter, we report on interviews with 70 student leaders and students enrolled in New Zealand’s 8 universities to understand the changes occurring in students’ associations and the implication for student politics. We argue that the ability of students’ associations to mobilise and advocate for student rights has been eroded with the introduction of a ‘marketised’ university experience, a term used here in the New Zealand context to refer to government-directed reforms aimed at introducing free market incentives and policy practices into the higher education sector, including greater provider competition, the introduction of managerial practices from the corporate sector, and fees for service. The net effect of these changes has been justified in New Zealand with reference to explicit and narrowly framed goals of ‘economic growth’ and to improve cost efficiency (see Grey and Scott, 2012; Larner and Le Heron, 2005; Shore, 2010). Our analysis of the interviews reported here suggests the independence of students’
associations has been eroded as the goals and actions of these groups have become
aligned more closely with the priorities of university management. As a result students are positioned as education consumers, rather than active citizens participating in the creation of a shared learning community.
