ABSTRACT
The very nature of American academic institutions means that student unrest has taken even deeper root there than in other countries. Japan, West Germany, France, and Italy also experienced serious disorders, and in a totally different political context, student movements also played an important political role in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. This chapter considers more fully the specific characteristics of the academic protest movement in the United States and examines the reasons that underlie a particular type of articulation between the different levels of collective action. A social movement is formed only if a social group defines itself in opposition to another social group and defines the clash as one of opposing interests fighting for the control of social development; there are opponents and a stake. The movement's relative lack of integration gives considerable significance and even fairly wide autonomy to what one might call the cultural revolt.
