Contesting Higher Education: Student Movements against Neoliberal Universities

Using new research on higher education in the UK, Canada, Chile and Italy, this rigorous comparative study investigates key episodes of student protests against neoliberal policies and practices in today’s universities.

As well as examining origins and outcomes of higher education reforms, the authors set these waves of demonstrations in the wider contexts of student movements, political activism and social issues, including inequality and civil rights.

Offering sophisticated new theoretical arguments based on fascinating empirical work, the insights and conclusions revealed in this original study are of value to anyone with an interest in social, political and related studies.

Donatella Della Porta is the Founding Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, the Director of the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos) and the coordinator of the PhD program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence.

Lorenzo Cini is Marie Curie Skłodowska Research Fellow at the University College Dublin, where he is the principal investigator of the MSCA-IF-2020 research action COntesting GOvernance by NUmbers: The Mobilizations of Food Delivery Couriers across Europe in Time of the Pandemic (COGONU).

Cesar Guzman-Concha is a Marie Curie fellow at the University of Geneva. He has worked and collaborated with universities in Spain, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Chile.