Students’ academic freedom in Europe: a means to an end or an end in itself?

Abstract

This thesis compares how students’ academic freedom is conceptualised by student representatives from the European Students’ Union (ESU), with how the concept is regulated in policy documents from the European and international level, using interviews and document analysis. Furthermore, it investigates how students’ academic freedom is protected in practice by examining the threats identified by the student representatives. The analysis uses three approaches to understanding students’ academic freedom. The first two are characterised as the societal and scholarly approach based on Searle’s (1972) and Magsino’s (1978) justifications for academic freedom, while the third transposes Sen’s (1999) capability approach to the concept of students’ academic freedom. The findings point to a number of divergences between the approaches used in policy documents and those used by student representatives working to defend the concept on a daily basis. In policy documents the topic remains vague and underdeveloped, while student representatives view students’ academic freedom as a means to developing individuals’ capability to exercise their freedoms through fostering critical thinking and autonomy. Divergent approaches to students’ academic freedom have led to a number of different threats identified by respondents, such as the changes in the perceived purpose of the university and its conditions, a growing indifference among students towards their own academic freedom, as well as challenges in defining the boundaries of academic freedom.