300654 Heterogeneities and inequalities in university social spaces: global and local perspectives (S) (WiSe 2019/2020)

Today more and more people are studying (worldwide) and thus became increasingly mobile as students, both spatially and socially as well as politically. Studying for many means expanding their horizons. But studying can also result in limitations, fears and even experiences of exclusion.
Due to its thematic relevance, the topic of ‚students’ and ‚universities’ has in the recent years become a rapidly growing field of research in sociology, social anthropology, political science, social geography and education science. This line of literature, additionally, addresses issues of globalization and transnationalization, inequality and socio-spatial constellations, as well as social and political movements (student protests), belonging, heterogeneity, social boundary making and exclusion.
This research seminar focuses on two interrelated dynamics. On one hand it scrutinizes the global movements of students – either on the basis of rapidly growing literature or on the basis of own empirical research. On the other hand, the transformation of the university as a social space will be examined: how does the increasing heterogeneity of students – for example on the basis of class, gender, ethnicity/race, religion, disability or specific orientations – shape experiences of inclusion and exclusion? How is the university experienced both as a material and immaterial space? To what extent is university a space where specific imaginations can be developed and unfolded, and to what extent is a place where one might feel alienated as a student?

Bibliography

Başak Bilecen & Christof Van Mol (2017) Introduction: international academic
mobility and inequalities, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 43:8, 1241-1255, DOI:
10.1080/1369183X.2017.1300225
Pfaff-Czarnecka, Joanna (Hg.) 2017. Das soziale Leben der Universität. Studentischer Alltag zwischen Selbstfindung und Fremdbestimmung. Bielefeld: transcript.
Kipnis, Andrew 2011. Governing the Educational Desire. Culture, politics and schooling in China. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Nielsen, Gritt 2015. Figuration Work: Student Participation, Democracy and University Reform in a Global Knowledge Economy. Oxford: Berghahn Books.