Student revolt

Student unrest
Student dissent
Student riots
Anti-social behaviour of university students

Nature

Student dissent has led to widespread criticism of the educational establishment. Some of this criticism was evoked from the very nature of the authoritarian responses to student revolt in places as widely separated as Paris, Berkeley, New York, Mexico City and Beijing.

Claim

When the educational system remains the exclusive preserve of an intellectual elite, the product of the bourgeois class which built the system and continues to dictate its laws and moral values, students become confused by the divorce between an outmoded education and the reality of the world around them. They become frustrated, dissipate their energies, grow bored or put their hopes in radical protest.

One reason why the Tiananmen students presented such a dangerous threat to the old men in the forbidden city was that the scholar class had defected to their side. After 10 years lobbying from within, the bulk of reform-minded scholars had come out in a petition to release China's political prisoners.