Collective student action and student associations in Quebec

Abstract

Student associations have been a part of Canada’s higher education systems for over a century, especially in the province of Quebec. Their formal roles and responsibilities as well as their impact and their inner workings are ill understood, even though they are ever-present in public space. Quebec student associations have used a remarkable arsenal of legal and political means to achieve their goals. Societal change, however, might be swinging legislation and civic rights momentum in Quebec in a direction that could force the student movement to alter its approach to advocacy and social contestation. This chapter describes the organization of student associations in the province. It further describes the rights provided to associations in the legal and legislative context of the province, as well as the recent challenges to these rights. Finally, we test the orientation-focus framework () on the events of the Maple Spring of 2012.