Authors

Elizaveta Potapova¹;  ¹ PPMI, Russian Federation

Discussion

Academic freedom is traditionally associated with the rights to teach and research (AAUP 1915; EUA 1988; UNESCO 1997). Traditionally, students were considered more as "second-range" beneficiaries of academic freedom, with professors being the first. This happened because the status of educators is either conceptually extended to scholars, ignoring the existing power gap between university employees and students, or the opposite, students are neglected as contributors to academic knowledge (Macfarlane 2012).

This problem arises in a more dramatic fashion in the contexts where rights and freedoms are compromised. Authoritarian consolidation in Russia and threats to democracy in a wider post-socialist space in Eastern Europe and Central Asia are opening a window of opportunity to assess the role of students in university culture, and to what extent they are affected by universities' adaptation to the existing political climate. At the same time, the question of a reverse relationship arises as well: how universities are affected by their students' advocacy.

The presentation is based on CISRus research on learners' academic freedom in Russia. It is based on five focus groups conducted before and during the war. The author's ambition is to show what kinds of engagements between students, staff, and university administration exist within the university walls and in what way they affect students' understanding of what constitutes their academic freedom, who is its guarantor, how it is violated and protected.