Consciousness and Contradiction: A Study of Student Protest in Zambia

The underlying question which has guided studies of studentprotestmay be formulated as follows: why, given the ostensible purpose of the university as an institution for the pursuit of research, teaching and learning, does it so frequently become the focus of 'oppositional' political activity ?Whyare students, whose defining activity is 'studying', so easily politicized? The thesis of this paper is that the university performs not just a single function but a multiplicity of functions and it is the relationship among these functions that determines, at the structural level, the propensity to engage in political activity. Second, the political consciousness of the institution's members is determined not merely by their roles within the university but by other roles they held in the past, hold in the present or anticipate occupying in the future. Third, the outbreak of student protest must therefore be understood as the outcome of the interaction of a specific student consciousness and the structural contradictions which inhere in the functions of the