Student agency: two students’ agentic actions in challenging oppressive practices on a diverse university campus

Abstract

University campuses are spaces not only for self-reflection and critique but also where asymmetrical power relations create experiences of exclusion and marginalisation for many students.Within the complexity of such spaces, transformative opportunities are opened up for student agency and agentic actions. This qualitative article uses a narrative approach to explore how two students used transformative opportunities to question and challenge institutional culture. Data were generated through reflective exercises and semi-structured interviews, spread over four years. Through reflection and storytelling, the students used agentic actions to realise their roles as change agents working towards inclusivity. In drawing on Bandura’s social cognitive theory and critical emancipatory theory, we foreground how a reflection on past experiences, engagement with present judgements and an imagined future enable agentic actions. The study illustrates the importance of student agency in raising critical awareness and the challenging of oppressive practices.