The origins of student disturbances: the Kenyan case

This paper presents a rationale and a methodology for the study of the student disturbances which increasingly seem to recur at all levels of the Kenyan educational system. Occurrences at the school place are not viewed as isolated incidents but rather as social phenomena which may help us to understand the social dynamics of the whole Kenyan society. In this regard, schools are treated as a mirror of the society. The paper first looks at student disturbances as a ‘malaise’ of international proportions in order to show that contemporary youth protest is not a peculiarly Kenyan phenomenon. It then presents a cross-section of 1980 student protests in different institutions of learning so as to highlight some of the issues which seem to lead to school strikes, as student disturbances have come to be dubbed in Kenya. Thereafter, the paper presents a theoretical framework as well as a methodology for the conduct of the study.