Students and University Teachers: A Case Study of Informal Student Pressures

Abstract

In the university of `Kamakura' in a developing country, the university teachers officially hold the main power. Nevertheless students successfully exert many informal pressures on them. These pressures (and the compromises in which they result) are of two main kinds. First, there are those by groups (a lecture class, a seminar group, or a group of examinees). Second there are pressures and compromises which involve individual students and staff. These sometimes result in a long-term relationship between individual staff and students similar to a patron-client relationship. The main spheres in which these individual student pressures operate are consultation about the student's academic work and future career, financial and administrative problems, and formal appointments of students as personal research assistants. Both sides benefit from the relationship, but the main gains and the main pressures are on the side of the student.

This analysis parallels work on other types of complex organization elsewhere and has implications for research on British universities where it is possible that similar patterns may be found.