Supporting data for "Student Participation in Institutional Governance in Indian Universities: A Critical Case Study"
This study is a qualitative critical case study examining the role and nature of student participation in decision-making process of two higher education institutes in India. The study examines how even though there are legal frameworks created for student participation at the institutional level, students still feel dissatisfied and alienated within these models of university governance. Therefore, interrogating both formal and informal ways of participation where the former is about leadership, and representation at the institutional and departmental levels, and the latter caters to activism and resistance. The study also investigates this process of student alienation from the institutional decision-making frameworks. Student activism as ways and means to achieve student agency and agents of change are the prime focus of the study.
The study adopted Foucault’s discourse analysis of power and notion of governmentality as the theoretical lens to explore students’ participation as stakeholders and neoliberal clients where the students are failing to utilize their agency in the process of increasing bureaucratic structuring, authoritarianism, and the entry of market forces. The study utilised document analysis, observation of participants, in-depth interviews in the form of semi-structured and focus group interviews to collect the data for the case study. Thus, the study examined students’ perceptions and voices in negotiating and contesting power in university governance in India.
The data collection techniques involve documents, archival sources, observations, and in-depth interviews.
1. Documentary and archival sources included things like the university newspaper, university committee manuals, and reports from the academic and executive councils, notices of the administrative boards, circulars, along with the data obtained from university documents official reports, and documents issued by government and Ministry of Higher Education is also studied for understanding the recent amendments and changes in the governance structures and originations. The pamphlets prepared by various student organizations on campus, election manifesto, leaflets, posters, and propagational speeches, are closely analyzed to understand student concerns and how they are reflected in administrative decisions and the recent amendments of policy documents and framework. The recent newspaper articles, monthly magazines, and online forums are reviewed to understand mass opinion and the reported environment of universities in India. I have reviewed the documents, organizational charts, artifacts, and the official websites of the universities that were relevant to my research, which helped provide contextual data supporting the interviews.
2. Interviews: I shared emails to contact students before seeking the face to face interviews and develop my personal network with them. I've reviewed the consent script for the potential participants and then invite them for the in-depth interview by prior informed oral consent. I collected audio recordings of interviews when given explicit consent to do so by the participants, otherwise, I had written notes during the interview. The primary data is largely collected using a semi-structured interview schedule composed mostly of open-ended questions. I have share the interview transcript or the interview notes with the interviewee to ensure transcript accuracy. Every interview is audio recording and or transcript/notes file will be named according to the interview date, interviewee’s pseudonym, and main topic in order to facilitate data and generate codes. Audio recordings and transcript files are organized in folders respectively for different interviewee groups. Data files are password protected, encrypted, and stored in the following secured locations: My personal laptop, external hard drive, and Google Drive. Audio recordings will be initially made on an iPhone during data collection after this recording is transferred to the storage locations and it will be deleted from the phone. while I will avoid asking for personal direct identifiers, if any interviewee uses such personal information (for example full name or caste) during the interviews, I have masked this information in my transcription and/or notes.
3. Observation: I obtained informed consent from event participants and organizers. The concerned participants is then notified about the nature of the study and ask for consent, those refusing to participate will have their information excluded. Direct personal identifiers will be masked to protect participant confidentiality. My field notes are recorded as MS Word documents and named by activity date and topic and saved in a folder specifically for observation notes.
4. Personal reflections: I recorded my personal reflections on fieldwork experiences in MS Word files and label them as “personal reflection" along with the date recorded.
5. Documents and Archival materials: I collected documents and archival materials from my selected field site after receiving the required permission from the relevant stakeholders, including government reports and manuals, records and files compiled by the administrative staff. These archival materials will be stored as scanned PDF documents, image files, or MS Word files depending on the original format.
6. All data collected, and files generated will be password protected, encrypted, and stored in the following secured locations my personal laptop, external hard drive, and Google Drive.
