A Phenomenological Inquiry on Student Activism from the Lived Experiences of Select Students within National Democratic Mass Organizations (NDMOs)

Abstract

Student activism plays a prominent role in the advancement of social movements within the Philippines. However, inquiry and analysis that looks into the Philippine context is limited and temporally bound. Current definitions and models of student activism fail to consider the nuances of the phenomena, causing an insufficiency of explaining the phenomenon. As such, the study seeks to look into the lived experiences of student activists with the goal of understanding and characterizing the phenomenon as retrieved from the grassroots. The study characterizes Filipino NDMO student activism as the constant and cyclical conduct of student activism guided by the Arouse, Organize, and Mobilize (AOM) framework, looking into the activities, motivations, and interactions that occur during the conduct of student activism. It is in this context that the study investigates the phenomenon of student activism and characterizes the definition making process of those engaged with the movement through the conceptualization of a new model of student activism called the “Contemporary Student Activism Model”. This model seeks to capture a wider, contextual, and more complete image of the phenomena, encapsulating the nuances of the NDMO student activist movement in the Philippines.