Recent years have seen a surge in research on student mobilization and protest (Pickard 2019). To a large extent this is a response to the renewed engagement by youth in climate politics – sparked by Greta Thunberg and Fridays for Future – but also due to the prominent role of students in movements such as Black Lives Matter and the Hong Kong protests. Analyzing how and why students protest, as well as conditions for doing so, is central for understanding and responding to recent student activism. As noted by Bessant, Messinas and Pickard (2021, p. 5) especially political action by secondary and high school student has tended to be neglected both in current and historical studies. The paper addresses this lacunae. Apart from the general lack of systematically studied historical cases of school student protests in different national contexts there is a specific shortage of studies on students engaging in issues of school politics (but see Cunningham & Lavalette 2016). Also, scholars have not considered the role of organizations in student politics to a satisfactory degree. The paper can thus contribute with knowledge about students protesting against more concrete issues, not only regarding social and climate justice, as well as how student politics comes in different forms depending on context, not only sporadic and temporary but also highly organized.

The paper studies the massive student-led protest campaign to abolish school-grades in Sweden during the 1970s and 80s. At one point, in 1978, this campaign mobilized tens of thousands students in demonstrations all over Sweden (Landahl, forthcoming). The purpose of the paper is to learn more about how and why this issue emerged and became so important for Swedish students, how student addressed this issue through different forms of collective action, and the role of student organizations in facilitating the campaign. Sweden, with its institutional heritage of popular mass movements centered around large, hierarchical yet democratic, formal organizations (Henriksen, Stromsnes & Svedberg 2019), constitutes a critical example for studying organizational aspects of student mobilization. In accordance with this heritage Swedish students in secondary and high school education have been organized in national mass associations since the late 1930s (Johansson, forthcoming). In the post-war period, especially in regards to the grading-issue, there is reason to talk about a Swedish school student movement.

Theoretically the paper will utilize two concepts from research on social movements: political opportunity structures and contentious performances (McAdam, McCarthy & Zald 1996; Tilly 2008) in order to analyze how the campaign emerged, it’s relation to the broader political environment, and the forms of collective action used throughout the campaign. Furthermore the paper will draw on insights from organization theories, especially theories on interest and movement organizations, to analyze the interactions of the associations within, between and in relation to the state (Micheletti 1994; Zald & Ash 1966; Ahrne 1994). Finally the concept of framing, familiar to scholars of protest, will be employed to analyze what ideas of schooling sparked the campaign and how the associations framed the issue (Benford & Snow 2000).

Methodologically the paper takes the viewpoint of the students– studying the campaign through sources produced by the organizations themselves. More specificly it uses documents and print media from the two national school student associations SECO (Swedish pupil’s central organization) and Elevförbundet (The national union of pupils). Previous research on student activism and protest have relied more on oral accounts (Graham 2006; Jouhki 2021). Hence, the paper also provides a methodological contribution in exploring student protests from mainly their own perspective – a contribution made possible by a rich source material produced and preserved by the student associations. The method is inspired by a history from below-perspective (Sharp 2001).

Initial studies suggest that the issue of “relative” school grades, implemented after the comprehensive school reforms in during the 1960s, which became a major source of grievance for students in the 1970s, provided a perfect new claim for the student associations in need of a renewal after a turbulent couple of years in the late 1960s/early 1970s with major internal conflicts and crises of identity. The critique of the relative grading system evolved into a critique of school-grades altogether. Inspired by other movements as well as their own history the association initiated a range of contentious performances to address the issue both locally and nationally such as demonstration, strikes, petitions and other strategies. However, while Elevförbundet quite fast made the claim for a grade-free school SECO was more hesitant – which resulted in tensions both within SECO and between the two associations. The case is expected to highlight how the associations, while important in facilitating the protests, also constrained collective action by insisting on mixing protests with insider strategies utilized by the national leadership.

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