Student Activism in Contemporary Mexico: A Review of the Andrés Manuel López Obrador Presidency (2018–2024)

Abstract

What was the degree of involvement and prominence of student mobilizations during the presidency of Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018–2024)? What organizational forms did they adopt, and what were their most salient demands during this period? In response to these questions, the present article is organized into four sections devoted to the analysis of student protests that took place at different educational levels during López Obrador’s presidency.

The first section problematizes the various approaches to the concept of the student movement, with the aim of showing how such differentiation affects the research findings. The second section surveys the predominant perspectives in the study of student mobilizations in contemporary Mexico and, in turn, examines the main protest events that have received the most attention in the specialized literature.

The third part of the article presents the findings derived from the analysis of a systematized database of more than 300 student protest events in Mexico between 2018 and 2024. This research seeks to provide a comprehensive overview—supported by various graphics—of what occurred in the country during those six years with respect to student mobilizations, their organizational forms, their demands, and their geographical distribution. Accordingly, the final section of the paper proposes a reading of student activism based on the collected data and delves into the specific features it has adopted during López Obrador’s six-year term.