The following article by Chris Tribble discusses the uses of words associated with students in the (Manchester) Guardian Weekly.

What we can learn from revolting students

For better or worse, almost all of the readers of this paper will have gone to one kind of school or another. However, education is not a subject that gets into the news as often as we might expect. A search through the Guardian Weekly archive (1996 - 2008) for some of the major political themes shows that trade (10.657) is mentioned most frequently, health (9,213) is number two, with defence (7,527), education (6,253) and justice (5,895) coming some way behind.

When it comes to reporting education, the topics that get the main focus are higher, primary, local, further, secondary, basic and state, although health and sex education are also in this top group. Education reporting comments more on the pre-university sector with school/s (12,653) at the top of the list, followed by university/ies (9,952) and college/s (2,774).

The importance of school as an institution is also reflected in the number of compounds in which school figures. The top 10 of these are schoolchildren, schooling, schoolboy/s, schoolteacher/s, schoolgirl/s, schoolmaster/s, schoolyard, schoolmates, schooldays and schoolroom.

It is sad to note that although there are a similar number of occurrences of schoolboy and schoolgirl, they occur in markedly different contexts. The strongest associates of schoolgirls are murdering and sex, and those of schoolboys are public, former (as in former public schoolboy) and death.

The people who study in these institutions are most frequently referred to as student/s (7,189) rather than pupil/s (1,270), and they are reported on for a mix of good and bad news reasons. We find pupil/s with star and brightest, but also with behaviour, numbers, performance and disruptive. Student/s are associated with non-violent, radicals and revolutionaries but also with loans, tuition fees, overseas and grants.

When the students aren't revolting, what happens in these institutions? Little seems to have changed; when didactic methods are commented on, teach (698) is more frequent than lecture (390). There is, however, a change in the debate on content. Creationism and abstinence were not on the curriculum when I was at school.