Parents' Defense of Their Children's Right to Education: Resistance Against School Closings in Chile

• In Event: 26.021 - Community Resistance to School Closings: Defending Public Education in Chile and Chicago

Abstract

School closure has become a growing tendency in Chile. From 2000 to 2012, 818 public schools have ceased functioning with 143 closed just between 2010 and 2011 (Núñez, 2013). This paper is about parents and community-based organizations that have been fighting against this process. They argue that education is a human right, which should be guaranteed by the state for their children. This is an idea that is also stipulated by international agreements to which Chile has subscribed, but does not respect (I.N.D.H, 2012; Inzunza, 2011; Redondo, 2007). Specifically, this a qualitative case study (Ragin & Amoroso, 2011) of a school closing process in Chile, focused on the experiences of parents from four public schools of one urban district in Santiago, Chile. These parents decided to take over the schools and fight against the local administrator, known as a major, to reopen them. After seven months of persistent resistance, it is highly possible that three of these four schools will be reopened, against the will of the major.
This study aims to understand the status of the right to education as a human right in a neoliberal context such as Chile. Education as a human right is not only about student access to an institution or students learning outcomes, it is also about the respect and development of cultural values and local traditions (Lee, 2013; McCowan, 2013; United Nations, 2001; Tomasevsky, 2006). For this investigation I have carried out a semi-ethnographic study that includes field notes, semi-structured interviews and a focus group with community activism, parents and students from these schools (Maxwell, 2013). From the results of this research, it is possible to claim that parents of these schools decided to fight for the right to education for their children, because they feel that those schools belong to the community and not to an educational market. They believe that education should be related to the full development of a local memory and collective identity attached to those schools, rather than being concerned only about student achievement, as do many Chilean policies. They expect that education will provide an holistic formation of the students and allow them to build significant social relationships among their peers.
The conceptualization of the right to education promoted in this community can be identified with Tomasevski’s “4 As scheme” (2004): availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability, that involves educational inputs, processes and outcomes. This broad understanding about the right to education suggests that it is relevant to rethink legal components of this right in the Chilean Constitution. It also highlights local negative consequences of the national financial and administrative educational policies. Finally, it is important to reframe the relationship of parents with the education of their children. It seems that in the current Chilean context they expect to be participants in promoting and defending the public education of their children, rather than being identified as mere educational consumers, where the only role is to choose the education of their children.

Author

• Mauricio Pino-Yancovic, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso