Institutional voices in the Chilean elite universities. The speeches of the dominant actors in the academic field.

• In Event: Equity issues in Latin American higher education

Proposal

In contemporary world, education is one of the main mechanisms of social mobility or preservation of a dominant class position. During the last decades, many countries have experienced processes of massification of higher education (OECD, 2014). For this reason, it’s important to understand the role of university in the processes of social reconfiguration, social mobility and reproduction of the elite (Bathmaker et al., 2016; Mountford-Zimdars and Harrison 2017). During the last decades, multiple studies have focused on understanding elite universities. Most of these investigations have been developed with two characteristics. First, they have been carried out in developed countries, especially in Europe and the United States. Second, these studies have focused on understanding the characteristics of the students of these universities, and the future possibilities that the diplomas of the elite´s university generated in market and social field (Bourdieu and Passeron, 1970, Khan, 2011, Warikoo & Fuhr, 2014; Zanten, Ball and Darchy-Koechlin, 2015; Karabel, 2005; Wakeling and Savage, 2015; Rivera, 2016). However, few studies (Khan 2011) have focused on understanding the discursive processes developed in these institutions to justify their position and to prepare students. This is the central objective of this presentation.

Considering the case of Chile -which can be considered as a paradigmatic case of the tertiary expansion in the last decades-, the article analyses the way in which Chilean university institutions respond to the context of university expansion and massification, producing institutional, social, and symbolic distinctions that allow them to build highly closed and hermetic places for the elites. In sum, the article focuses on understanding the discursive processes (more than the institutional practices or actions) that would allow the elite to preserve their position in the university, with a focus in the construction of discourse of institutional actors.

In methodological terms, we select eight paradigmatic case studies (Neiman and Quaranta 2006) by five universities and six careers. Regarding the universities, two groups of universities mentioned in the study as Chilean elite universities were selected: i) traditional universities (with more than 100 years) with high academic quality and top-ranking positions in Latin America (Brunner, 2012), and ii) private universities with high selectivity criteria to enroll students from private schools and high socio-economic sectors (Muñoz and Blanco 2013). About the careers, the ones identified in the study were mentioned as prestigious, in terms of economic and social capital these careers provide to their students, as well as their focus on political positions of power in the country (Zimmerman 2013). In each case, five interviews were conducted (40 in total), focused on two institutional actors: i) faculty managers (usually, the head and academic coordinator of the faculty), and ii) teachers of the faculty, especially those recognized as ‘historical teachers’ of each case study. The analysis is generated using thematic analysis. According to Gibbs (2007), this analysis is done considering the content of the discourse, which is related to the linguistic and cultural resources of the society. This type of analysis has the advantage of generating abstract categories that facilitate the comparison between agents and institutions, as topics in common are generated and how these ones are addressed. Following this type of analysis, an emerging thematic coding is necessary to compare the content and meaning of the different cases (Flick 2014).

The results show the use of multiple discursive constructions by the institutional actors of the elite. Two principal dimensions are relevant in the construction of this speech. First, the speech of “process of formation”, understood as the set of values, ideologies, knowledge and skills that students receive during the stay at the elite university. This discourse are focuses in three ways. First, the institutional actors emphasize the importance of training their students in soft skills, recognizing in these skills one of the distinctive marks of the training that will allow them to develop trajectories of success within the respective field. Secondly, the discourses are clear in developing a value and ideological ethos, which becomes relevant to differentiate the institution from other groups (inside and outside the elite university) and to “mark” the student as a living reference of the values of the college. Finally, in most cases it can be observed that institutional actors are aware of the current importance of an international projection, so they seek to educate students to compete in the global market and to dominate global dynamics. The second dimension refers to a discourse of legitimation, where institutional actors argue why they have a privileged position in the educational system and in the social structure. In this case, the discourse combined eclectically and pragmatically arguments related with the values of productivity, efficiency, market and social justice. In all cases, these speeches provide a logical argument to the institutional actors that allows to justify the existence of these exclusive spaces in an environment marked by the democratization of access to the university

In sum, the results of this study show the relations between elites and higher education, showing how these institutions become active agents in the creation of privileged statuses and socially closed places, which affects the democratizing wave of the education. This allows us to understand more clearly how elites exert their power (Cousin, Khan and Mears 2018) and how educational institutions act as key agents through processes of identity reshaping.

Authors

• Cristobal Villalobos, Universidad Católica de Chile

• Maria Luisa da Rocha Quaresma, Universidad Autónoma de Chile

• Mario Fergnani, Universidad Alberto Hurtado