Female teenage activism in the Chilean student movement

• In Event: Roundtable Session (Monday I)
  In Refereed Round-Table Session: Challenging conventional constructions of gender, activism and accountability

Proposal

My research seeks to highlight female teenage activists in Chile who participated in the student movement in 2017. Connected to the goals of the Gender and Education Committee, this empirical research describes how these young women advocate for their right to access high-quality education, as part of the Chilean student movement that began in 2006 and continues today. Such youth activism is crucial to sustaining education as a human right.

I use qualitative research because it allows me to hear how my participants make meaning of their experiences. This approach aligns well with my research questions:
1. What are the strengths of the Chilean student movement, as understood through the female teenage activist experience in 2017?
2. What do the young women’s experiences tell us about where the student movement is now, and where it might be heading?

Semi-structured interviews and focus groups are the primary modes of inquiry, as they respect activists’ agency in describing their experiences and create generative discussion about how different activists view their work. In addition, I observe schools to build contextual understanding of the activists’ lives.

The Chilean student movement is a nonviolent social movement, allowing it to be examined through two frameworks: social movement theory and nonviolent civil resistance theory. Together these theories help us understand what tools Chilean female activists use to achieve their goals, and how they employ these tools to achieve their goals.

Social movement theory explains what a social movement is, how it starts, and what some core tenets of successful social movements are. Based on the activists’ descriptions of how they demand free, non-sexist, high-quality education, I find that the Chilean student movement is strengthened by the activists’ use of framing, mobilization of resources, and leveraging of political opportunities (McAdam, McCarthy, & Zald, 1996; McCarthy & Zald, 1977).

Moreover, social movement theory provides a framework for thinking about the life cycle of social movements (e.g. Blumer, 1977). I analyze the ways in which my participants discuss the movement’s relative successes and failures, and their visions for the movement in the near future, in order to conclude that the movement is at risk of decline due to (1) repression; (2) co-optation; (3) organizational failure and factionalism; and (4) a lack of strategic planning. Though social movement theorists (Miller, 1999; Macionis, 2001) offer the first three reasons for decline, I find nonviolent civil resistance theory (Sharp, 1973; Schock, 2015) particularly useful in articulating the fourth reason.

The Chilean student movement’s female teenage activists suggest the potential of marrying social movement theory’s commentary on movement lifecycle and on key aspects of a social movement (e.g. framing), with nonviolent civil resistance theory’s focus on strategy to achieve the movement’s goals. This interdisciplinary approach to social movement studies can be powerful in understanding the choreography of social movements in comparative international education contexts. My participants offer insight on the triumphs and challenges young women face as they work towards egalitarian social realities, while living in a world of inequalities.

Author

• Meghan Kelly, Harvard Graduate School of Education