Educational policy in post-dictatorship Chile (1990-2022). A heterodox approach.

• In Event: "How Power Works: Complementary Perspectives on Reproduction, Resistance, and Change"

Proposal

Chile is a paradigmatic case of the installation of market-oriented educational policies throughout the world (Treviño et al., 2019). Through a structural reform implemented in the midst of the military dictatorship (Verger, Moschetti & Fontdevila, 2017), the Chilean educational system was organized since the early eighties as a system that has been oriented towards the development of competition in education, the reduction of the role of the State, the promotion of private agents in the educational system and the consolidation of an accountability system with high consequences (Villalobos, 2016; Canals et al., 2019; Bellei, 2015). Even the introduction of these logics within educational systems can be considered a global trend (Sahlberg, 2016), the Chilean case is particularly interesting if its specificity, duration and permanence are considered.

The centrality of the market and competition as articulating axes of the Chilean school system have motivated an intense research agenda, aimed at understanding the trajectory of educational policies in the Chilean system, both in the dictatorial period and in the following decades (among others Villalobos & Quaresma, 2015; Diaz-Ríos, 2019; Cox, 2012; Bellei & Vanni, 2015; Falabella & Ramos, 2019; Bellei & Muñoz, 2021). Most of these investigations have highlighted (with some differences) two facts. On the one hand, the continuity that would exist between the educational policies of the dictatorial period and the post-dictatorship has been shown, especially in terms of the structure and organization of the school system. On the other hand, several authors have shown how, especially since the beginning of 2000, mechanisms are built to enhance the role of the State as an evaluating agent.

Practically all of these investigations have been developed with two similarities. First, and in methodological terms, the studies have been developed from perspectives derived from comparative analysis, which have privileged secondary analyzes without empirical sources or using the voice of key actors (politicians, policy-makers, researchers, etc.). On the other hand, and in conceptual terms, research has tended to develop from historical perspectives, starting from the idea that the different government periods can be understood as relatively “homogeneous policy blocks”. In contrast to this studies, this paper uses an unpublished data source to study the trajectory and characteristics of educational policy in post-dictatorship Chile (1990-2021). Through a collection, systematization and analysis of all the laws and decrees related to educational policy in Chile (387), the characteristics, themes, approaches and logics of educational policy during the postdictatorship are analyzed, accounting for the changes both between governments and differences within each government. In this way, it seeks to understand educational policy as a mobile and contradictory construction that always contains internal contradictions and tensions.

The analysis has shown the existence of common patterns throughout the period and, at the same time, relevant changes over the period. The common patterns stand out: the centrality of school education, the focus of policies on schools and students, the indistinction of policy between public and private education financed by the State, and the hegemony of policies aimed at promoting or correcting the market. Regarding the main changes, those that stand out in the last decade are related to the growing relevance of initial education, the consolidation of policies oriented toward public education and the growing -but timid- a rise of the policy of decommodification or straight of the public sector in the Chilean education system.

Although preliminary, these results encourage discussion on how current educational policies are configured, the role of the State in this process, and privatization trends in recent decades. At least three aspects can be highlighted. First, the analysis focused on the norms of educational policy has challenged the idea that educational policies are coherent and have a linear historical trajectory. On the contrary, the granular analysis of education policies has made it possible to perceive grey areas, tensions, and relevant levels of dispersion between and within each government. This does not imply that the consolidation of the market system in Chilean education has been a random act but, rather, paraphrasing Ong (2006), it can be considered as a process made up of exceptions and particularities, which -instead of subtracting from its strength- have allowed the consolidation and maintenance of this system for more than 40 years. Second, the results show the existence of certain historical inertia in the implementation of policies. Therefore, although the country has experienced important processes of political alternation (especially in the last two decades), an essential part of the characteristics of educational policies follows a relatively stable trajectory or a path dependence trajectory (Page, 2006) that goes beyond the political ideology of the governments. This could account for continuities and structural coincidences between the two blocs that have governed post-dictatorship Chile, as indicated, for example, by Garretón (2012). However, this alternation does not necessarily imply immobility. As has been highlighted, historical analysis has been consistent in showing that the second government of Michelle Bachelet constitutes a turning point both with respect to the type of actor to whom the policy is directed, the policy area or its orientation, aspects that are being consolidated in the next government. Finally, and in a more conceptual way, the results allow us to re-discuss the relationship between the State and the market in the development of educational policies. In the Chilean case, the consolidation of the market system has been achieved by standardizing state subsidies for the public and private sectors as equally relevant actors in policy development and, at the same time, through mostly public financing. Thus, rather than an external agent or a mere policy evaluator, the State has actively contributed to competition policy and the market orientation that prevails and consolidates in the Chilean post-dictatorship. It can therefore be classified as an analytical case of privatization not only of education but also of a process of privatization of education through educational policy (Ball, 2007).

Authors

• Cristobal Villalobos, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

• Sebastian Pereira, CEPPE UC

• Maximo Francisco Quiero, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile