How have student movements and protests reshaped Citizenship Education in Chilean schools?

• In Event: Highlighted Session: History of Student Protest

Proposal

Despite recent social and student movements having achieved significant changes in the educational system, such as promoting access to higher education, and having sparked a constitutional reform process still in progress in the country, Citizenship Education in Chilean schools has not been consequently transformed to keep up with these changes. This study looked at discourses and practices of Citizenship Education present in Administrators, Teachers and Students in 6 Chilean schools (both public and private) during 2021 and 2022, paying special attention to how citizenship education policies are tensioned and negotiated by educational actors in the process of their implementation, and to how these policies contribute to or hinder the development of a critical and transformative Citizenship Education. The theoretical framework of this study distinguishes between an education as socialization, that promotes obedience, and an education as subjectification, that promotes active political participation (Biesta), as well as between minimalist and maximalist conceptions of Citizenship Education (Cox), to evaluate where Citizenship Education curriculum and policies can be placed within these continua. An Institutional Ethnography was conducted, including document analysis; observation of classes, celebrations and other school events; and interviews with different educational actors during two school years. Results show that the romantic notion of an activist student does not match the profile of most of the students in these schools, where a distrust in politics, a disinterest or demotivation to participate politically, and a reluctance to become involved in groups are described as the norm, and where sociological categories such as being a foreign student or belonging to a rural instead of a urban school, deepen the disconnection with social movements, protests and politics in general. The Citizenship Education curriculum and practices in schools, in turn, do not foster a deep analysis of and involvement in this type of political participation, contributing to a limited notion of citizenship that does not promote the development of a vocal, organized and active youth. These findings are relevant, because they show contradictions and paradoxes between the circulating idea and image of a critical and politically involved Chilean youth, and the current policies, curriculum and practices of citizenship education, that do not significantly include contentious politics, controversial issues or promote an active citizen; as well as a low student interest and participation in formal or informal groups, social movements or opportunities for student representation and organizing.

Author

• Andrea Lopez Barraza, Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez