Public Education and Resistance to School Closing in Chile

• In Event: Neoliberal Education Reform: The Ongoing Laboratories in Chicago and Chile

Abstract

Objective. School closing has been a growing trend in Chile during the last twenty years. A recent study showed that, between 1994 and 2012, 2,822 schools were closed, 52% out of them were public schools. Associated to this phenomena, also a striking pattern of the creation of new private schools has been observed (Grau, Hojman, Labra, & Mizala, 2015). Some school communities have tried to resist these closings, starting a process of political engagement and organization that have opened crevices in the neoliberal drive to put under siege public education. The objective of this session is to analyze three of these cases of resistance to public school closing in different territories of the country (rural and urban) to explore the meanings of public education to these communities and how they understand the Chilean process of neoliberalization and resistance.
Theoretical perspective. The process of school closing is part of a global neoliberal project in education, characterized by marketization and privatization (Apple, 2005; Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). The literature reflects that these policies have escalated the gentrification and segregation of cities, harming traditionally marginalized minority groups (Lipman, 2011; McCarthy & Nyandiko, 2014; Núñez, Soto, & Solís, 2013), and that they have pushed a deep shift in terms of what education means, and who education actors are and want to be (Ball, 2008). Considering these issues, and the fact that neoliberal policies unfold differently according to sociohistorial and geographical diversity (Peck & Tickel, 2002).
Methods. This paper presents a multi-site comparative case study (Stake, 2005) focused on recent experience of resistance to the process of school closing in three territories of Chile - the metropolis high urban city, a middle size city, and a rural area.
Data Sources. Data of each case were collected through ethnographic methodology, combining methods of participant observations, interviews and focus groups with students, parents and teachers.
Findings and significance. As result is possible to identify that in spite of geopolitical differences, the process of school closing characterized by the communities as being legally irregular and base on an abuse of power by the local authorities. The meanings of public education to these communities combines elements of the discourse of common goods, social rights, and local elements of their own historical sense as a community. However, these discourses also articulate a neoliberal discourse, especially in the process of resistance, such as the right of school choice the best education and the traditional language of meritocracy based on individual effort, hence raising the question about the possibilities and scope of an alternative public education to a neoliberal model.

Authors

• Mauricio Pino-Yancovic, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Francisca Corbalan Possel, Universidad de Chile

• Carmen Gloria Nunez, The Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso