Public education and student movements: the Chilean rebellion under a neoliberal experiment

Abstract

Chile is recognized in the educational policy field as one of the first laboratories of neoliberal initiatives. These policies, initiated under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, did not change with the new democratic governments after 1990. This characteristic led international organizations to promote the Chilean policies in different contexts in Latin America and beyond. In 2006, a high school student movement occupied public and private schools, demystifying the outcomes of these policies. A new wave of demonstrations took place in 2011, with a college student leadership that paralyzed a significant amount of universities and schools throughout the country. After both waves of mobilizations, the political system opened the process of policy-making that considered the demands of social movements. In this article, we explore the dynamics between educational policies and social student movements in Chile, and the possibilities of change in favor of public education.

Keywords:

• Neoliberalism
• public education
• student movements
• privatization
• educational apartheid

Acknowledgement

Support from PIA-CONICYT Basal Funds for Centers of Excellence Project FB0003 is gratefully acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors. This statement is to certify that all authors have seen and approved the manuscript being submitted. They warrant that the article is the authors’ original work. The authors warrant that the article has not received prior publication and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. On behalf of all co-authors, the corresponding author shall bear full responsibility for the submission. This article has not been submitted for publication or published in whole or in part elsewhere. The authors attest to the fact that all authors listed on the title page have contributed significantly to the work, have read the manuscript, attest to the validity and legitimacy of the data and its interpretation, and agree to its submission to the British Journal of Sociology of Education. All authors agree that author list is correct in its content and order, and that no modification to the author list can be made without the formal approval of the Editor-in-Chief, and all authors accept that the Editor-in-Chief’s decisions over acceptance or rejection or in the event of any breach of the Principles of Ethical Publishing in the British Journal of Sociology of Education being discovered of retraction are final. No additional authors will be added post submission, unless editors receive agreement from all authors and detailed information is supplied as to why the author list should be amended.

Additional information

Funding

Support from PIA-CONICYT Basal Funds for Centers of Excellence Project FB0003 [Fondecyt N° 1160445]; [Fondecyt N° 1180801].

Support from PIA-CONICYT (Chile) Basal Funds for Centers of Excellence Project FB0003;FONDECYT (Chile) N° 1160445 and; FONDECYT (Chile) N° 1180801.