Depending on the kindness of strangers: the affective dimension of inspection visits to low-performing schools in Chile

ABSTRACT

School inspections constitute a common instrument of Performance-Based Accountability (PBA) policies but are rarely studied beyond its effects on practices and results. This paper examines inspection from an affective perspective through a qualitative case study of three low-performing schools in Chile, exploring to what extent the emotions and relationship between inspectors and school leaders encourage school actors to make sense of performance feedback received during inspections visit between 2016 and 2019. Results suggest that the affective and cognitive responses to performance evaluation of schools, together with the emotional and relational aspects of the inspection visit, influence the extent to which school leaders made sense of and translated the recommendations offered by inspectors into their improvement strategy, identifying kindness as a main affective force mediating sensemaking from school actors. Finally, we discuss the implications of employing the affective dimension as a novel way of understanding processes of policymaking in education.

KEYWORDS:

• School inspection
• performance-based policies
• affective dimension
• policy enactment
• low-performing schools

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Due to the nature of this research, participants of this study did not agree for their data to be shared publicly, so supporting data is not available.

Notes

1. Due to social unrest in Chile in October 2019 and the pandemic from March 2020 onwards, the 2019 performance category is the latest available for all schools in Chile.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by ANID Fondecyt Iniciación N° 11191092, and by ANID [Becas Chile Doctorado N° 72200421].

Notes on contributors

Álvaro González

Álvaro González is an academic at the Escuela de Investigación y Postgrado and researcher of the Centro de Investigación para la Transformación SocioEducativa (CITSE) at Universidad Católica Silva Henríquez. His work centres on educational improvement from a critical perspective.

Rocío Fernández Ugalde

Rocío Fernández Ugalde is a doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. Her work focuses on the intersection of critical analysis of educational policies and cultural studies, with a focus on teachers’ labour and social movements.