Globalization, Privatization and the Role of the State in Education Through Representative Terms of Government in Argentina

ABSTRACT

We study the role of the State in education through the most significant government periods in Argentina in the last 50 years. We use a sociocultural approach, contemplating the historical development of educational policies in the country, exploring conceptual frameworks applicable in the investigation of the State, privatization and decentralization in education. We analyze how certain models of government establish the cultural reproduction of inequality in education, contextualizing the role of the State as a possible promoter of hegemonic educational projects of hybrid models of globalization. We discuss the multifaceted role of the State in education and society, as well as in the educational institutions themselves and their actors, considering education as a fundamental right, which must be guaranteed by the State. Through the analysis of political, economic and social contexts we expose negative impacts on education during the exercise of neoliberal practices, which resort to privatization and state decentralization. In contrast, the use of socio-educational policies has contributed greatly to the improvement of the country’s public education system. The results of this case study are then presented as a general notion regarding the global issue of inequality in education, in order to help rethink the future of education.

KEYWORDS:

• State
• education
• privatization
• socio-educational policies

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

¹ Unlike modernity, which prioritized time as the main category for understanding progress and development processes, today’s postmodern sensibility prioritizes the category of space (Parra, 2004). Postmodernity is the rewriting of certain characteristics that modernity had wanted or pretended to achieve, particularly by basing its legitimization on the aim of the general emancipation of humanity (Lyotard, 1986).

² The global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is an international measure of acute multidimensional poverty covering over 100 developing countries. It complements traditional monetary poverty measures by capturing the acute deprivations in health, education, and living standards that a person faces simultaneously.