Families between educational and economic ends. The case of Chile

Abstract

This article is part of the process of problematization on the privatization of education in Latin America with a special focus on the Chilean case. It analyzes elements of the Latin American context in the middle of the 20th century when States promote the idea of human capital through the growth of their education systems and productivity as a State reason.
The families of the continent grow the promise that through access to education the long-awaited social mobility will be achieved. We confirm that at the beginning of the 21st century this promise falls only on the shoulders of families being left to the market.
We hold our argument under the analysis of various regulations affecting the Chilean educational system in the period between 1860 and 2008. In these we observe in particular the regulations in Educational Evaluation, which is marking this transit as a mechanism of government of the population, regulating social
flows, transferring through market tools, responsibility to families to choose between training purposes and academic results.
Finally we conclude with some scope resulting from this phenomenon that forces the families to a double resignation. The economic waiver imposed by investment in education over other alternative projects. And the renunciation of leaving their own significant ways of relating to the interior of families, by adopting a culture of school success. This election reaffirms the matrix of colonial government installed on the family and at the same time makes it an efficient productive unit on an idea of neoliberal merit transmitted through assessment.