http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer

Diversity, Democratisation and Difference: Theories and Methodologies

Widening Participation Policies in Chile under Neoliberal governmentalities: Trends, Policy, Discourse and Subjectivities

The subjective landscape of widening participation in Chilean higher education% of teachers working in poor schools expecting that their students will

get access to higher education, 2000-2012 (Source: CIDE surveys)

2000 2004 2006 2008 2010 20120

10

20

30

40

50

60

77,6% of students perceive HE as highly segmented by class

61% of working class students are willing to get a debt for studying in higher education

79% of students perceive HE as unfair in terms of access

Mode of governmentality under the form of the market

Disciplinary,

productive and affective power moving institutions, people, spaces (Lardon, 2014)

What is neoliberalism?

“Public Education on Sale” “Lennin and Coca-Cola”

How neoliberalism did become hegemonic in Chile?

The context: Socialism government until 1973:

University Reform aiming: Democratisation of

universities’ government structures

Inclusion of working and middle classes into universities to transform power relations in society

Two main drivers that led Chile to embrace neoliberal reforms were:

Secure elite privilege and to re-establish capital accumulation process

Dictatorship’s need of national and international legitimacy

The first Chilean Neoliberal discourse: National Security Doctrine and

economic growth for social development

How neoliberalism did become hegemonic in Chile?

Neoliberal economists’ reform by taken over positions of power: privatisation and commodification

Neoliberalism as strategy of political demobilisation and legitimation under the promise of development

Neoliberal hegemony: ‘to constitute subject positions from which its discourses about the world made sense to people in a range of different social positions’ (Larner, 2000, p. 9).

The neoliberal economists known as “Chicago boys”

What was the consequence of neoliberalism for higher education?

Universities for elite reproduction and for the market needs

Students constructed as consumers in opposition to political subjects

Working class students as the abject other, “the internal enemy” with no rights to HE

Market Reforms in Chilean higher education

The emergence of new private universities (from 8 in 1981 to 60 universities in total nowadays)

Market rules based on:

Competition, fees, loans, advertisement, national and transnational companies’ investment in universities; banks as one of main policy actors in WP policies

“Chilean Justice Minister ousted over corruption scandal involving for-profit universities” (Oct, 2012) (www.dailycensored.com)

The institutional organisation of secondary education is based on class:

Property:

Private schools for elite; Subsidised schools for middle classes; Public schools for working class

Curriculum

Vocational Educational Training schools (VET) for working class students; Scientific Humanist schools (SH) Curriculum associated to National Entrance Test

Secondary School System, Admission and Funding policy: The Institutional Technologies of Widening Participation in Higher Education

National Entrance Test: Set of standardised tests in maths, sciences, languages and history.

Influenced by World Bank

The “State sponsored credit” as policy of loans

State by credits to banks £360,000 billion pounds between

2006 and 2014 for the banks Majority of debtors are from working

class backgrounds

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 20140

5,00010,00015,00020,00025,00030,00035,00040,00045,00050,000

Students from public schools Students from subsidised-private schoolsStudents from private schools

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 20140

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000

Students from public schools Students from subsidised-private schoolsStudents from private schools

Number of Applicants to the States Sponsored Credit by type of school, 2006-2014

Number of Students with the State Sponsored Credit, 2006-2014

The State Sponsored Credit and the “economy of debt”

Source: http://www.ingresa.cl/

The State Sponsored Credit and the “economy of debt”

“Students demand that goverment stops the seizure because of the debts from university credit” (El ciudadano newspaper, 14th January, 2016)

5 years studying, 15 years paying

WP by debt as a technology of dispossession

WP by debt as governmentality

“I am really concern with my performance in some classes, I don’t want to fail, and have to pay and pay…how far I am going into debt” (Interviewee, male, 1 year student)

“When I receive your email inviting me to participate in your research, I thought that you were a bank or university agent trying to contact me for paying the debt I have with the university, that is why I did not respond you at the beginning, I got scared” (Interviewee, female, ex-students expulsed for low academic performance).

The Articulation of School System and Admission Policy: Excluding the poor

National Entrance Test and the institutional organisation of secondary education as police technology of reproduction of privilege and exclusion

% Inscribed for NET

% took NET % Applied to Univ % Selected by Univ

0

20

40

60

80

100

81.2

29.7 22.6

87.1

41.733.1

100.0 94.776.6

70.1

Municipal Subsidied Private SchoolsPrivate Schools

Own elaboration: Source: DEMRE 2013, and Espinoza & González 2015

% of Students Inscribed for taking the National Entrance Test and got selected by Universities according to students'

schools type. Admission Process, 2013

The Articulation of School System and Admission Policy: Excluding the poor

% of Enrolment in Disciplines with the Highest Expected Salary and Employability by SES (defined by the type of school as proxy of socioeconomic status

Low SES

Middle SES

High SES Total

Civil Engineering (Mechanic; Industrial, and

Mines)23.0 53.3 23.7 100

Medicine 14.8 34.7 50.5 100Geology 23.6 55.0 21.4 100

Business and Administration 18.6 41.2 40.3 100

Own elaboration. Source: SIES Database on employment and income searching, 2014 and SIES database on enrolment, 2013

The Gendered Widening Participation in Chilean Higher Education

370,405 women and 337,529 in Chilean universities.

1984 1996 2004 2013Male Female Male Female Male Female Male Female

Public-Traditional Universities 62.3 37.7 55.1 44.9 50.9 49.1 52.4 47.6

New-Private Universities 69.6 30.4 46.9 49.8 48.1 51.9 43.7 56.3

Total enrolment by Type of University (Public-Traditional/New Private) and Gender (Female/Male), 1984-2013

The Gendered Widening Participation in Higher Education

Female Male Total

Civil Engineering (Mechanic; Industrial, and

Mines)24.4 75.6 100

Medicine 46.6 53.4 100

Geology 33.8 66.2 100

Business and Administration 43.2 56.8 100

% of Enrolment in Disciplines with the Highest Expected Salary and Employability by Gender (Female/Male)

Own elaboration: Source: SIES Database on employment and income searching, 2014 and

SIES database on enrolment, 2013

• Final remarks

Neoliberal technologies of widening participation neglect the right to higher education to “working class students”; seen as a threat to universities, as the “internal enemy” of higher education

Archaic gendered workings of policies and universities, excluding women from positions of power and political subjectification. Chilean private universities fear the existence of students’ unions, the possibilities for students and professors to engage publicly in political/civic activities, or the deepening or installation of democratic governance mechanisms