Discourses and Practices of Citizenship PDF

Sponsoring Committee: Professor Gary Anderson, Chairperson
Professor Carol Anne Spreen

Professor James Fraser
STUDENTS AND TEACHERS’ DISCOURSES AND PRACTICES
OF CITIZENSHIP AND CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION
IN THREE CHILEAN HIGH SCHOOLS
Andrea Lopez
Program in Educational Leadership

Department of Administration, Leadership and Technology
Submitted in partial fulfillment

of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy in the
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
New York University
2017
Copyright © 2017 Andrea Lopez
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I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely,
while the community supports them at this expensive game,
but earnestly live it from beginning to end. How could
youths better learn to live than by at once trying the
experiment of living?
Henry David Thoreau
You have to work for large classes instead of individuals;

you must lower your flag and reef your sails to wait for the
dull sailors; you grow departmental, routinary, military
almost with your discipline and college police. But what
doth such a school to form a great and heroic character?
What abiding Hope can it inspire? What Reformer will it
nurse? What poet will it breed to sing to the human race?
What discoverer of Nature’s laws will it prompt to enrich
us by disclosing in the mind the statute which all matter
must obey? What fiery soul will it send out to warm a
nation with his charity? What tranquil mind will it have
fortified to walk with meekness in private and obscure
duties, to wait and to suffer?
Ralph Waldo Emerson
En fase de entrenamiento, destinados a ser engranajes de

la máquina social, contentos de su suerte, incluidos si son
dóciles, recompensados si son serviles, excluidos si son
rebeldes, castigados si se insubordinan y no desempeñan
el papel que se les ha asignado, los estudiantes de instituto
son tratados como réprobos en el cuerpo improductivo.
Exentos de cuerpo, carne, sentimientos, emociones,
afectos, pensamientos propios, problemas personales,
sensibilidades, subjetividad, están invitados al banquete en
el que aprenden a imitar a los adultos, a convertirse en
esclavos de acuerdo con las reglas.
Michel Onfray
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A labyrinth is an ancient device that compresses a journey into

a small space, winds up a path like thread on a spool. It contains
beginning, confusion, perseverance, arrival, and return. There at
last the metaphysical journey of your life and your actual
movements are one and the same. You may wander, may learn
that in order to get to your destination you must turn away from
it, become lost, spin about, and then only after the way has
become overwhelming and absorbing, arrive, having gone the
great journey without having gone far on the ground.
(Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby, p. 188)
The image of the labyrinth was a frequent one on my mind during this process.
In the final stages, I felt, as when you are closest to reaching the center of the labyrinth,
that I was on the outer edges of it, furthest away from the final goal. But, as every single
self-help book that is out there tells you, I eventually came to realize that learning comes
from the process and not from the final results (and that, if the end result is a manuscript,
it will never be enough to fully express that learning process).
Conducting a dissertation is an iterative process, and until I embarked on this
study, I never knew how iterative it could be. But as going through the labyrinth is a
journey, and all journeys involve helpers along the way, I was able to complete the
journey thanks to the kind help of many.
To all Principals, administrators, teachers and students at the three school sites
of this study, I will be forever grateful for you taking the time to participate and
collaborate with me, for your honesty and openness, and for showing me both the
obstacles and possibilities for citizenship education in schools.
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Dr. Gary Anderson, you helped me through the entirety of the dissertation
process, and made me believe in the role we can have as academics in helping create a
more just world through education, and in kindness and cooperation in academia. Dr.
Carol Anne Spreen and Dr. James Fraser, thanks for getting me excited about citizenship
education, for helping me craft a proposal, and for guiding me to identify and
communicate the most relevant findings of my dissertation. To my external readers, Dr.
Terry Astuto and Dr. Diana Turk, thanks for your generosity and for your insight in
different stages of this process.
Thanks to my family, for always being there, in every possible way I needed.
Thanks to my professors and classmates in Educational Leadership, for sharing the
journey, and for providing their encouragement, comprehension, and suggestions.
Thanks to the many friends who listened to me talk about my dissertation and provided
their support and opinions, including those who rolled their eyes when I complained
about the difficulty of the process, because that brought back some perspective on how
privileged I was to be conducting educational research that can contribute to impactful
work in the field. And thanks to Tati and Reca, for being my home away from home.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iv
LIST OF TABLES x
LIST OF FIGURES xi
CHAPTERS
I INTRODUCTION 1
Introduction 1
Rationale of the Study 6
Theoretical Framework 8
II LITERATURE REVIEW 13
What is Citizenship? How is it Taught? Models of

Citizenship and Citizenship Education 14
Who is seen as a Participating Citizen? Students’
Civic Engagement 22
Who Gets What Citizenship Education? The Civic
Engagement Gap 25
Schools: Places of Socialization or Subjectification? 29
The Accountability Context as an obstacle to
Citizenship Education 31
The Role of School Climate and Culture in Promoting
Civic Engagement 32
The Role of Teachers in Promoting Civic Engagement 35
What is Taught in Citizenship Education? Citizenship
Education Curriculum 38
Summary 40
III METHODOLOGY 42
Methodological Framework 42
Research Sites 44
Research Methods and Participants 46
Limitations of the Study 51
IV SOCIOECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL

CONTEXT OF THE THREE SCHOOLS 53
(Continued)
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Educational Reforms and Socioeconomic
Segregation in Chile 53
Civic Engagement and Citizenship Education in
Chile 59
Civic Engagement of Youth in Chile 59
Citizenship Education Curriculum in Chile 61
Chilean Students and Teachers’
Understandings of Citizenship and
Human Rights Education in Chile 72
Summary 73
V CASE STUDIES OF THE THREE SCHOOLS 74
Treehill (Low-Income Public School) 76

The Ideal Citizen 79
National and Global Citizenship 82
Discourses of Class-Consciousness and
Expectations 83
Discourses and Practices of Self-
Expression 93
Stratified Schools, Curricula, and
Pressure to Perform: Standardized Tests
and the Lack of Time for Forming
Citizens 105
Discipline Policies and School Climate 107
Biopolitics of Civic Ceremonies: Rituals
of Embodied Boredom 115
Student Centers and the Simulacrum of
Democracy 118
Homeroom Period: Student Leadership 121
Participation in Politics and Groups 121
How the school relates to the community.
The “Bubble” Metaphor 124
Summary 127
Montrose (Lower-Middle Class Private-Subsidized
School) 129
Discourses of Class Consciousness and
Expectations 134
Expression 141
(Continued)
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Citizens 152
Democracy 165
Summary 180
Parkside (Private Independent School) 182
Discourses of Class Consciousness and
Expectations 189
Expression 193
Citizens 209
Democracy 219
Summary 233
Comparative Chart of the Three Schools 234
VI DISCUSSION 236
How Socioeconomic and Political Inequality are

Linked through Schooling: A Civic Opportunity
Gap and Bridges of Resistance 238
In Discourses of Citizenship in the Schools 239
In School Discipline and Democratic
Culture 245
(Continued)
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In Student Participation in Politics and
Groups 252
In the Curriculum 255
Bridges of Resistance 259
Identity as Denial: Abajismo and Arribismo 265
Schools as Isolated Bubbles 273
No time for Citizenship Education. The Discourse to
Practice Gap 278
VII RECOMMENDATIONS 283
The Role of Leadership in Schools 283

Enactment of Citizenship Education Policies 286
Recommendations for Schools 289
Recommendations for Future Research 297
REFERENCES 299
APPENDICES 313
A: Teachers Interview Guide 313

B: Students Interview Guide 315
C: Class Dimensions to Observe 317
D: Schools’ Mission Statements 318
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LIST OF TABLES
1 Continua of Types of Citizenship and Citizenship Education 21
2 Characterization of School Sites 45
3 Formal Observations 47
4 Teachers and Administrators Interviews 49
5 Student Interviews 50
6 Curricular Organization of Citizenship Education 64
7 Summary of Citizenship and Citizenship Education at Treehill 127
8 Summary of Citizenship and Citizenship Education at Montrose 181
9 Summary of Citizenship and Citizenship Education at Parkside 233
10 Comparative Chart of the Three Schools 235
x

LIST OF FIGURES
1 Educational Reforms in Chile since 1973 59
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
“But, what is citizenship education? Because

people believe it is the class where they teach
you about the government and how to vote, but
it is much more than that, it is also empowering
people.”
(Eleventh grade student)
Introduction
As this Eleventh grader summarized in his question, the notion of citizenship
has always been contested. In Latin America, Citizenship Education (CE) has
traditionally focused on teaching students about civic institutions, patriotic symbols and
how the government works, but is now slowly shifting toward developing the skills and
attitudes necessary for active and responsible participation in society (Schulz, Ainley,
Friedman & Lietz, 2011). Citizenship and CE are suited to be analyzed from a critical
perspective, since their discursive use and practice in daily life reveal issues of power.
But it is there where we can also find interruptions of the dominant discourses that open
up spaces for student participation, where teachers can recognize subjugated forms of
citizenship in their students.
This multiple case study using an ethnographic approach explored citizenship
discourses and practices of Chilean high school students and teachers in three schools in
Santiago: one, public; one, private-subsidized; and one, private independent. The
interest in exploring this topic at this moment in the Chilean context stems from: a) The
observed paradox of international comparative studies showing very low levels of civic
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knowledge and civic engagement in Chilean students, while at the same time, students
were showing intense and sustained participation and concern for public issues during
the 2011 Student Movement. Through different demonstrations, students demanded
reforms to the educational system, communicated a sense of social crisis caused by
growing inequalities, and exercised civic courage in a country with a history of military
dictatorship and pro-market policies that had eroded citizens’ political participation.
This showed that quantitative measures are not enough to reveal what students care
about and how they understand citizenship, suggesting a need to gather more
observational data and to listen more closely to students’ voices; b) The confusing
scenario of educational policies related to CE, with numerous recent changes to the
curriculum (and more to come), and scarce knowledge about how teachers are
appropriating and enacting CE official guidelines.
“Citizenship,” as Giroux (2006) explains, is a problematic concept, that “even
in its best moments, when it was strongly aligned with concerns for human rights,
equality, justice, and freedom, never escaped from class, gender and racial inequality”
(p. 147). But despite this, Giroux (2006) argues that it contains the possibility for
reflecting critically about its own limitations and implementing the promises of radical
democracy. Biesta (2014) further states: “perhaps it could even be argued that the
meaning of citizenship is essentially contested, which means that the contestation over
what good citizenship is, is actually part and parcel of what democracy is about” (p. 5).
Richardson and Blades (2006) recognize that while “from the outset of mass public
education, education for citizenship has always been the central mandate of schools, it is
also true to say that there are no clear understandings of what we mean when we speak
of 'citizenship' or 'citizenship education'” (p. 3).
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Historically, the understanding of citizenship in western societies has been
powerfully defined by liberal discourses that see citizenship as a political status,
emphasizing the right to vote (Reuben, 1997), and by communitarian discourses with an
emphasis on private volunteerism rather than on the role of the State in promoting social
justice (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004). But there have been influential challenges to these
dominant notions, from critical perspectives such as the feminist, cosmopolitan/global,
and environmental discourses of citizenship (Knight & Harnish, 2006). “Citizenship as
practice” (Lawy & Biesta, 2006), the theoretical framework for this study, understands
citizenship from a critical perspective, as transformative of the inequities in society.
Despite the countless approaches to citizenship and CE, there are some broad
definitions that can provide a common general understanding of the terms that will be
further explored by this dissertation. Levinson (2011) describes Citizenship as
“constituted by the meanings, rights, and obligations of membership in publics, as well
as the forms of agency and modalities of participation implicated by such membership”
(p. 280). Citizenship education, accordingly, can be defined as “the efforts of societies
and social groups to educate their members to imagine their social belonging and
exercise their participation as democratic citizens” (Levinson, 2011, p. 284). Broadly
conceived, CE includes all of the ways in which young people come to think of
themselves as citizens of local and cultural communities, the nation, and global society;
it involves young people’s socialization in the family, experiences in school and out-of-
school programs, informal interactions with members of their communities, and
influences from the broader society (Hahn, 2008).
Citizenship practices of students can include: Community Service Activities
(e.g.: volunteer to help others), Standard Political Activities (e.g.: join a political party,
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keep up with current events and politics), Social Movement Political Activities (e.g.:
take part in a protest or rally, write to media about a social or political issue, organize a
group of people), and Community Social Activities (e.g.: join a community sports or
music club, attend a community social event) (Metzger & Ferris, 2013). These practices
have been addressed in the literature as Civic Engagement, typically defined as “any
way a person engages –through actions or through mental faculties- with their
community in the interest of the greater good” (Karakos, 2015, p.2).
Studies of CE in Chile have focused on quantitative measures of civic
knowledge of high school students in the context of international comparative studies
(Ministerio de Educación, 2003; Schulz et al., 2011), but there is an emergent field
looking at both teachers and students’ representations of citizenship, and how CE is
practiced in the classroom (Martínez et al., 2012; Bonhomme, Cox, Tham & Lira, 2015),
a field to which my study hopes to contribute.
The research questions of this study are the following:
1. How do Chilean high school teachers and students understand citizenship and CE?
What are their discourses regarding citizenship and CE?
2. What practices do Chilean high school teachers engage in to teach citizenship?
3. What kinds of citizenship practices do Chilean high school students engage in?
4. How do these discourses and practices of teachers and students vary across schools
serving students from different socio-economic classes? How does each institutional
setting affect the way teachers and students understand and practice citizenship and CE?
Through these questions, I explored the extent to which schools contributed to
restricted notions of citizenship or to more critical ones that involved a broad range of
forms of civic and civil participation, and how that may (or not) impact students’
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practice of citizenship; how teachers and students understood ideal citizenship and CE,
and how they compared it to what actually takes place in Chilean society and schools;
the persons, organizations, or movements that influenced these conceptions about
citizenship; and what supports and barriers teachers and students identified to teaching,
learning and practicing citizenship. I put these notions and practices in context, by
looking at how institutional discourses of citizenship at the different socio-economic
levels were received, appropriated, and resisted by teachers and students. And by
looking at the differences between types of school and socioeconomic context, I
attempted to identify how “the discursive and material support for citizenship activity”
(Nicoll et al., 2013, p. 1), can impact citizenship outcomes, where inequality in
structural elements often acts to exclude poor students from formal civic participation.
By looking at the institutional context, I wanted to address a gap in the literature, where
few studies of CE have focused on the political, economic and social context, or the
power structure of a given school or community (Torney-Purta et al, 2010).
This dissertation assumes that high schools can have an important role in
promoting the active practice of citizenship of their students, and that ideally CE does
not consist only of providing the knowledge, values and competencies of citizenship, but
also of uncovering the inequality in the supports and resources available for the practice
of citizenship, and recognizing subjugated discourses of citizenship, as well as
citizenship practices students are already engaged in (Biesta, 2014). In Chile, thinking
about citizenship from a critical perspective is especially important because of the
dominance of neoliberal logics that limit democracy, participation, and multiculturalism,
and weaken social ties, trust and an interest in the public (Santa Cruz, 2004).
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Rationale of the Study
Some unanswered questions about CE in Chile that this study is hoping to
inform include what role teachers and schools today have in promoting citizenship in
students, what forms of participation they are fostering, and what educational spaces and
tools they use for these purposes. The observation of what took place in the classroom
provided some important clues about these questions.
Previous studies in Chile have not looked into how organizational contexts and
power dynamics of schools and school systems influence the daily practice of CE, or
how teachers are understanding and appropriating the new CE guidelines. This is
particularly relevant in Chile, because we know that there is a lack of teacher training in
CE, and that the educational reform is currently trying to implement ways to improve
this; it is also a moment where we are critically looking at the over-emphasis on
standardized tests and acknowledging the need for a more integral type of education that
puts recognizing and forming students as citizens in a more relevant position. My study
hopes to contribute to these questions, by looking at the schools’ institutional context.
In terms of contributing to the larger field of Citizenship Studies, we need to
consider that research in developed and developing countries has identified low and
declining political and civic participation of youth (Kahne & Sporte, 2008; Feinberg &
Doppen, 2010). These findings have sparked interest in CE, under the assumption that
teachers and schools have an important role in promoting students’ citizenship behavior.
But these studies tend to focus on a formal notion of civic engagement that leaves out
forms of informal or dissident social engagement, which are more common in low-
income students (Hahn, 2008; Levinson, 2010, Torney-Purta et al., 2010). As Nicoll et
al. (2013) note, in general, research about youth civic engagement has positioned
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students as lacking citizenship, instead of addressing the identification and exploration
of the different forms of citizenship that they already engage in. This is why exploring
how teachers and students understand citizenship is needed as a first step to work toward
a more inclusive notion of CE. In the case of Chile, where levels of civic knowledge and
engagement as revealed by research are low, but where the Student Movement recently
revealed the power of collective dissident demonstrations, research is needed that can
show if teachers and students’ understandings of citizenship are incorporating social
movements and activism.
Looking at the variety of citizenship practices of students, without a
predetermined rubric of what counts as citizenship, will provide an understanding of the
different forms of practicing citizenship and how that varies across socioeconomic
contexts. Furthermore, from a developmental perspective, addressing CE in high schools
is important, because it is during these years that youth are especially defining their
identities as citizens (Finlay, Wray-Lake & Flanagan, 2010).
Studies have also attested to the difficulties involved in putting CE into practice
in the accountability-driven context of schools today (Roland, 2002; Giroux, 2006;
Levinson, 2012) which indicates a need to reflect about the purposes of schooling and
the kind of democratic values we are interested in fostering in students. Looking at
teachers’ practices of CE in the classroom will show how they are fostering or hindering
critical citizenship practices in their students, and how the context of standardized
testing and teacher evaluations may be impacting this.
The enormous differences in the availability of civic and political engagement
opportunities for students according to their socioeconomic class (Kahne & Sporte,
2008; Finlay et al., 2010) point to the need to look at CE in schools from a critical
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perspective that addresses the distribution of civic opportunities and the underlying
notions of citizenship that are guiding educational efforts. This is why this study looked
at three schools from different socioeconomic classes, in order to explore how the
citizenship gap manifests in Chile, where market-oriented reforms imposed during the
dictatorship and continued by democratic governments thereafter have increased
educational inequities, in terms of social and academic segregation, academic
achievement, and school discriminatory practices (OECD, in Bellei & Cabalin, 2013).
Historical similarities with other Latin American countries with a past of violent
military dictatorships broaden the relevance of this research in terms of providing new
insights into how CE accounts for the teaching of such issues.
Finally, expanding how we can think of ourselves as citizens today is crucial, in
a context of globalization, environmental issues, technological developments, and
empowerment of minorities. Exploring how teachers are making sense of these changes
as they teach citizenship to their students is therefore important, and more relevant in a
country such as Chile, where CE has been very narrowly conceived both during the
dictatorship, with a patriotic orientation, and in the return to democracy, with a focus on
consensus (Cox, 2006), but where spaces for youth participation are opening up.
Theoretical Framework
The framework for this study, Lawy and Biesta’s (2006) citizenship-as-practice,
can be situated among the critical notions of citizenship that have questioned liberal and
communitarian approaches. Instead of seeing citizenship as the outcome of a learning
trajectory into a citizenship status, citizenship-as-practice posits, “young people learn to
be citizens as a consequence of their participation in the actual practices that make up
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their lives” (Lawy & Biesta, 2006, p. 14). For CE, this means creating political
subjectivity through engagement in democratic politics rather than making individuals
ready for democratic politics (Biesta, 2011), and understanding students as already
practicing citizenship in a variety of ways instead of excluded from the existing
community of citizens who act (Nicoll et al., 2013).
Biesta (2011) proposes a citizenship that is not limited to the individual domain:
“Against the idea that citizenship is first and foremost a matter of individuals and their
knowledge, skills, dispositions and individual responsibilities, I argue for the need to
focus on individuals-in-interaction and individuals-in-context” (p. 2). The social
dimension of citizenship, for Biesta (2011), goes beyond doing good work in the local
community, and is oriented towards the wider political values of justice, equality and
freedom; it highlights the importance of plurality, difference and conflict, and sees the
public sphere as the domain where citizenship takes place and where freedom can
appear. While the participation aspect is important for citizenship, the question is if that
participation is understood as a political process that translates private worries into
collective issues. Democracy, then, requires “more than just active, committed and
responsible citizens” (Biesta, 2011, p. 32).
For teachers, this approach ideally involves engaging students in a continuous
and thorough public dialogue (Lawy & Biesta, 2006), but where the impact that teaching
citizenship can have is mediated by what children experiment in their daily lives “about
democratic ways of acting and being and about their own position as citizens” (Biesta,
2011, p. 1), and where the responsibility for citizenship learning has to be extended to
society at large.
Biesta (2011) introduces a distinction between two very different ways of
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approaching CE: One sees education as socialization, reproducing the existing socio-
political order and promoting the adjustment of individuals to this order. The other
understands education as subjectification, oriented towards the promotion of political
agency and democratic subjectivity, with awareness of the different interpretations of
liberty and equality. It implies a conception of democracy that goes beyond “order,” that
is “anarchical” (p. 87) and implies “dissensus” (p. 93). One becomes a subject through
the act of politics, when new ways of acting and being that cannot be conceived within
the particular order come into existence.
This framework informed the questions of my study, and the analysis of the
current practices of citizenship of students, incorporating dissident manifestations and
other informal channels of participation, instead of only focusing on future formal
political participation as previous international studies have. It also illuminated the
understandings and practices of CE of teachers, and the analysis of how they contributed
to a socialization or subjectification approach. The critical approach that looks at the
material conditions and how they affect the opportunities for youth to practice
citizenship, allowed me to look at the school settings in a way that uncovers systemic
inequalities.
Additional concepts that were useful to analyze the specific ways in which
schools approached CE are described below.
The hidden curriculum corresponds to the “unwritten, unofficial, and often
unintended lessons, values, and perspectives that students learn in school” (Abbot, 2014,
para. 1). It is what students absorb in the school regarding how they should interact with
peers and adults, how they should perceive different groups and classes of people, or
what behaviors are considered acceptable or unacceptable, among other learnings. It is
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usually unacknowledged or unexamined. This term was useful for analyzing the findings
of this dissertation, since most citizenship is transmitted through the hidden curriculum.
It coincides with what Lawy and Biesta (2006) posit as citizenship-as-practice, with
students learning from the actual practices that they engage in at schools, regardless of
whether they are part of the official curriculum or not.
One of the ways students learn about the behaviors that are acceptable and
unacceptable –thus shaping how they understand a citizen should behave– is through the
discipline programs and rules of the school, part of the hidden curriculum. Foucault, in
Discipline and Punish (1995), explains how institutions, including schools, see bodies as
a target of power, training them to obey and be efficient, controlling and correcting
them. The discipline that is exerted on the body works in a subtle way to form
individuals whose main purpose is to contribute to the economy. And one way in which
that discipline is exerted is through the architecture and surveillance of institutions. The
panopticon described by Foucault is an architectural figure where subjects can be
permanently surveilled, which, in the case of schools, he presents as promoting “no
copying, no noise, no chatter, no waste of time” (p. 201). The structure works in such a
way that the surveillance has an effect even if it is not continuous, since a relationship of
power is established: the student does not know whether they are being observed, but
knows they may always be so. Authority and force do not have to be explicitly exerted,
since subjects exert those constraints upon themselves. The Foucaldian approach was a
useful framework to analyze the discipline aspect at schools, revealing how control over
bodies functions as a way to promote a narrow concept of person and citizen, as skillful
and dutiful.
Embodiment, that is, the lived experience of the body, can be understood as our
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mode of being-in-the-world (Young, 2005, in Lennon, 2014) or as making up the self.
There is a particular relationship between surveillance and embodiment (French &
Smith, 2016), with a rise of surveillance in modern society that understands bodies in a
reductionist way, mediating and effacing them. This dissertation paid attention to how
students experienced the discipline, surveillance and CE at the school from an embodied
perspective, a usually disregarded dimension of the school experience, but one that is
powerful in communicating students how they can act in society.
According to Butler (1992, in Lennon, 2014), normalizing practices produce
gendered subjects, identities that we perform or act out following social scripts that
include dominant ideals that reinforce the power of certain groups over others. That
way, the gendered performance, reinforced by the schooling experience, can function as
a way to perpetuate domination in binaries such as male-female, heterosexual-
homosexual. This dissertation looked at this aspect of CE: how schools transmit gender
stereotypes and notions regarding sexuality that act as a way of defining different
categories of citizens in the micro-society of the school.
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CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
This literature review begins by exploring the various theoretical notions of
citizenship, including the dominant liberal and communitarian approaches, which have
been the most influential in CE, and contemporary critical theories that have challenged
these traditional views, promoting a kind of involvement that implies, on the part of the
students, a challenge to dominant social structures and a collective practice for change.
This range of perspectives will show the need to explore the underlying notions that
teachers and students have of citizenship and CE, and the various critical perspectives
will provide additional frameworks to analyze what I observe in the schools.
I then look at how the outcomes of CE in students include a range of forms of
civic engagement, from formal participation in standard political activities and
community service, to activism. I address studies that quantify civic attitudes and
participation, and establish correlations between civic engagement in youth and
adulthood. I emphasize how different forms of participation have to be considered when
approaching the debate between those who claim that civic engagement has declined,
and those who argue that those statistics respond to a limited view of civic engagement
that favors privileged students by focusing on elitist forms of civic participation.
Subsequently, I explore the inequality that characterizes civic engagement and
CE, determining a “civic engagement gap” (Levinson, 2010). I address the type of
curriculum and classroom opportunities that students of different socioeconomic status
have to become civically empowered, and how disenfranchised populations may have
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difficulties trusting institutions, thus, becoming resistant to take part in traditional
political activities.
Next, I speak to the role that schools can have in perpetuating normalization,
social reproduction and inequity, or resisting it through a critical notion of CE.
Regarding the larger education system, I describe the accountability context that schools
face that tends to work against a focus on CE to favor preparation for standardized tests.
I also review empirical studies linking aspects of pedagogy and school climate
with civic engagement outcomes in students. This is important in assessing what type of
CE students receive, since the actual democratic conditions of the school are a powerful
way of communicating students how they are considered as citizens.
The next section focuses on teachers, how they understand CE, and the
obstacles they face to implement a curriculum that incorporates a critical perspective. I
review studies that show a lack of teacher preparation to achieve this goal and a lack of
supports from the schools, which causes a disconnection between teachers’ ideals and
practices.
Finally, I address CE curriculum and textbooks, and their tendency to promote
blind nationalism, perpetuating a socialization model of education that avoids critical
thinking; and I look into the increasingly diminished resources and time provided for
CE.
What is Citizenship? How is it Taught? Models of Citizenship and CE
This section presents some of the historical understandings of citizenship that
have shaped the way it is understood and taught in schools, as well as more recent
approaches that are beginning to challenge this from a critical perspective.
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• Liberal Citizenship: During the 19th century, the common assumption was that
citizenship entailed a political status, emphasizing rights and duties and formal political
participation (and especially, the right to vote), which was known as “liberal
citizenship” (Reuben, 1997). This approach was later criticized as a limited and
individualistic notion. Waghid (2005), for example, argues “a liberal conception of CE
merely advocates the private goals of people without concern for the public good” (p.
331). Richardson and Blades (2006) point out that the liberal democratic understandings
of citizenship “represent civic engagement as a series of rational, culturally neutral acts
undertaken by individuals who conceive of citizenship and ‘the common good’ in the
fundamentally universalist terms,” criticizing that “from this disembodied perspective,
the influence of race, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status on
citizenship is all but ignored” (p. 1). Following Santa Cruz (2004), some of the skills
that a school curriculum based on Liberal Citizenship aims to develop, are higher-order
thinking, judgment and discernment, high self-esteem and self-confidence,
entrepreneurial spirit, and adaptation to a changing world.
• Communitarian Citizenship: At the beginning of the 20th century, a
communitarian approach to citizenship began to develop. In the U.S., a National
Education Association committee endorsed a new CE curriculum in 1915: “Community
Civics,” which favored cooperation and community, but with a discourse of obedience
to authority, and a citizenship synonym with good behavior, which implicitly
discouraged political activism (Reuben, 1997). While the communitarian perspective
advocates participation in the public space, according to Waghid (2005), it assumes a
pre-existing cultural consensus (a shared commonsense and values) underlying political
community, which can mute different and dissenting voices. In the words of Westheimer
15

and Kahne (2004), “volunteerism and kindness are put forward as ways of avoiding
politics and policy” (p. 243), which obscures the role of the state in promoting social
justice, and the influence of corporate interests.
Both these approaches assume a citizen that takes responsibility only for their
actions and a CE based on the development of civic competences, explaining society’s
problems from an individualistic and moralistic perspective that ignores structural
causes, depoliticizing and privatizing the notion of citizenship (Biesta, 2011).
• Critical Perspectives: While liberal and communitarian discourses have
powerfully defined how western society understands citizenship, there have been
powerful challenges to these dominant notions, like the feminist, cosmopolitan/global,
and environmental discourses of citizenship (Knight & Harnish, 2006).
Feminist theorists have argued that the prevalent notions of political
participation emphasizing involvement in parties, voting, and legislation rely on the
male-dominated institution of the state, ignoring the variety of spaces where women
exercise democratic participation (Taft & Gordon, 2013). Queer discourses have used
postmodern thinking to inquire into citizenship not simply as a status, membership or
stable identity, but as performance of civic courage and risk (Knight & Harnish, 2006).
Waghid (2005) proposes to incorporate feminist critiques in order to construct a more
integral involvement in society that considers diversity and acknowledges our emotions,
taking from Iris Marion Young the right to remain different and articulate concerns in as
many voices as possible (dissensus); from Hannah Arendt, the need for both speech
(deliberative argumentation) and action (unexpected initiative); and from Martha
Nussbaum, the notion of compassionate action, which involves cultivating in students
the ability to imagine the experiences of others and participate in their suffering,
16

together with a discourse of critical questioning. The feminist critique of Fraser (Fraser,
1990; Marshall & Anderson, 1994) is important for rethinking citizenship in the public
sphere in ways that incorporate all voices that have traditionally been silenced,
acknowledging the existence of conflict.
With a focus on taking the notion of citizenship beyond national borders, a field
of Global CE has developed. As Richardson and Blades (2006) explain, it entails a
reconceptualization of CE as an interdisciplinary and international dialogue. For Davies
(2006), it implies acting ”to make the world a more equitable and sustainable place” (p.
7), and having an awareness of rights as a blueprint for action. Giroux (2006) proposes a
globalized notion of citizenship in which the global becomes the space for exercising
civic courage, social responsibility, politics and compassion for the plight of others.
Some criticize global citizenship approaches for retaining a colonial perspective and not
challenging questions about the global North/South inequalities (Niens & Reilly, 2012),
proposing “transformative approaches to teach about citizenship, democracy, identity
and rights” rather than “equipping students to successfully compete in the global
economy,” as many global education programs do (Spreen & Monaghan, 2015, p. 4).
Further distinctions about citizenship have been made by Westheimer and
Kahne (2004), who propose a spectrum of three kinds of citizens, seeing all of them as
necessary and valuable forms of citizenship: the personally responsible citizen, who acts
responsibly in the community, contributes to causes when asked, volunteers to help the
less fortunate and emphasizes character traits such as honesty, integrity, self-discipline
and hard work; the participatory citizen, who engages in collective, community-based
efforts, knows how government and community-based organizations work, and actively
organizes efforts to care for others; and the justice-oriented citizen, who analyzes and
17

understands the interplay of social, economic and political forces and calls explicit
attention to matters of injustice and to the importance of pursuing social justice, and
with programs that develop it being fewer and more focused on teaching about social
movements and effecting systemic change than in fostering charity and volunteerism.
Levinson (2012) proposes an “action civics” approach, where people question
the structures that maintain inequality, and realize the power of the collective in
effecting change, to substitute for the service learning approach, that involves a sense of
caring for others and a moral concern, but does not drive a political commitment and
could foster the status quo; through an action civics approach, on the other hand,
students do civics and behave as citizens by engaging in a cycle of research, action, and
reflection about problems they care about personally while learning about deeper
principles of effective civic and political action. It expects students to learn through
citizenship and not just about citizenship, and challenges students to reflect upon the
experience, empowering them to take effective action in the future.
In a similar vein, Hess (2009) describes Democratic Education as “a form of
civic education that purposely teaches young people how to do democracy (...) In such
an education, the democratic ideal is simply stated: people can build a better society” (p.
15). Gutmann (1987) proposes two principles for democratic education: non-repression
(no restriction of the free flow of ideas in the school) and non-discrimination (no
exclusion of any individual or group from access to the school), with the aim of
“preparing children to participate actively in the sharing of power and the shaping of
society” (p. 39).
Human Rights Education (HRE) approaches have addressed the need to evolve
from declarationalist and individual perspectives to collective and transformational.
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Keet (2007) has stated “education can only be troubling if it reinvents itself based on a
critical conception of human rights” (p. 4), which involves going beyond the juridical
vocabulary of human rights and their commodification, to embrace a compassion-based
notion of justice as a response to care, love and protect others. Spreen and Monaghan
(2015) propose a HRE that engages students in learning about social injustices and their
role in social transformation. Along these lines, Tibbitts (2002) proposes to go from the
content-oriented models of human rights education that do not involve a critical stance
towards the nature of power in society (Values and Awareness-Socialization Model) and
the models focused on Accountability-Professional Development, that promote agency
but limited to the professional role, to an Activism-Transformation model, that is critical
of both the nature of power in society and the human rights system. Bajaj (2011),
similarly, provides a continuum of HRE, with the ideal being the Transformative Action
Models that involve students understanding their own realities and developing critical
consciousness and agency for social change, an approach that goes beyond HRE for
Global Citizenship, with emphasis on civil and political rights; and HRE for
Coexistence, with emphasis on conflict resolution and non discrimination. Bajaj (2011)
provides suggestions for implementing HRE for Transformative Action:
HRE prioritizes an analysis of power and how one might act in the face
of injustice. Thus, content might include examples of social injustice
that learners collect from their own homes or communities; values and
skills might include solidarity with victims, equality, and justice; and
actions might include collective protest, intervening in situations of
abuse, and joining NGOs or social movements to advance greater
participation and inclusion. (p. 494)
Other forms of addressing CE include Social Justice Education, which involves
“exploring the social construction of unequal hierarchies which result in a social group’s
differential access to power and privilege” and the “deconstruction of unjust and
19

oppressive structures” (Tyson & Choon, 2008, p. 32); Critical Pedagogy, which involves
an education producing not only knowledge but also political subjects, where schools
serve to create a public sphere of citizens who are able to exercise power over their own
lives and especially over the conditions of knowledge production and acquisition, and
where educators provide students with the skills they need to locate themselves in
history, find their own voices, exercise civic courage, take risks, and further the habits
and relations essential to democracy (Giroux 1997, 2006); Education for Democracy,
focused on the skills and values required to live in a democratic society; Peace
Education and Conflict Resolution Education, which explain the roots of violence and
teach alternatives to it; and Moral Education, focused on teaching values and attitudes
that can be democratic, ethical or religious (Keet, 2014).
It is important to note that the term “critical citizenship” has been used in a
variety of forms, in some cases limited to critical thinking and critical skills, without a
connection to a transformational view of society, class consciousness, collective action
and a concern for social justice (Johnson & Morris, 2010)
As a summary of the continua of citizenship and CE provided by the models
reviewed, see Table 1 below.
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Table 1: Continua of Types of Citizenship and Citizenship Education
Model and Author Types of Citizenship/Citizenship Education from the least to the
most critical
Citizenship-as- Socialization Model Subjectification Model
practice (Biesta)
Public Pedagogy Pedagogy of the Pedagogy for the Pedagogy to become
(Biesta) public public public
Types of citizen Personally Participatory citizen Justice-oriented citizen
(Westheimer & responsible citizen
Kahne)
Human Rights Declarationalist, Transformational,
Education (Keet) content-oriented and activist and collective
individual
Human Rights Values and Accountability- Activism-
Education (Tibbitts) Awareness- Professional Transformation Model
Socialization Model Development Model
Human Rights HR Education for HR Education for HR Education for
Education (Bajaj) Global Citizenship Coexistence Transformative Action
Action Civics Service-Learning Action Civics
(Levinson)
Something that these types of CE initiatives have in common is that they take
time and effort, imply time away from the standardized curriculum, often involve
partnerships with organizations outside the school, run the risk of angering powerful
people, and require teachers to be agile and creative. All of this becomes complicated in
an accountability context, where teachers and schools have little positive incentive to
pursue these practices (Levinson, 2012). This is why the challenge that these alternative
frameworks have been able to raise is far more potent in scholarly literature than in the
mainstream high school curriculum where, according to Knight and Harnish (2006), the
dominant discourses that shape citizenship in schools promote a “pallid, overly cleansed,
and narrow view of political life” (p. 654).
But these theoretical frameworks have been able to influence the work of
different organizations that provide guidelines for education. As an example, the
21

Ministers of Education of the world have stated a commitment to CE: “Educating caring
and responsible citizens committed to peace, human rights, democracy and sustainable
development, open to other cultures, able to appreciate the value of freedom, respectful
of human dignity and differences, and able to prevent conflicts or resolve them by non-
violent means” (UNESCO, 1995, para. 4). While we still need to work for this
declaration of intentions to become a reality, these critical approaches to Citizenship
offer great potential for rethinking CE in ways that address concerns of social justice,
where schools foster critical and participating citizens instead of good achievers on
standardized tests.
In Chile, successive changes to the citizenship curriculum since the return to
democracy can be summed up as a shift from a minimalist conception of CE (only one
subject, focused on knowledge, didactically and formally taught, and easier to measure)
to a maximalist conception with a global citizenship orientation (distributed in different
subjects, focused in both knowledge and skills, learnt in a participative way, and more
difficult to measure) (Cox, 2011; Kerr, 1999).
Who is Seen as a Participating Citizen? Students’ Civic Engagement
Previous studies of civic engagement (Torney-Purta, Amadeo & Andolina,
2010; Kahne & Sporte, 2008) have focused on the effects that youth civic engagement
has in future political participation, without proper acknowledgement of youth as
citizens. These studies have used quantitative methods, in the form of civic knowledge
assessments and self-report questionnaires, and have found, in countries like the U.S.,
U.K., and Chile, a low and declining political and civic participation of youth, reflected
in voting rates, confidence in their government, civic knowledge, and interest in
22

following public issues (Kahne & Sporte, 2008; Feinberg & Doppen, 2010). According
to Hart and Lakin (2010), there is no single explanation for the decline in political
engagement and activism since the 70’s, but they propose that it reflects the erosion of
social capital, and decline of relationships among individuals in neighborhoods, which
in turn reduces participation in the civic life of the community. For Biesta (2011), it is
the limited opportunities that youth experience for democratic practice in their daily
lives that have resulted in civic and political disengagement.
But when analyzing this decline, we should not forget, as Levinson (2010)
argues, “relevant political and civic knowledge are defined overwhelmingly by middle-
class, native-born, white scholars, educators, and policy makers, who care about federal
and especially electoral politics” (p. 336). The assumptions of “good citizenship”
underpinning youth civic engagement programs tend to reproduce a particular political
order and type of citizen. These are based on liberal notions of citizenship that
emphasize rational debate and discussion, and are used to promote a cult of CE as a
panacea (Westheimer & Kahne, 2004; Richardson & Blades, 2006; Taft & Gordon,
2013). Torney-Purta et al. (2010, p. 516) warn that,
Instead of simply looking at voting trends and labeling young adult as

apathetic or ignorant, qualitative research has revealed the varied ways in
which they are involved in public life (besides voting) and provided a
more nuanced understanding of their reasons for abstaining (e.g.,
alienation, absence of a sense of efficacy, a lack of key skills).
Likewise, there are forms of youth civic engagement that may escape the radar,
such as social networking and e-civic participation (Annette, 2008), and acts of
advocacy, collaboration and community building (Taft & Gordon, 2013), all of which
can be better revealed by the use of qualitative methods.
When asked about their interest in politics, young people tend to respond
23

negatively; however, when asked about their interest in specific political issues, such as
the environment, social injustice, or wars, a much higher level of interest is evident
(Hahn, 2008). Students, according to a study of Chiodo & Martin (2005), do not respond
to the political side of citizenship, but have a view grounded in the community aspect.
Niens and Reilly (2012) found that students have conceptualizations of global
citizenship, including an awareness of global issues, environmental interdependence and
global responsibility.
As Bellei and Cabalin (2013) point out, in Chile, lack of political participation
in elections among youth was explained during the ‘90s as an expression of general
apathetic behavior, being considered “the whatever generation” (generación “No estoy
ni ahí”). Despite their distance from electoral and partisan politics, there is evidence that
Chilean youth have a profound criticism of society and a high level of interest in public
and social problems, especially those related to inequity and discrimination issues.
Citizen mobilizations had scarcely accompanied the democratization process in Chile,
which began changing in 2006, with students playing a crucial role as protagonists of
massive demonstrations questioning the Chilean educational system’s structural
elements. Also, studies show that while Chilean teenagers of low income are usually
portrayed as passive, they are building their identity and sense of belonging in different
countercultural groups and using public space as sites for reunion and expression, since
they consider their high schools as highly disciplinary spaces with little connection to
their own identities (Cavieres, 2011).
According to Martínez, Peñaloza and Valenzuela (2012), few studies have
addressed how youth develop their commitment to civic causes or how they signify their
experiences in community programs, and most have been done with North American
24

youth. Knowledge about the factors that lead young people to commit to social and
political causes is relevant for thinking about how to foster civic engagement, especially
in a Chilean context where previous studies have shown that youth perceive that their
voice will not be heard and their participation will be ineffectual, factors that likely
discourage their involvement.
Who Gets What Citizenship Education? The Civic Engagement Gap
There is a highly inequitable nature of civic participation according to class and
race (Kahne & Sporte, 2008). In the U.S, research shows that low-income and less
educated citizens, as well as recent immigrants and those less proficient in English have
lower levels of civic engagement (Kahne and Sporte, 2008) and that the “civic
empowerment gap is as large as the reading and math achievement gaps” (Levinson,
2010, p. 331). It is, then, important to find out whether providing particular kinds of
learning opportunities to low-income students in schools can help promote higher and
more equitable levels of civic and political engagement (Kahne & Sporte, 2008).
Young people growing up in homes with well-educated parents who give time
and money to political groups are more likely to be politically active and involved than
youth without these resources (Finlay et al., 2010). Likewise, urban youth are more
likely than youth growing up in suburbs to have parents who have not completed high
school and who are not civically active, are less likely to be affiliated with clubs and
teams, and less likely to attend schools equipped to provide students with knowledge
and skills essential for participation in civil society (Balsano, 2005).
Levine (2007, in Wheeler-Bell, 2014) explains that those historically
marginalized do not engage in traditional politics because they do not trust the political
25

system will properly address their needs.
In Chile, the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational
Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study showed a significant association between
measures of parental educational background and likelihood of voting among 17-to-19-
years-olds (Finlay et al., 2010). According to Cox, Castillo, Miranda and Bascopé
(2013), in Chile, social origin is related to the levels of civic participation (formal) and
civil participation (informal): the lower the socioeconomic status, the lower civic
participation and the higher civil participation, and vice versa. Students in public schools
had an average of 39 points less in civic knowledge than students in private subsidized
schools, and 110 points less than students in private schools (Cox et al., 2013). These
differences are very similar to those found by Levinson (2012) in the U.S., where the
disparities in tests of civic knowledge and skills, appear as early as fourth grade and
remain consistent through middle and high school.
Anyon (1980) studied the differences in classroom experience and curriculum
knowledge in contrasting social class schools, identifying a hidden curriculum where
working-class students learned mechanical procedures, with very little decision making,
choice or discussion, and students had to memorize and repeat the steps provided by the
teacher; in middle-class schools, lessons were based on the textbook without a critical
perspective or expansion of what was in the book; and in affluent schools, creativity and
autonomy were encouraged, and students engaged in projects where they made sense of
reality. These differences acted reproducing social classes:
Students from different social class backgrounds are rewarded for

classroom behaviors that correspond to personality traits allegedly
rewarded in the different occupational strata-the working classes for
docility and obedience, the managerial classes for initiative and personal
assertiveness, with knowledge and skills leading to social power and
reward made available to the advantaged social groups but withheld
26

from the working classes. (Anyon, 1980, p. 67)
Kahne and Middaugh (in Haste, 2010) found that African American and
Hispanic students in the U.S. reported less open classroom discussion and fewer
opportunities for participation in community service than white students. Preservice
Counselors recognized students in low-income schools did not have opportunities for
instruction or role modeling in democratic citizenship (Yeager, Clark & Dixon, 2008).
As Levinson (2012) explains: “There is incontrovertible evidence that poor and non-
White students are receiving demonstrably less and worse civic education than middle-
class and wealthy White students, and that school-level differences are partly to blame”
(p. 50). A related fact is that teachers in segregated, poor urban schools are often as
civically disempowered as their students, immersed in a culture that fosters compliance
rather than collaboration (Levinson, 2010).
Hart and Lakin (2010) point out that creating trust might be particularly critical
for promoting civic engagement in traditionally disenfranchised populations. Children
from ethnic minority groups report lower levels of trust in institutions and public
officials, which makes them resistant to taking part in traditional political activities or
community action. As Balsano (2005) explains, they usually have a lack of positive
expectations concerning self, others, and the future, which is likely to perpetuate their
sense of hopelessness about being able to implement a positive and meaningful change
in their communities. Political and individual efficacy, civic duty and civic identity are
disproportionately correlated with both race/ethnicity and class (Levinson, 2010). As
Putnam (2000) puts it, “have-nots” are less trusting than “haves,” because the latter are
treated with more honesty and respect.
Studies (Weis & Fine, 2004; Taft & Gordon, 2013) have shown how students in
27

underfunded schools become progressively disengaged with the institutions and feel
betrayed and disregarded by them, which pushes them away from formal participation in
society and breaks their belief in democracy, despite the fact that they voice strong
commitments to family, community, and those less fortunate; inciting them to seek
dissident or radical forms of political action, such as participating in activist groups and
demonstrating in the public space.
Schools appear able to help lessen the participatory inequality that exists in civic
and political life (Kahne & Sporte, 2008). Youth who appear to be apathetic can, if
provided with activities that take their interests into consideration or if put in a position
where their future is at stake, get socially mobilized and become participants and leaders
in movements aimed at reform (Balsano, 2005). Levinson (2012) proposes a culturally
relevant approach in education:
Take seriously what students bring with them into the classroom from
“outside” (…) Students aren’t empty vessels waiting to be filled with
appropriate civic attitudes and knowledge; rather, they come into the
classroom having already at least partially constructed their own
understandings of their civic identity, of their membership in or
exclusion from the polity, and even of history’s significance and
meaning for their own lives. (p. 107)
But despite the possible positive effects that schools can have, Biesta (2011)
warns that the material conditions of citizenship have prevalence in what students learn
regarding citizenship, and therefore it is in those conditions that we should invest:
Even where a school includes exceptional internal democratic

arrangements –such as a school council or other ways in which young
people are enabled to participate meaningfully in the collective
decision-making about their educational experience– this still only
represents a small proportion of the environment in and from which
young people learn. They learn as much, and most possibly even more,
from their participation in the family or leisure activities, from
interaction with their peers, from the media, from advertising and from
their role as consumers –and they often learn different and even
contradictory things (Biesta, 2011, p. 14)
28

Schools: Places of Socialization or Subjectification?
There is a dual nature of schools in terms of the role they can have in promoting
students’ citizenship. As Gundara (in Chiodo & Martin, 2005) puts it, while schools are
a place where citizenship should be cultivated, on the other hand, schools can be places
that encourage conformity, obedience and passiveness. Giroux (2006) explains that
schools represent contested terrains marked not only by structural and ideological
contradictions but also by collectively informed resistance; they operate within limits set
by society, but function in part to influence and shape those limits. Schools can
contribute to the reproduction of inequality and exclusion, perpetuation of ethnic or
religious divisions, the acceptance of dominant aggressive masculinities, selection,
competition and fear, and distorted curricular emphases on narrow cognitive areas of
learning, which has been worsened by standardized assessments that leave little space
for democratic critical pedagogy and the preparation for active citizenship and
resistance. Skogen (2010) argues that schools’ focus on duties and responsibilities, and
absence of freedom and rights make them undemocratic spaces.
But there are resilient schools, where an orientation toward social justice and
critical transformation opens possibilities for hope, where taken-for-granted realities
about problem solutions and about difference are challenged through HRE, the
democratic organization of the school, dialogue and encounters across cultures, and
exposure to conflict (Davies, 2005). Along these lines, McLaren (1995) argues that
schools can be sites of contestation, struggle and cultural production.
Dewey (2008) argued that the school should be a democracy in microcosm,
where pupils learn particular processes, values, and attitudes to live effectively as
citizens. In a democratic school, all those in it are involved in the decision-making
29

process, instead of fabricating consent around predetermined decisions for an illusion or
simulacrum of democracy (Santa Cruz, 2004). Biesta (2007, in Skogen, 2010) posits that
schools can have the most exemplary citizenship curriculum, but if the internal
organization of the school is undemocratic, it will have a negative impact on students’
attitudes towards democracy.
Hess and McAvoy (2015) propose schools as political sites, where students can
develop their ability to deliberate political questions that address how we should live
together. Levinson (2012) looks at how schools shape civic experiences even when they
have no intention of doing so, by communicating to students and adults what their place
is, and what is expected of them in the broader public sphere through giving or denying
opportunities to practice civic skills and behaviors via classroom procedures and
routines, curricula and pedagogies, interactions, and curricular and extracurricular
activities. As civic institutions, schools model fairness, equity, humaneness or lack
thereof, which significantly influences students’ civic attitudes and beliefs. Schools also
provide students opportunities to practice empowering (or disempowering) relationships,
norms, and behaviors.
The school can also be thought of as a public space within the continuum of
different scales (neighborhood, city, region, country), where students can develop a
sense of commitment and belonging, a place of encounter, identity development, and
expression of diversity (Santa Cruz, 2004).
According to Wheeler-Bell (2014), schools could foster the spirit of activism,
which requires that students understand current injustices, their causes and barriers to
justice; develop their own conception of a desired society; and are provided with ways
to advance their sense of justice.
30

The Accountability Context as an Obstacle to Citizenship Education
Today, social efficiency, uniform standards, high-stakes testing, and
accountability dominate public debate about what education should be, in a context of
marketization of schools (Roland, 2002). As Giroux (2006) puts it, with neoliberalism,
corporate culture has made efforts to privatize all things social, stripping citizenship of
its emancipatory possibilities, where the government is discounted as a means of
addressing basic economic, educational, environmental, and social problems;
consumerism increasingly drives the meaning of citizenship; and management issues
have become more important for educators than understanding and furthering schools as
democratic public spheres. In the U.S., the U.K. and other Western nations, the focus on
teaching and assessment of basic skills has caused teachers to devote increasingly less
time to CE and to issues related to race, ethnicity and social justice (Banks, 2008).
Levinson (2012) sees standards, assessment and accountability mechanisms as threats
for democracy and quality civic education that clash with empowering civic pedagogies.
We must, nonetheless, acknowledge that there is not a period in history where
schools were ideal examples of democracy. If we look at Chile, in the beginning of the
Republic, education acted as a mechanism for segregation and exclusion, with a primary
education to alphabetize the masses away from their barbarism, and a secondary
education reserved for the male elites for them to make the important decisions for the
country (Orellana, 2009). Today, accountability measures act as more subtle ways of
perpetuating inequality in education.
In the accountability context of schools in Chile, Egaña (2004) found that time
is often seen as an obstacle to develop participation and reflection in students, given the
amount of curricular content. Reyes, Campos, Osandón, and Muñoz (2013) found that
31

teachers understand their autonomy when teaching CE as the possibility of bringing it
from the terrain of politics to the daily lives of students, to make the subject more
attractive for them, but without seeing the possibility of orienting learning toward
practices that transform reality.
The Role of School Climate and Culture in Promoting Civic Engagement
Although the preparation of citizens is a stated goal in many schools’ mission
statements (for an example, see the institutional missions of the schools of this study in
the appendices), knowledge of whether and how schools actually fulfill the democratic
aims of education remains limited (Kahne & Sporte, 2008). Below are the findings of
studies that have found a correlation between specific pedagogical practices in the
classroom and aspects of the school climate and culture, and students’ civic outcomes.
The importance of a positive and participative school culture has been related
across countries to citizenship outcomes such as overall civic and political knowledge,
intent to vote, likelihood of being an informed voter, expectation of engaging in other
political and civic actions, expression of political efficacy and civic duty, comfort with
civic and political conflict, interest in politics and attentiveness to current events, and
critical thinking and communication skills (Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2010; Levinson,
2012). In general, large-scale surveys of high school students demonstrate that students
who report having particular experiences (being taught civic skills, undertaking service-
learning projects, following current events, discussing problems in the community and
ways to respond, being in a classroom in which open dialog around controversial issues
is common and where students study topics that matter to them, as well as exposure to
civic role models) are more likely to also report being involved in various forms of civic
32

and political engagement (Kahne & Sporte, 2008). Students’ belief that they are
“encouraged to speak openly in class” is “a “powerful predictor of their knowledge of
and support for democratic values, and their participation in political discussion inside
and outside school” (Levinson, 2012, p. 192).
Torney-Purta et al. (2010) used the data from the 1999 IEA study examining
civic education and engagement of 90,000 14-year-olds of 28 countries, and
demonstrated that having an open classroom climate for discussion and giving students
real power in their schools were among the most important correlates of both civic
knowledge and civic engagement. They found that organizations where students work
with peers can have positive effects on civic knowledge, attitudes and future
engagement. Yeager, Clark and Dixon (2008), as well as Hahn (2008), found these
positive effects in service-learning programs, which impact civic-political outcomes
when students engage in problem-solving about community problems. But service-
learning programs also have their critics, who claim that such programs teach students to
accept the status quo of structural inequalities and to see the world as divided into the
“haves” and the “have nots,” reinforcing a deficit model, and losing the inherently
reciprocal nature of service in which both students and those served gain (Higgins-
D’Alessandro, 2010).
Hess (2009) studied classroom discussion of controversial political issues,
understanding those as “authentic questions about the kinds of public policies that
should be adopted to address public problems” (p. 5). She posits schools should “create
an atmosphere of intellectual and political freedom that uses genuine public
controversies to help students discuss and envision political possibilities” (p. 6); and that
they are ideal places to incorporate the discussion of controversial issues because the
33

curriculum allows to do so, teachers have (or can develop) expertise in fostering
deliberation and inquiry among students, and there is more diversity in schools than in
other venues or in student homes.
Despite the benefits of this practice, that include positive outcomes in civic
knowledge, expectations of voting, tolerance, interest in politics and volunteering,
critical thinking and communication skills, and being involved in organizations, Hahn
(2008) found that many of the civic topics young people study in school are quite similar
and that, for the most part, such content is presented as uncontested and non-
controversial, with most students encouraged to express their views only on non-
controversial topics, and with students in urban schools serving low-income students
having less opportunity than students in suburban schools to discuss public or political
issues.
Contrastingly, Fine (in Patterson, 2008) found students in the U.S. are able to
handle controversial political issues, are very aware of political controversy in the larger
society, and appreciate the opportunity to openly express their views in the classroom.
Open discussions of controversial issues are described by students as their most
engaging and meaningful educational experiences (Hess, 2009).
Stitzlein (2012) proposes that schools have the obligation to cultivate the skills
of dissent, that is, “openly disagreeing with the consensus of a community or the dictates
of those in power” (p. 44), which involves both persuasive and well-timed speech, and
dispositions such as commitment, hopefulness and courage. Dissent is important in a
democracy because it allows for different perspectives and new ways of addressing
problems.
In order for this type of discussions to be successful, teachers need to focus on
34

preparation: develop norms and relationships for nonviolent interactions, teach students
the relevant content knowledge and pedagogical processes to dialogue, and include
marginalized perspectives (Bickmore & Parker, 2014).
Political discussion within the family has been demonstrated to have a
significant impact on young people’s political knowledge and engagement, and the
frequency of these discussions has been shown to correspond to parents’ educational and
socioeconomic levels. Hence, by creating open classroom climates for discussion,
schools can help remediate these sociodemographic differences (Levinson, 2012).
In Chile, Egaña (2004) found that the most successful cases of CE had
institutional participatory practices and orientations complement the pedagogical
practices, and learning contents related to the experiences and daily lives and contexts of
the students.
The Role of Teachers in Promoting Civic Engagement
The general population holds schools and teachers primarily responsible for the
CE of youth (Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2010). But at the same time, teachers may face
criticism or sanctions when bringing up controversial issues in the classroom, and this
prevents them from engaging in more controversial discussions with students (Hess,
2009; Bickmore & Parker, 2014).
The demands for teachers from CE scholars are considerable: As McLaren
(1995) posits, for the educator, schooling for self and social empowerment should be
ethically prior to teaching contents or the mastery of technical or social skills that are
primarily tied to the logic of the marketplace. Teachers should also engage in a critical
examination of their everyday decisions of teaching and learning in an effort to design
35

education that is anti-oppressive and affirms social justice, as well as perform a self-
reflection on their privilege (Lee, 2011). Freire (2005) proposes teachers help students
how to critique injustice in the world, and help them formulate possibilities for action to
change the world to make it more democratic and just, because critique without hope
may leave students disillusioned and without agency. Hess (2009) sees teachers as the
single most important factor in influencing whether students learn how to discuss highly
controversial issues effectively.
Given these requirements for teachers, it is important to address the preparation
they currently have to achieve them. As Balsano (2005) posits, some adults need to learn
themselves the language and process of helping youth in their communities, and have to
care themselves about being civically engaged before they are to be able to make a
contribution toward youth’s civic engagement; also, many adults lack critical awareness
of social and political factors.
Teacher education in Chile is an important dimension to consider since, in
general, teachers have not been prepared to teach citizenship as a relevant subject, which
affects their curricular appropriation of CE, with lack of knowledge of the place CE has
in the official curriculum, an inflexible approach to it that focuses mostly on declarative
contents, and a limited understanding of cross-sectionality that sees it as a occupying a
secondary role among the curriculum (Reyes et al., 2013). This can be understood when
looking at the training received in university: in History and Social Sciences teaching
programs, Chilean universities have begun to incorporate Civics or CE, with 14
universities including one class, 6 universities including two classes, and one including
3 classes, but 9 of them still have no classes on the subject, which is especially the case
for public universities (Mardones, 2015).
36

The majority of teachers face struggles when enacting social justice curricula, in
a context of test preparation and mandated curriculum. Agarwal et al. (2010) asked
teachers that were committed to teaching for social justice how this commitment
affected their lesson plans and their classroom instruction, and found that they all
articulated different disconnections felt between their ideals and their practices. In a
study of secondary English Language Arts teachers, Dover (2013) found that although
all participants were able to teach for social justice in their current school contexts, two
thirds of participants reported challenges when doing so, including restrictive school
policies, a lack of support from colleagues, resistance from students, and insufficient
personal or professional resources. Lee (2011) found that the majority of white, middle-
class teacher candidates in the U.S. have limited understandings about differences
related to culture, class, and race; have few skills to work with diverse learners, and
often harbor resistant attitudes about working with them.
In the U.S., Loewen (2007) discovered that 92% of teachers do not initiate
discussion of controversial issues, 89% do not discuss controversial issues when
students bring them up, and 79% do not believe they should. Also, he found that the
majority of teachers are inclined to use textbooks, because they tend not to have much
knowledge of history, and to not raise controversy that could threaten their jobs. Davies
(2006) describes how teachers are comfortable teaching about the environment or other
cultures, but tend to ignore complex global issues. Hess (2009) found that teachers were
divided in terms of their position toward disclosing their personal political preferences
in the classroom, with the concern about pressing students to adopt their same views. On
the other hand, the majority of students found it acceptable for their teachers to openly
share their views, and results of her studies showed no actual relationship between
37

teacher disclosure and students’ views on issues.
What is Taught in Citizenship Education? Citizenship Education Curriculum
Civics as a subject has shown a decline in its presence, range and frequency in
the U.S., with resources devoted to it having dropped markedly over the past 30 or 40
years (Levinson, 2012), a phenomenon also present in Chile, as will be explained in the
next section.
But Levinson (2012) specifies that old-schools “civics” that assume that a fair
democratic system is in place will not help shrink the civic empowerment gap, and will
be rejected as irrelevant, so what schools need to do is take seriously the knowledge and
experiences of low-income youth to teach in ways that are consonant with and that build
upon their knowledge and experience, in ways that are engaging and empowering.
In terms of the curricular content addressing citizenship, studies show that it
often serves to perpetuate the status quo instead of promoting critical skills that could be
used to question and change the existing configurations of power. History and Social
Studies subjects have been especially explored, since, as Levinson (2012) points out, the
way students understand the present is to a significant extent shaped by their
understanding of the past, with history being crucial for grounding effective, reflective
and productive civic and political participation.
A classical study is Anyon’s (1978, 1979), which analyzed the content of
elementary Social Studies textbooks in the U.S., finding that the knowledge that is
considered as valid is the knowledge which provides formal justification for prevailing
institutional arrangements, behaviors and beliefs, and where material is presented in a
way that eschews social conflict, social injustice, and institutional violence, and the U.S.
38

society is described as characterized by social harmony and social consensus, while
conflict and dissent among different social groups are presented as inherently bad. She
found that social movements were shown as failures, and that workers were regarded as
responsible for their own poverty, legitimating the power of those at the top. Anyon
(1978) identified a hidden curriculum of Civic Education for the working classes aimed
to foster obedience to authority and efficiency, which remained even when educational
goals were expressed in a more progressive language.
Zimmerman (2002) studied how into the early 1970s in the U.S., any reference
to racial violence, hostility, or prejudice often got textbooks removed, following white
conservatives’ claim that the emphasis on race would bias children against their country.
The curriculum tends to legitimize military activity, with a focus on struggle,
war and violence, portrayed as part of the natural chain of events, together with a decline
of political education that would allow critical examination of political messages and an
acknowledgement of racial, social and religious conflicts (Davies, 2005; Loewen, 2007).
The same phenomena can be found in the case of Chile, further discussed in the
“Citizenship Education Curriculum in Chile” section.
Nussbaum (2013) analyzes how schools teaching patriotism can foster
exclusion, imposition of ritual performances on minorities, and excessive emphasis on
solidarity and homogeneity against critical spirit, but on the other hand, with the early
cultivation of critical faculties and dissent, schools can promote a healthy appreciation
of the nation and cooperation with other nations toward common goals, responsibility to
humankind and respect for diversity.
While some argue that critical perspectives of History education can be divisive,
Levinson (2012) posits that a monolithic unified narrative is implausible and ignores
39

students’ own active construction of civic narratives, which may make students reject
what they are taught in school for being someone else’s history. The problem is “if
certain kinds of people –women or non-White, say- are not elevated as heroes, then the
message is that such people are also not appropriate civic leaders” (Levinson, 2012, p.
145). Teachers should promote a healthy skepticism about leaders (Loewen, 2007), as
well as teach about ordinary role models instead of extraordinary heroes (Levinson,
2012).
Summary
The literature review shows that Citizenship is a contested concept that can be
approached from different ideological positions, with completely opposite meanings,
which can be summarized in the two models of CE as socialization, for students to
obediently adapt to the system, or CE as subjectification, for students to exercise their
political agency. Consequently, schools can perpetuate social reproduction by fostering
different classes of citizens, or resist this. Practicing citizenship involves different forms
of memberships and participation in society, which range from formal participation in
standard political activities, to engagement in activism and dissident manifestations. The
level and form of citizenship participation is highly influenced by social class and
cultural capital, with schools fostering the civic engagement gap by providing more
civic opportunities to affluent students.
The context in which schools teach citizenship, which includes standardized
tests and an overwhelming amount of contents that teachers need to cover, works against
fostering spaces for democratic participation at schools, and in depth discussion of
controversial topics in the classroom. An open school climate and a democratic culture
40

that are experienced daily by students can be helpful in them learning a citizenship-as-
practice, recognizing their rights and duties, and their transformative power in society.
Teacher training, school support for the implementation of CE related activities, the
curriculum and textbooks, are other aspects of CE that can support critical CE in
schools.
41

CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
Methodological Framework
I approached my dissertation from a qualitative paradigm, which looks into the
meaning making of participants to understand the world from their perspective (Willis,
2007). While multiple theoretical perspectives have contested the limited and
conservative notion of citizenship (Waghid, 2005; Chiodo & Martin, 2005; Westheimer,
2015), research using qualitative methods that broaden that perspective to recognize a
critical citizenship is not as prevalent, especially as regards exploring teachers and
students’ notions and practices of citizenship. Most studies have focused on quantifying
civic knowledge and civic engagement of students using questionnaires, and comparing
those measures internationally. With this study, I wish to contribute to the field of
qualitative citizenship studies, looking at citizenship beyond civic engagement scores.
The value orientation of my research is critical. According to Carspecken
(1996), the common value orientation underpinning all critical research includes a
concern about social inequalities; an aim toward positive social change; and addressing
issues of social structure, power, culture and human agency. Fine (1994) calls this
orientation a kind of research-as-activism, looking to “unearth, disrupt, and transform
existing ideological or institutional arrangements” (p. 220).
In terms of the methodological framework, I used an Ethnographic approach to
explore the discourses and practices of students and teachers regarding CE in three
Chilean high schools, and the institutional context in which they were situated, including
42

the documents and policies from the school to the State level that address CE.
Studies that appropriate ethnographic methods are conducted in authentic or
natural contexts, through a prolonged involvement with the participants that builds a
relationship and trust; they aim to provide a rich understanding of the contexts studied,
without attempting to generalize from them (Willis, 2007); involve an interpretation of
the flow of social discourse; and provide a “thick description” of the meaningful
structures of the setting, specifying how actions are produced, perceived and interpreted
(Geertz, 1973).
More specifically, Institutional Ethnography (IE) (Devault, 2006; Smith, 2005)
is a type of critical ethnography that examines the relationship between what is defined
institutionally (in this case, at a national level in terms of policies, e.g.: standardized
testing, government-issued guidelines for CE; at the local level of the municipality; and
at the level of the school through its mission, curriculum and guidelines) and what
happens in its implementation (in this case, what teachers do in the classroom, and how
students experience it). It includes the analysis of documents as central, with a focus on
the “textually-mediated social organization” (Devault, 2006, p. 294), examining how
work processes are coordinated through texts and discourses.
The critical stance of IE allows analyzing how the discourses and practices
regarding CE in schools may comply with or resist larger societal discourses that shape
who is seen as being a participating and contributing member of society, and what kinds
of participation are valued. A prolonged observation of students and teachers’ practices,
interactions and culture, allows comparing students and teachers’ practices with the
documents, policies, and the discourse of principals and administrators, as well as
exploring students and teachers’ agency in shaping CE and practices, with the goal of
43

uncovering the systems of oppression that in this case can be tracked down to the larger
systems that are the context of CE.
Cassels (2011) posits that ethnography is particularly useful for revealing the
connections between the multiple layers of policy activity, providing a foundation for
understanding how particular policies are recontextualized in specific contexts.
Schools, following Larson (1997), should be addressed by research as sites of
political activity. This is a useful perspective when considering how teachers appropriate
educational policy and, in particular for this study, the guidelines regarding CE provided
by both the government and the schools. Ethnography is particularly suited to address
these power struggles in institutional settings, because it recognizes the power of
participants to interpret and appropriate and put policy into action in creative and
unpredictable ways, addressing the negotiation and contestation that can occur (Cassels,
2011).
The language employed in documents, and registered in observations and
interviews of teachers, students and administrators was analyzed using this framework,
uncovering relations of power in the school setting and in Chilean society that are
manifest in the language used.
Research Sites
This dissertation was a multi-site case study employing ethnographic methods,
which involves the “examination of a specific phenomenon such as a program, an event,
a person, a process, an institution, or a social group” (Willis, 2007, p. 238), with the
institutions being three Chilean high schools. In order to more fully represent the
44

panorama of education in Chile, I included a public school (Treehill1), a private-State
subsidized school (Montrose), and a private independent school (Parkside). Since these
three schools correspond to different socio-economic communities, the rationale for this
decision was to compare the variety of CE orientations that can be found in Chilean
schools in relationship to the range of socioeconomic levels of the students. The use of
schools from different social statuses also responds to the nationally and internationally
documented civic engagement and civic opportunity gap (Levinson, 2010; Hart &
Lakin, 2010; Haste, 2010), which I wanted to further explore in terms of differences
between the resources and opportunities available at each school, teachers’
understanding and practice of CE in relation to their students’ socioeconomic status, as
well as possible differences in how students see themselves as citizens and how they
perceive that they can participate in society and create change.
A characterization of the schools is in the table below:
Table 2: Characterization of School Sites
School Type Levels Number of

students
Treehill Public 7th-12th grade 600
Montrose Private-subsidized, 1st-12th grade 1300

with add-on fee
Parkside Private Kindergarten-12th grade 230

1
Pseudonyms were used for the names of the schools
45

A letter of presentation of the study was sent via email to principals of schools
of the three types needed for this study. From those schools where the Principal agreed
to participate in the study, three schools that were better able to satisfy the conditions
required to implement the study were selected, and a meeting with the Principal was
conducted to better explain the goals of the study, and to obtain a written authorization
from the school to present for review purposes. A more detailed description of each
school can be found in Chapter V.
Research Methods and Participants
I was in the field for a period of a full school year (March-December 2016),
visiting the three schools, conducting observation of classes, after-school programming,
teachers and administrators meetings, interactions in halls, cafeterias and teacher
lounges, and important school ceremonies and events. I included the observation of
some settings outside the school that students recognized as relevant, such as community
or sports spaces. I observed each school an average of two days per week, varying the
classes, activities or events observed each week, as well as the groups observed, with
special dedication to citizenship-related processes and ceremonies.
Teachers from core academic subjects (Social Sciences, Language Arts, Math,
Natural Sciences), Physical Education and Arts were invited to participate in the study,
with a special focus on Social Sciences and Language Arts teachers, as well as on head
teachers conducting the Class Council and Orientation periods, because it is in these
subjects where CE contents and practices could be more evident, but with flexibility to
follow more closely all those projects or units in other subjects that could be relevant for
CE. I conducted a total of 58 formal observations, as detailed in table 3 below:
46

Table 3: Formal Observations (Total: 58)
Treehill Montrose Parkside

School Year Opening School Year Opening Talk (Minors National
Ceremony Ceremony Service guest)
Administration Class Student Center Assembly Civics Class for Plebiscite
History Class Philosophy Class History Class
Physical Education Class Elections Language Class
International Book Day Philosophy Class
Ceremony Physical Education Class
Students’ Day (Team
Physical Education Class Competitions) Plebiscite
History Class Chemistry Class Research Projects Class
History Class World Environment Day Class Assembly (Circle) (4th
Ceremony Grade)
History Class Recycling Academy Philosophy Class
Debate Group Leadership Workshop Student Center Lists Debate
Religion Class Solidarity Day (Community Indigenous Cultures New
Service) Year
Technical-Vocational Day Religious Patron Day
Ceremony Talk (Student Leader guest)
Chilean Day Celebration Leadership Workshop (Whole
Day) Sixties Fair
Class Assembly (10th Grade) Physical Education Field
Chilean Day Celebration Trip (Hike)
Music Workshop Reflection Day about
Class Assembly (12th Grade) September 11th
Language Class History Class Class Assembly (9th Grade)
Philosophy Conversation
Religion Class Group
English as a Second Language Citizenship Education
Class Training
Orientation Class (12th Grade) Group
Musical Academies Gala Philosophy Conversation
Group
Group
Research Projects
Presentation (11th Grade)
TOTAL: 16 TOTAL: 20 TOTAL: 22
I conducted semi-structured interviews with the Principals, Deans of Students,
Academic Coordinators, teachers (cross-referencing these interviews with what
happened in those teachers’ classrooms, and bringing in what happened in the classroom
as material for discussion in the interviews), and students (specific questions and topics
47

are provided in Appendix A and B). Semi-structured interviews ask open questions from
preestablished interview guides, but are flexible enough to allow further exploring topics
or responses (Rubin & Rubin, 2012). I conducted some group interviews of students
belonging to specific groups, to elicit ideas and openness from the participants trough
their natural interaction.
Deans of Students and teachers were recruited through a group meeting where I
briefly explained the goals of the study and emphasized the voluntary nature of
participation. In the case of students, the same procedure was conducted, presenting
them the research goals during their Orientation hour, for all interested students to
participate, and then conducting a snowball sampling to contact students that participate
in different student groups in the school. Following the presentation of the research,
teachers and students received an email with the informed assent/consent forms (asking
students to bring the parental consent forms with them when meeting for the first time),
and possible interview time slots, in order to arrange a first interview. The 17 teachers
and administrators interviews conducted are specified in table 4 below:
48

Table 4: Teachers and Administrators Interviews (Total: 17)
School Name Position Gender Age Number of years

at the school
Treehill Lorna Principal F 48 23
Treehill Bertha Head Dean of Students F 52 22
Treehill Ruth Academic Coordinator F 36 6
Treehill Lucy Workshops Coordinator F 26 3
Treehill Maria History Teacher F 27 5
Treehill Dana Language Teacher F 27 5
Treehill Sue Physical Education Teacher F 60 8
Montrose Oscar Head Dean of Students M 53 18
Montrose Ruby Extracurricular Coordinator F 35 6
Montrose Arthur History Teacher M 32 10
Montrose Edward Philosophy Teacher M 42 8
Montrose Anna Physics Teacher F 42 18
Parkside Kate Academic Coordinator F 36 10
Parkside Sara Language Teacher F 26 4
Parkside Joan History Teacher F 36 9
Parkside Lisa History Teacher F 32 3
Parkside Kurt Philosophy Teacher M 28 3
A total of 27 students from 9th to 12th grade were interviewed, including both
students actively involved in civic and civil practices, and those who were not. During a
free period, I conducted a conversation on citizenship-related topics with an entire 11th
grade class. The details are presented in table 5 below:
49

Table 5: Student Interviews (Total interviewed students: 27)
School Type of Interview Students Number of

Students
Treehill Group Student Center (Emma, Kristen, Rose) 3
Treehill Group Uneven Bars Group (Louis, Steve, Jack) 3
Treehill Group 11th Grade Panel (whole class) -
Treehill Individual 12th Grade Student (Ross) 1
Montrose Group 2015 Student Center (Lane, Carly, Mia, 4
Francis)
Montrose Individual 11th Grade Student (Aria) 1
Montrose Group 2016 Student Center (Peter, Rachel, Nate, 4
Alexa)
Montrose Group 2016 Student Center (Uma, Phil) and 3
Pastoral Group (Jessie)
Parkside Group Student Center (Paul, Corey, David, 6
Frank, Ellen, Patty)
Parkside Group Philosophy Conversation Group (Bart, 2
Gus)
I reviewed written documents from each school, including the school mission
and vision, discipline manual, website, information/advertising for parents and students,
curriculum and educational project, guidelines of each Technical-Pedagogical Unit
(Unidad Técnico Pedagógica or UTP), teachers’ lesson plans, students’ evaluations,
professional development material, meeting minutes and written material developed for
special events. I also reviewed documents at the Municipal level, to identify anything
pertaining to CE, the types of teacher training they provide, as well as the opportunities
they offer for student participation. At the national level, I reviewed the curricular
guidelines and classroom activities provided by the government for the teaching of
citizenship, and the regulatory policy framework affecting CE.
To support the validity claims of my study, I was in the field for the duration of
the school year, in order to build trust with the participants (Goffman, 1989), used
multiple sources and methods (observation, interviews, document analysis) to
50

triangulate data, followed a flexible observation schedule to disrupt unconscious biases
in attention due to the effects of routine on perception, used a low-inference vocabulary
in the written record, and conducted member checks on the record of what took place
(Carspecken, 1996).
Data was stored in a password protected computer and online data storage.
NVivo software was used for the analysis and coding of documents and interviews, to
identify recurring themes and discursive patterns in the data (Rubin & Rubin, 2012).
Data was transcribed and translated by the researcher. Peers and the advisor read the
analysis of the data to check for biases. Participants were presented with a summary of
the interviews after they ended, for them to make any amendments or provide further
explanations.
Limitations of the Study
Fieldwork was limited to three sites, to allow for weekly visits to each of the
schools. This meant sacrificing the advantages of a larger number of schools for a more
in depth level of ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973). The inclusion of different kinds of
schools in terms of funding and educational mission, provided a range of teachers and
students’ discourses and practices of citizenship and CE, allowing for an analysis of the
socioeconomic context of each school influencing the structural conditions and
opportunities for citizenship. Yet differences between the schools in terms of total
number of students, and levels taught, limited the strength of the comparison between
schools. A fewer number of sites also meant that I could better follow guidelines for
ethnographic research in terms of spending a considerable amount of time in each site,
allowing me to build trust and become familiar with the culture and the participants of
51

each school, but given the limitations of time in a doctoral program, the depth that one
researcher could achieve studying three sites during one year, was partial for the
ethnographic ideal. Further explorations in more depth could reveal new and better
understandings of students and teachers’ discourses and practices of citizenship and CE.
In terms of being representative of each type of schools, while Treehill and
Montrose could be characterized as typical cases of a public technical-vocational school,
and a private-subsidized Catholic school, respectively, Parkside is an exceptional case of
private-independent school in Chile. While there are a number of executive elite schools
promoting an entrepreneurial, competitive and individualistic discourse, heavily
supporting a neoliberal model2, Parkside stands out by promoting a socialist, collective,
and social-justice oriented discourse, similar to what can be found in Liceos
Emblemáticos, selective public schools with active political participation. This allowed
the research to explore a more critical approach to citizenship, together with the more
traditional approaches at the other two schools, providing a variety of approaches to the
topic, but which should not be taken as representative of the totality of schools of each
kind.

2
For a study of practices of elite private schools in Chile, see Madrid, S. (2016). “Diversidad sin
Diversidad”: Los Colegios Particulares Pagados de Élite y la Formación de la Clase Dominante en una
Sociedad de Mercado. In A. Carrasco, J. Corvalán & J. E. García-Huidobro (Eds.), Mercado Escolar y
Oportunidad Educacional. Santiago: Ediciones UC. These schools, according to the author, filter students
through a high tuition, social status of the family, and cognitive tests; they foster competition through
practices like a “public class”, where students get examined in front of the parents; and promote
students staying within their social class bubble except for practices such as solidary activities and
religious missions, and others such as “chaneo”, where they go to discotheques in poor neighborhoods
to obtain sexual favors from women without involving themselves emotionally.
52

CHAPTER IV
SOCIOECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT OF THE THREE SCHOOLS
Before going into the citizenship and CE discourses and practices found in each
school, it is necessary to provide some background regarding the educational system in
Chile, which will illuminate the differences and similarities among the schools. I address
educational reforms in Chile and the 2011 Student Movement, which protested
educational, social and economic inequality, showing new ways of understanding and
practicing citizenship in youth. Next, I present the specific characteristics of CE in
Chile, including studies that look into students’ civic knowledge and engagement;
teachers and students’ understandings of citizenship; the reforms to the CE curriculum;
and the perspective of teachers on Human Rights Education.
Educational Reforms and Socioeconomic Segregation in Chile
Despite a significant increase in access to K-12 education in the last decades,
Chile has developed an educational system in which the market logic organizes the
delivery of educational services3. This system was established during the military
dictatorship (1973-1990) and consolidated by the Education Law (Ley Orgánica
Constitucional de Enseñanza or LOCE) that Pinochet put in place just before leaving

3
The economic reforms implemented during the dictatorship will be understood for this dissertation as
based on a neoliberal paradigm. Harvey (2005) describes neoliberalism as “a theory of political economic
practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial
freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free
markets, and free trade” (p. 2). Beyond that, neoliberalism becomes an ethic to guide action, a
commonsense logic, and it changes not only institutions and welfare provisions, but also our social relations
and ways of life.
53

office in 1990. Subsequent democratic governments maintained these laws in an effort
to pursuit economic growth and the modernization of the country (Cavieres, 2011)4.
This market logic is manifest in nation-wide policies and mechanisms that
promote competition among schools (both private and public), freedom of choice for the
families, vouchers that do not distinguish between private and public schools, and the
same treatment for private for-profit and non-profit providers (Bellei, 2011). The
military dictatorship also decentralized the administration of public education, moving it
to local municipalities, which in many cases did not have the appropriate resources to
take on this task (Orellana, 2009). As a result of all of these measures, Chile is the most
socio-economically segregated country during school age of all OECD members, and
one of the countries with the lowest public investment in education (Valenzuela, 2008).
The voucher mechanism implemented in 1981 during the dictatorship granted a
per-student subsidy to all public and private schools provided that they did not charge
tuition, and families were allowed to use the voucher in the school of their choice, as
part of an effort toward the privatization of education. In 1993, a reform was introduced
that allowed private-voucher schools and public schools to charge add-on fees to parents
to complement the government voucher5. Shared financing expanded rapidly from 16%
of the voucher sector enrollment in 1993 to 80% in 1998, stabilizing thereafter (Mizala
& Torche, 2012).
The voucher reform led to a massive reallocation of students from the public to

4
During the 2006 protests of the Student Movement, the LOCE was widely considered by students and
teachers as a main culprit in the inequities affecting the school system. The law was changed in 2009, when
the General Law of Education (Ley General de Educación or LGE) was passed (Orellana, 2009).
5
Private-voucher schools are one of the main areas of change of the education reform currently being
implemented, which will put an end to for profit private-voucher schools and to add-on fees. Private-
voucher schools will be able to continue receiving subsidies from the State if they become a non-for-profit
foundation, or will have two years to become private schools, close the schools, or sell the schools to the
State to be transformed into public schools (Salazar, 2014).
54

the newly established private-voucher sector, and public sector enrollment dropped from
78% in 1981 to 50% in 2004 (Mizala & Torche, 2012). During the ‘90s, five hundred
twenty-three private-subsidized schools and three hundred and ten private-independent
schools were created, while thirty-one public schools closed down (Paredes & Pinto,
2009). The growing trend for private-subsidized schools continued and intensified after
the 2011 student protests, with enrollment in public schools representing only a 37,5%
in 2013 (1,325,740 students); private-subsidized schools’ enrollment, a 53.7%
(1,897,959 students); and private schools’ enrollment, a 7,5% (265,031 students)
(accioneducar.cl, 2014).
In addition to privatization, a high stakes standardized test—Sistema de
Medición de la Calidad de la Educación or SIMCE (Agencia de Calidad de la
Educación, 2015)—was implemented in 1988 to measure the quality of education in
elementary, middle and high schools nation-wide. The test is currently applied to all
students of second, fourth, sixth, eighth, tenth and eleventh grade, in Language Arts,
Math, Sciences, Social Sciences, English as a foreign language, and Physical Education.
Results of the test are made public as a way of providing information to parents to
support their educational choices. These tests provided evidence for what most already
knew: that there was a large academic gap among students in the Chilean educational
system (Cavieres, 2011). In the last few years, groups of students, teachers and scholars
have demonstrated against the publication of results and the test itself for promoting
competition between schools, teaching-to-the-test, and failing to account for the
socioeconomic composition of the schools when revealing the academic gaps between
students in different types of schools (Almonacid, Luzón & Torres, 2008; Contreras,
Sepúlveda & Bustos, 2010). The latter issue is significantly problematic because when
55

controlling for socioeconomic status, public schools actually have better results than
private-subsidized schools and sometimes, even better than private independent schools
(Fundación Terram, 2013).
Public schools today continue to be administered by the municipalities or local
organizations receiving funds from the central government (Portales, 2011). Private-
subsidized schools receive funds from the state directly through vouchers, and are in
many cases part of networks with a Catholic or right wing political orientation, allowing
these power groups a form of governance “from the sidelines” (Corbalán & Corbalán,
2012). These schools are very similar in their funding, functioning and ideology to
Charter Schools in the United States. Private independent schools have freedom to
implement their own program of studies, but are still subject to standardized tests, so to
compete in the market they select the best students (Ruiz, 2009).
Just as charters schools in the US, private-voucher schools in Chile have not
shown an improvement in the quality of education and educational equity (Valenzuela,
2008). The typical public school in Chile is more internally diverse than the typical
private-voucher school, and more likely to serve disadvantaged population, and these
schools are mandated by law to accept all students who apply6, while private schools are
permitted to use parental interviews to select students, and to expel them as they see fit
(Elacqua, 2009). The segregation of the Chilean educational system also posits
challenges to the practice of citizenship, limiting students’ interaction with other social
classes and their knowledge of different realities in the country.
Tertiary education in Chile is the most expensive in the world according to the
last OECD ranking, with students paying more than twice than in the United States, and

6
Despite this, there is a group of public schools in Chile (Liceos Emblemáticos) that conduct selection on
the basis of cognitive abilities, measured by tests and grades from previous years (Ayudamineduc.cl, 2014).
56

with families financing 80% of the cost of those studies, compared to a 30% worldwide
(Fundación Terram, 2013).
In this context of inequality, Chilean students from high schools and universities
came together in public spaces and advocated for free and quality public education,
during a seven-month series of protests in 2011. These protests had an antecedent in the
2006 “Penguin Revolution”7, where students protested against the Education Law
implemented during the dictatorship. As a result of the 2006 protests, the previous
Education Law (LOCE) was changed to the General Law of Education (LGE) as a way
to show the students’ voice had been heard, but no significant reforms were
implemented.
The 2011 movement involved multiple actors, combined short-term with
structural, long-term demands (targeting for-profit institutions, government spending,
quality of education, access and equality), used innovative forms of communication and
organization, and included a wide array of public demonstrations: marches, take-overs,
strikes, carnivals, debates and performances. Students manifested a discontent with the
neoliberal, market-oriented system of education imposed during the military dictatorship
and continued by democratic governments (Bellei & Cabalin, 2013), and expressed their
lack of trust in the government, especially in light of previous promises of change that
were not fulfilled (Somma & Bargsted, 2015).
The Student Movement upended the dominant academic perspective that
characterized youth as politically apathetic and disengaged (Cox et al, 2013; Martínez et
al., 2012; Ministerio de Educación, 2003; Rey, 2014). It also resulted in a first attempt
by the government to satisfy the demands of the students in the “Great National

7
A name received because traditional public school uniforms in Chile, with white shirts and navy blue
blazers, have a look resembling that of penguins.
57

Agreement for Education” (GANE) in July of 2011, improving the scholarship and
credit system, but it was rejected by the students for not providing deadlines, resources
or procedures for its implementation. After dialogue between the government and the
students, small measures were taken that did not constitute a structural reform of the
educational system, but set the stage for the educational reform of Michelle Bachelet in
her second presidential term in 2014 (Espinoza & González, 2012).
Today, this educational reform is in the process of being approved in Congress
and implemented (Gobierno de Chile, 2015a). Initially, it received criticisms both from
the political right, for preventing entrepreneurial participation in education (CONACEP,
2014), and from representatives of the student unions, for being incomplete, rushed and
unclear (Ciper Chile, 2014). The first law associated with the reform, the “Law of
Educational Inclusion,” was enacted in May of 2015, after nine months in Congress, and
it significantly increased the budget for public education, promoted the principle of
inclusion and non-discrimination (both in selection and retention of students in schools),
as well as the progressive implementation of free education in private-subsidized
schools, specifying that schools cannot use government resources for purposes other
than education (Gobierno de Chile, 2015b). Parallel to changes to K-12 education, a
structural reform to the tertiary education sector is planned, but while that is ongoing, a
temporary solution for free superior education was developed using the Budget Law,
which was implemented in 2016, requiring renewed approval each subsequent year. The
reform provides financing for students of the first five socioeconomic deciles, studying
in one of 36 approved educational institutions, with an expected coverage of 234,000
students or a 20% of the enrollment (Ciper Chile, 2015).
A summary of important educational K-12 reforms since 1973 is below.
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1973-1990: Military Dictatorship
- 1981 Voucher reform and development of the private-subsidized
1970 schools sector. Development of private sector in tertiary education.
- 1986 Municipalization of schools
- 1988 SIMCE standardized test
1980 -1990 LOCE Law of Education is Enacted before Pinochet leaves office
after the national plebiscite

1990 1990 onwards: Return to Democracy
- 1993 Add-on fees to vouchers
- 1996-1998 Curricular reform eliminating Civics
2000 - 2006 “Penguin Revolution” student protests
- 2009 LGE substitutes for the LOCE educational Law during Michelle
Bachelet’s first term as President, but no significant changes are
2010 implemented
- 2011 Student Movement
- 2015 Michelle Bachelet, in her second term as President, proposes an
2020 educational reform to address socioeconomic segregation and access to
superior education, and to put an end to for profit education
- 2016 First year of implementation of the educational reform

Figure 1: Educational Reforms in Chile since 1973

Civic Engagement and Citizenship Education in Chile
Most studies of CE in Chile have focused on two aspects: international studies
that compared civic knowledge, attitudes and engagement of youth in a series of
countries; and the changes implemented to the Civics or CE curriculum, both reviewed
below. An emergent field studying teachers and students’ representations of citizenship,
to which my study will more directly contribute, is also presented, as well as the state of
HRE in the country.
Civic Engagement of Youth in Chile. Chile was a part of the CIVED Study of
Civic Education internationally coordinated by the IEA in 1999-2000 (Ministerio de
Educación, 2003), where results showed that Chilean students of Twelfth grade obtained
lower scores than the international sample in all knowledge scales. Despite their lower
knowledge and distrust of politicians, Chilean students showed greater interest in
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politics than the international sample, and a concept of citizenship that included the
formal aspects of being a good citizen as well as participation in the community
(Ministerio de Educación, 2003).
In 2009, the ICCS International Study of Civic Education was applied, with
Chile maintaining the score from the previous CIVED assessment, lower than the
international sample. This has to be put in the context of all Latin American countries in
the study having lower scores in civic knowledge than the average score of all
participant countries, and not having a clear notion of the consequences of dictatorships
(Schulz et al., 2011). The study also showed students gave more importance to
citizenship as a social movement (promoting human rights, protecting the environment,
participating in peaceful protests) than to conventional citizenship (voting, participating
in political discussions or in political parties); and a significant gap in terms of the civic
knowledge in students from different socioeconomic status (Rey, 2014).
The percentage of youth registered to vote in relationship to the total number of
voters decreased from the 1988 plebiscite (when there was an important incentive to
vote to bring back a democratic system) to 2001: the percentage of youth between 18
and 19 years old registered to vote went from 5,5% to 0,72%; and those between 20 and
24 years old went from 15,6% to 4% (Ministerio de Educación, 2004)8. When looking at
the actual voting behavior, the percentage of citizens that abstained from voting in the
presidential election of 2013 was 58%, positioning Chile as the country with the highest
rate of abstention (Batarce, 2015).
Looking at the differences in civic engagement according to socioeconomic

8
In 2012, the Ley Fácil (“Easy Law”) established the automatic registration to vote of citizens when they
turn 18 years old, and eliminated sanctions for not participating in elections (Biblioteca del Congreso
Nacional de Chile, 2015).
60

status, Martínez and Cumsille (2015) surveyed 1,088 Chilean students in Tenth and
Eleventh grade, and found that socioeconomic status (measured by parents’ educational
level and financing modality of the school) was positively correlated with participation
in prosocial activities.
Citizenship Education Curriculum in Chile. In Chile, the 1973 military coup
installed a regime that lasted 17 years, suspending during that time civil and political
rights, and leaving the concept of citizenship out of the public discourse. CE in schools
during this period was synonym with the cultivation of patriotism, rather than of
democratic dispositions or skills. With the return to democracy, the authoritarian system
gave way to global influences, bringing an awareness of individual rights and citizens’
participation in the public sphere, but with remnants of the authoritarian past in the
national Constitution that limited citizens’ influence. These global influences also
brought increased access to consumption but with high levels of inequality (Martínez,
Silva, Carmona & Cumsille, 2012). The generations that were socialized in the norms of
the dictatorship and experienced the shift to democracy still carry the internalized
symbolic representations of that past (Lira & Loveman, in Martínez et al., 2012), and
these historical differences in political socialization create generational differences in
how teachers and students understand citizenship (Martínez et al., 2012).
Reyes (2013) reviewed how the Dictatorship intervened the History subject in
schools, and textbooks and History departments in universities, getting rid of the ideas
of the Unidad Popular in the educational domain. Pinochet personally corrected the
educational program of History and Geography for Eighth grade, excluding references
to political parties; redefining the interpretations about the Russian Revolution,
Marxism, and the 1925 Chilean Constitution; and emphasizing the military worldview.
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The military coup was presented as necessary to end an unsolvable conflict between two
groups, and the economic successes of the neoliberal model were highlighted. The
History program for Tenth grade suggested that the democratic rupture of 1973 should
be addressed very carefully, given the deep wounds still present in the society.
Civics as a separate subject, which had been in the curriculum since 1912, was
eliminated in the mandated national curriculum in 1996-1998 (Cox & García, 2015).
The new format of CE assumes the skills and contents related to citizenship will be
addressed by the different subjects as “Cross-sectional Learning Goals” (Educar Chile,
2015), connecting the basic and the formative curriculum (Alarcón et al., 2003). The
former orientation of Civics classes had been criticized for promoting a nationalist or
patriotic perspective, which is why the 2004 guidelines for CE provided by the Ministry
of Education shifted toward a more global perspective of citizenship based on human
rights (Cox, 2006).
Recently, there has been discussion about bringing back CE as a separate
subject in schools, in the context of a broader goal of educating Chilean citizens
civically and implementing a constitutional assembly with citizen participation to reform
the Constitution put in place by the dictatorship (Álvarez, 2015). Politicians of both the
right and the left have supported this initiative (Monzón, 2015), and there is a proposal
from the Ministry of Education to implement a standardized test (SIMCE) of CE in
Eighth grade, assessing the domains of democracy, citizenship, national identity,
international relations, social cohesion and diversity (Quevedo, 2015).
In this context, with no specialized space for CE, and where teachers do not feel
supported to implement it (De la Vega, 2011), teachers’ choices in their daily practice
are a major determinant in the kind of CE developed at schools. Reyes et al. (2013),
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found that teachers integrate into their teaching practices their personal stance,
narratives and vision of what it means to be a citizen.
All schools in Chile, public or private, must follow the curricular framework of
fundamental goals and minimum mandatory contents. The Study Programs provided by
the Ministry of Education are optional, but less than one fifth of the schools in Chile
have their own Study Program, with the majority of them following the official ones
(Cox, 2011). In terms of the content of the CE curriculum, Cox et al. (2013) studied its
evolution, finding that during the 80’s, the subjects of national identity and institutions
prevailed; in contrast, in the return to democracy since the 90’s, the curriculum gave
equal importance to citizenship, democratic participation, and civic values, including
equity, social justice, solidarity and pluralism (absent during the 80’s). The curriculum
of the dictatorship had serious deficits in terms of concepts for a democratic culture,
such as the International Human Rights Declaration, and the role of political parties and
periodic elections (Ministerio de Educación, 2004). It emphasized patriotism through
civic ceremonies, respect for national emblems, and veneration of national heroes and
governors; likewise, on the identity and coexistence areas, it promoted the formation of
attitudes and habits such as obedience, good manners, personal presentation,
responsibility, and self-discipline, while the 1996 curriculum emphasized self-esteem,
initiative, active participation, conflict resolution abilities, and prevention of prejudice
and discrimination (Bascopé, Cox & Lira, 2015).
The CE curriculum in Chile has been redefined four times: during the
dictatorship in 1980, with a curriculum focused on family and nationalist values for
primary school; and the subjects of Civics and Economy for the last two years of high
school, focused on the Constitution of 1980. Then, in the return to democracy, a new
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curriculum in 1996 distributed the citizenship goals across four subjects: History and
Social Sciences, and Orientation for primary schools; and History and Social Sciences,
and Philosophy and Psychology for high schools, and incorporated citizenship formation
as a cross-sectional goal; there was a thematic expansion to include social, moral and
environmental issues, a quantitative expansion not only limiting civics to the last years
of schooling, and a formative expansion to include skills and attitudes. The third change
in 2009 included contents about citizen engagement and political institutions. Finally,
with the first center-right government since the return to democracy, in 2012 a
Citizenship Formation axis was established in the subject of History, Geography and
Social Sciences. The result is that three different citizenship curricula coexist today,
addressing different areas and different grades of schooling (Cox & García, 2015).
Understandably, the CE component of the curricular reforms is the least understood by
teachers (Muñoz, Sánchez &Wilhelm, 2012). A summary of these curricular reforms is
presented in table 6 below:
Table 6: Curricular Organization of Citizenship Education (Cox & García, 2015)
Curricular Framework Curricular Framework Curricular Basis

1996 2009 2012
Subjects - Study and Comprehension - History and Social - History, Geography
of the Natural, Social and Sciences (1st-12th) and Social Sciences (1st-
Cultural Environment (1st- - Orientation (5th-8th) 12th)
8th) - Philosophy and - Orientation (1st to 6th)
- Study and Comprehension Psychology (9th-12th)
of Society (1st-8th)
- Orientation (5th-8th)
- History and Social
Sciences (9th-12th)
- Philosophy and Psychology
(9th-12th)
Cross- - OFT: Ethical Formation; - OFT: Ethical - OAT: Sociocultural
Sectional Person and Environment Formation; Person and Dimension and
Goals (1st-12th) Environment (1st-12th) Citizenship; Moral
Dimension (1st-12th)
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When comparing the current curriculum with international examples, its main
concepts and strategies appear aligned with the prevailing global citizenship orientation,
an approach that goes beyond civic education to involve citizenship formation,
incorporating skills and values instead of focusing on just knowledge, and using a
variety of pedagogical methods including service-learning projects. But in terms of how
effectively this curriculum is practiced in the classroom, there is evidence that this is not
always achieved, with recent national history not being appropriately covered; a limited
teaching of political, social and economic issues; and a neutral and ahistorical
understanding of issues, focused on insertion in the system and respect for its norms
rather than on its transformation, without a critical reflection around power (Reyes et al.,
2013; Mardones, 2015).
A Commission for Citizenship Education in Chile was formed in 2004 to
address the presidential concern about CE, developing a series of curricular guidelines
for teachers. This group of experts acknowledged the civic participation gap and the
need for more specialized teacher training in CE (Ministerio de Educación, 2004;
Mardones, 2015). Reyes et al. (2013) describe how lack of training in CE has resulted in
a lack of appropriation of it by teachers, with a focus on declarative concepts of
citizenship, and a preference for consensus over conflict, with a superficial, passive and
restricted approach to citizenship. This, according to Reyes et al. (2013), is reinforced by
a reconfiguration of the role of the teacher through standardized testing and increased
accountability in schools.
With Civics no longer a separate school subject, issues of citizenship and social
justice are now addressed in the national curriculum as Fundamental Cross-sectional
Goals or Cross-sectional Learning Goals (Objetivos de Formación Transversal or OFT
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in 1996, and Objetivos de Aprendizaje Transversal or OAT in 2013), which teachers are
supposed to include in every subject, as well as being incorporated in school rituals and
practices, including discipline programs. These goals cover the following dimensions:
Physical; Emotional; Cognitive-Intellectual; Sociocultural and Citizenship; Moral;
Spiritual; Work and Productivity; Personal Plans and Projects; and Technologies of
Information and Communication (Ministerio de Educación, 2015a). According to
Alarcón et al. (2003), cross-sectionality refers to the connections between the basic
curriculum or cognitive aspects, and the formative or moral curriculum, as to make
learning integral. OFT/OAT favor the development of abilities and values that point to
the pacific resolution of conflicts, achieving a democratic social coexistence,
strengthening the competences to participate actively and responsibly in society, and the
capacity to develop projects that are committed to the local and national reality.
There are concerns regarding the extent to which teachers implement the cross-
sectional goals of CE in Chile, with little official information, but where the anecdotal
evidence suggests that curricular approaches and teaching practices might not be
sufficiently aligned (Ainley, Schulz, & Friedman, 2009). Palma (2013) claims that while
cross-sectionality in the curriculum is mentioned as central, together with the
development of values and a healthy coexistence in schools, it is not evaluated with the
same emphasis of Math and Language Arts, where standardized tests are used. De la
Vega (2011) posits that there is a consensus about how the Cross-sectional Goals have
lost the battle to the Vertical Goals of each subject. The sparse research about this topic
is also a symptom of the informality of the OFT/OAT and the lack of reflection about
them. For Reyes et al. (2013), cross-sectionality makes CE a “responsibility of everyone
and no one” (p. 222).
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Educational actors, according to De la Vega (2011), do not have a clear notion
about the OFT/OAT, and they mostly link them with the teaching of values such as
respect, responsibility, honesty and solidarity; or with the development of habits, such as
hygiene and good manners. Teachers see these aspects as something that teachers have
always done, and not as learning that should be planned. Egaña (2004) found that when
morals or values are discussed, reflection in the classroom is often built around what
“ought to be,” becoming moralizing instead of fostering a critical reflection. Teachers
claim that it is problematic to evaluate these dimensions with uniform criteria, that
teaching them requires a strong personal will on the part of the teacher, and that it is
mostly a lonely task, without pedagogical support from the school (De la Vega, 2011).
In terms of the basic curriculum, citizenship is more directly addressed by the
History/Social Sciences curriculum in Twelfth grade, including the following topics: 1)
Elements and Mechanisms for the Organization of Democracy; 2) Exercising citizenship
and citizen responsibilities; 3) The Challenges of Inserting in a Globalized World: Chile
and its Regions Facing the Global Economy and Global Problems; 4) The Job Market
and Labor Law in Chile (Ministerio de Educación, 2009). It recognizes the benefits of
inserting in the global economy, but also the challenges in terms of local patrimony,
environmental issues, and inequality.
Other initiatives in the CE curriculum are the mandated student governments
(Student Centers) for representation of students in each school, and the school councils
to incorporate the perspectives of different actors of the school community (teachers,
parents and students). Student Centers are regulated by the Educational Law in Chile
(Decree number 524, 1990; reformulated in 2006), and are defined as “the organization
formed by students from Fifth to Twelfth grade, whose goal is to serve their members as
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a means to develop in them reflexive thought, critical judgment and will to act; form
them for democratic life, and prepare them to participate in cultural and social changes”
(Cuevas, 2006, p. 14). They periodically choose a group of representatives, and their
functions include promoting opportunities for students to democratically express their
interests and concerns; promoting dedication to schoolwork in students; representing
students before the School Council and other authorities; promoting the wellbeing of
students; and promoting the exercise of student rights and human rights (Cuevas, 2006).
Students also have a weekly Homeroom period or Consejo de Curso (Class Council), to
promote participation through the election of representatives, teamwork, and the practice
of decision-making (Ministerio de Educación, 2004; Mardones, 2015). But students
complain about not receiving enough support for these groups, them not representing the
majority of the students’ interests, being controlled by teachers, and not having real
power to carry out projects (Cavieres, 2011).
Civic ceremonies are another important form of transmitting citizenship in
schools in Chile. They celebrate religious or historical events and heroes, national
holidays, or pay tribute to the values of the school. As the Ministry of Education puts it,
most schools in Chile follow a calendar of monthly themes or events, which function as
a way of articulating some of the cross-sectional learning goals, including knowledge,
skills, values, attitudes and a sense of personal identity (Ministerio de Educación, 2009).
Chilean Students and Teachers’ Understandings and Practices of
Citizenship and Citizenship Education. One of the few studies that has explored how
teachers and students understand citizenship and CE in Chile, as well as teachers’
pedagogical practices regarding citizenship and their relationship to the official
curriculum, is by Bonhomme, Cox, Tham, and Lira (2015), who studied History and
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Social Sciences Eighth grade classes in nine schools of the three types existing in Chile:
public, private-subsidized, and private, in two regions of Chile. In each school, they
observed one class, focusing on the pedagogical methods and written assessments to
classify them as traditional, student-centered or constructivist; conducted an interview
with the teacher; and a focus group with six students. They found traditional practices
were the most frequent, where the teacher presented a topic, and then asked the students
content-based questions. Overall, there were not many opportunities for participation or
discussion, and sometimes the teacher inhibited these to cover the planned contents for
the class. The financing modality of the school, a proxy for socioeconomic status of the
students, was not determinant in the type of pedagogical practices of teachers.
Bonhomme et al. (2015) found that students valued classroom activities that
required them to have an active role (choosing the topics to discuss, presenting to their
classmates, debating), but that they sometimes inhibited their participation due to
concerns of being teased by their classmates; and they did not connect citizenship with
political participation, but saw it as geographical membership, helping the community,
or as having rights and duties. Students showed a diversity of interests in social and
political issues, with students from public schools being more invested in controversial
and current topics, and students from private schools claiming they were more focused
on having fun than on politics. But students from all schools concurred when criticizing
the political system, revealing how delegitimized politicians are in Chile.
Finally, Bonhomme et al. (2015) found that teachers in private and private-
subsidized schools understood citizenship mostly from a communitarian and civil
perspective, with a focus on values and civic duties, rather than from a political
approach; contrastingly, teachers in public schools focused on the importance of a
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critical and reflexive attitude, and they highlighted the difficulties they faced in
accomplishing these goals, such as the low cultural capital of the students, the limited
time to address citizenship issues, and the lack of civic and political focus of the
curriculum. All teachers acknowledged a need for CE training.
Focused on teachers’ understandings and practice of CE, Reyes et al. (2013)
studied nine middle school teachers and their classroom practices, using interviews and
observations. They found that there is great diversity in the type of training received and
ideas regarding how to form citizens in the school, but that these differences disappear
when practicing CE in the classroom, where the strategies applied are homogenous, and
where teachers rely more on their experience of citizenship than on their professional
training when planning lessons. In terms of their representations of citizenship, teachers
tend to see the good citizen as respectful of the norms and as a good neighbor, with
citizenship participation as located in the future, when students reach the voting age;
they also highlight the values of respect, tolerance and consensus; and they relate
citizenship with participation in representative democracy and as part of daily life.
This study expands on the efforts of Bonhomme et al. (2015), and of Reyes et
al. (2013), incorporating the institutional context, and looking at issues of power and
differential supports according to type of school for the practice of citizenship and CE.
While it only includes one school of each type, it focuses on the depth of the data
through an ethnographic approach involving a longer period of observation, and a more
profound look at the relationship between teachers and students, as well as among
students. Both these studies were focused on middle schools, while I focus on high
schools, a time where students have more autonomy for civic and community
engagement; and look at how students are practicing citizenship both inside and outside
70

the schools.
According to the 2009 ICCS study, teachers and principals tend to favor
knowledge of rights and responsibilities, conflict resolution, and critical thinking, as
important dimensions of CE, over fostering knowledge of social, political and civic
institutions, participation in the community, and preparation for future political
participation (Mardones, 2015; Ministerio de Educación, 2009).
Prieto (2013), in an action research study with high school students, found that
they did not have extensive knowledge of the meaning of democracy, and that they
reported an absence of educational practices that allowed them to experience it, feeling
that they were ignored by teachers and that they did not have enough participation in
school decisions. In another study, Muñoz, Sánchez and Wilhelm (2012) found in
interviews with 24 Eighth grade students that they had no clear notion of the meaning of
citizenship formation, and the only relation they made with it were the concepts of rights
and duties, and politics.
Martínez et al. (2012) looked at the representations of youth regarding
citizenship, using a qualitative approach. They found Chilean students feel politically
inefficacious, lacking the power to influence the sociopolitical system, which coincides
with previous studies of young Chileans’ civic behaviors that indicate low voting
registration, low trust in political institutions and elected officials, decreasing interest in
electoral politics, and low support for democracy as the best form of government. This
could be, according to Martínez et al. (2012), mistakenly interpreted as disaffection with
politics and attributed to lack of knowledge, without looking at the reasons why they are
unwilling to engage. The authors found youth have a view of citizenship that could be
defined as critical citizenship, expanding its notion of civic membership, identity, and
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participation to a concern for social justice and for diminishing the hegemony of
corporative political and economic powers, being able to identify the structural
constraints for the practice of citizenship. Youth also prioritized cultural citizenship,
valuing political equality, condemning discrimination and negative stereotypes
portrayed in the media, and aspiring to greater social integration; and active citizenship,
that entails acting on behalf of the common interest and exercising full rights, but at the
same time they did not feel represented by elected officials and government institutions,
distrusted them, and were unwilling to join formal political activities.
Human Rights Education in Chile. Addressing Human Rights topics is critical
for the CE of youth and for transmitting an ethical memory that helps students analyze
power relationships and patterns of violence, and develop solidarity and empathy with
the suffering of others (Magendzo, 2013; Palma, 2013). HRE is especially relevant in
Chile because of the dictatorship that ruled the country from 1973 to 1989 that involved
Human Right violations. The initiatives to educate in Human Rights in Chile from 1990
onwards have been few and limited, with the responsibility of transmitting, criticizing
and reflecting falling on families and specific socialization groups other than the school
(Muñoz, Silva, Ibáñez & Millalén, 2013). Coincidentally, in a 1999 international study,
Chilean students obtained the lowest scores in the item regarding civil rights violations
(Ministerio de Educación, 2004).
Magendzo and Toledo (in Palma, 2013) found that teachers (without important
differences according to the schools’ financing model) acknowledge that, in the majority
of cases, they did not teach the unit concerning Chile’s recent History, attributing it to
lack of time, non planning of the unit, and lack of documental sources and didactic
materials. Of the schools that consider Human Rights in their Educational Project, only
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47% covered, in 2005, the subunit “Military Regime and Transition to Democracy”; and
teachers acknowledged teaching this subunit without proper support was emotionally
exhausting on an individual level. On the other hand, students agree (92%) with the
subunit being addressed in schools, and 74% of them claim to be interested in furthering
their knowledge about these topics (Magendzo, 2013).
In the study of Muñoz et al. (2013) with prospective teachers, a common
concern was discomfort when discussing Human Rights violations in Chile and the
Dictatorship. Some argued that it was not possible to have an opinion about events that
they did not participate in directly or did not affect their families, so they expressed a
feeling of distance from these events.
Summary
In Chile, the educational system is characterized by privatization and
segregation, from elementary schools to universities. Reforms implemented during the
dictatorship and maintained today, such as the voucher system and the SIMCE
standardized tests, have deepened educational inequality, which pushed students to form
a movement and demonstrate to advocate for the right to education in 2011.
CE is currently being discussed and reformed, with confusion regarding the
different curricula issued since the return to democracy, and with CE as a distributed
responsibility for all teachers in the Cross-sectional Learning Goals. Previous research
of citizenship in Chile has found low levels of civic knowledge and engagement in
students; lack of CE training for teachers, and a tendency to avoid addressing recent
political history and controversial issues in classes; and a critical and participatory
notion of citizenship in youth, with reluctance to participate in traditional politics.
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CHAPTER V
CASE STUDIES OF THE THREE SCHOOLS
For each of the schools, I present important themes that emerged from the
interviews, observations and document analysis, and that aim to answer the initial
questions of the study. Regarding the question of how teachers and students understand
citizenship and CE and what discourses they employ about these topics, I describe the
broad notion of citizenship at each school, both in regards to the ideal citizen, and in
terms of the national/patriotic to global citizenship dimension. I also identify the specific
ideologies present at each school involving discourses of class consciousness,
expectations, and self-expression, adding nuance to the general notion of citizenship,
which allowed me to identify distinct dominant discourses at the schools: of political
disengagement (Treehill), meritocracy (Montrose), and social justice orientation
(Parkside). These stratified discourses have important implications in framing how
students and teachers imagine and enact their forms of agency.
Regarding the question of the practices Chilean high school teachers engage in
to teach citizenship, I looked at the official curriculum of CE at each of the schools, as
well as the extracurricular opportunities for students; the educational mission of the
school and how it is implemented in the classroom, and the particular ways in which the
government-issued curriculum is appropriated at the school. I also looked at the
pedagogical practices teachers engaged in to teach citizenship, and at how each school
dealt with the context of accountability and pressures to perform in standardized tests,
and how that affected CE.
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While there were important differences in the curricula of the three schools,
leading to a stratified CE that worked to perpetuate social reproduction, all schools were
affected in a similar way by the context of high stakes accountability, with a number of
standardized tests that had become a focus for schools, making it difficult to devote
more time to a wholistic student development that included CE.
I also looked at the discipline norms and surveillance practices at the schools,
the school relationships and climate, and the civic ceremonies where students
experienced CE as a disciplinary practice, all part of the hidden curriculum that teaches
students about citizenship. I discuss how different aspects of the culture of the schools
placed limitations on students’ experience of democracy and citizenship, but also the
spaces of resistance found within each school culture.
To answer the question of what kinds of citizenship practices students engage
in, I looked at the spaces the schools provided students for participation, including
Student Centers (student government) and how students organized in their class
government in Homeroom. In addition, I looked at student participation in formal and
informal politics, and in other groups (neighborhood, church, sports, and cultural
organizations) that contributed to the ways students formed their identity as citizens.
Finally, I looked at the relationship (or lack thereof) that the schools established
with their surrounding community, which influenced how students thought of their
active role as citizens beyond the micro-society of the school.
The discussion in chapter six will address the major findings, establishing a
comparison between the schools and exploring how these results connect to the broader
citizenship literature and theory. In chapter seven, I provide some recommendations for
schools to address CE, for school leaders, and for future research in the field.
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Treehill (Low-Income Public School)
I first approached the three girls from the Student Center, Emma, Kristen,
and Rose, and felt a little discouraged by how they described being in the Student
Center mostly for the perks of being able to stay out of classes to work on
organizing events. But then, on my interview with them, they told me about how
they had become empowered through their participation in the Student Center to be
able to go with projects or complaints to the Principal of the school, which they had
done to get the school to retire an educational program that students felt did not
work. They also discussed their view of student needs at the school, identifying
areas of concern such as sex education. Their knowledge and examples of action on
behalf of their classmates revealed a political side even though they did not consider
themselves “political.”
Looking on the school website, I found a story about Mario, a student who
had won an entrepreneurship competition at the municipality, and asked to
interview him. He talked about the research he had done to explore youth local
needs, by going to different youth centers in the neighborhood, and how he came up
with a laugh therapy workshop to address mental health issues. He also described an
LGBTQ study group project that he tried to implement at the school to address
bullying and lack of support for LGBTQ youth, and how he had collected signatures
to bring back the water fountains at the school and have the food kiosk sell healthier
food. He described how he did not find a positive response from the school
administration, deciding to abandon his causes to avoid punishment.
As these two examples show, my interactions with Treehill students had me
constantly discovering new sides of them and revising the generalized perspective
from teachers, and sometimes from students themselves, of students being
disengaged from social issues or politics.
The first day I visited Treehill, I was struck by the novelties in the neighborhood
that had been recently installed: a funicular railway for a hill behind the school known
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for its high level of delinquency, and surveillance cameras installed on air balloons to
prevent armed robberies to cars that were common in some stop lights near the school.
These initiatives, I read later, had been recently implemented by the municipality as part
of a concerted effort to transform the historical reputation of the neighborhood as
unsafe. These small details prefigured the finding of a push for code-switching at the
school, encouraging students to cover up their origin; and explained some of the
socioeconomic resentment felt by students, which they seldom openly talked about, but
which revealed itself in small remarks.
Treehill was a public school, which meant it was under direct administration of
the municipality, and that it received per-student vouchers according to attendance.
There was no process of selection of students (as private schools have, filtering students
according to cognitive tests, and family socioeconomic characteristics) and no add-on
fee for families (to complement the state-subsidized voucher) at the school. The school
had a technical-vocational track, which meant students could graduate with a degree in
the areas of Administration, Auto Mechanics or Nursing. They had the special
recognition of being a “Bicentennial school,” which were 60 schools in Chile that
received special funding in order to pursuit more challenging curriculum and improve
academic achievement (an educational policy that was no longer in effect). The school
mission (for more details on this and the other schools’ missions, see Appendix D)
focused on students achieving academic and professional success in the future,
contributing to social mobility.
The school was in a low-income neighborhood, and the majority of its students
were from low-income families, but this neighborhood constituted a small pocket within
one of the richest municipalities in Santiago. I had lived for years near that
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neighborhood during my school years, so I knew about the “on the other side of the
tracks” notion that was common in the language of youth in the area. Some of the
students’ families had lived there for generations, when the area was rural, before it
became one of the hot new spots for housing and commercial development, and
progressively gentrified (with one of the most luxurious shopping malls in Santiago
being a few blocks from the school). Other families had been relocated there from
campamentos (shanty towns) nearby or in other municipalities.
The school was located in a dead end alley with one or two-story houses, with
cars parked outside, and dogs roaming the streets (which also meant a lot of animal
waste and a permanent bad odor). The houses in the alley were significantly nicer
(ranging from a middle-class to lower middle-class aspect) when compared with the run
down houses going up the hillside, where many of the students mentioned living, but
they still represented a stark contrast to the big, luxurious houses you could find a
couple of blocks from the neighborhood. It was common to see neighbors outside,
talking to each other. A church and commercial establishments nearby made it an area of
frequent transit of people. The students walked in groups to and from the school. It was
difficult to identify what exactly was the mandatory uniform, because students resisted
the rules by adding colorful clothes or accessories, that they often had to take off at the
door, after being inspected by the Head Dean.
The Treehill school building was a two-story structure with a center patio that
balconies looked into, and it had an annex that surrounded a smaller patio with a water
fountain, some vegetation and a couple of broken benches. There was an underground
section with the cafeteria, library, and teachers’ lounge; an entrance hall with the Head
Dean’s office, and a two-floor wing with administrators’ offices. In the second floor,
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next to the Principal’s office, there was a case exhibiting trophies and prizes. In the large
patio there was a food kiosk, a couple of cardio exercise machines and uneven bars for
gymnastics, and a ping-pong table. Classes had between 15 and 40 students. Parents did
not commonly attend civic ceremonies or picked up their kids at the school, which was
mostly explained by the fact that the school only had high school grades (Seventh to
Twelfth grade) and most of the students lived nearby. The school put up removable
fences after the school day was over to protect the building from delinquency.
The first impression of the climate of the school was of a constant alternation
between a strict discipline and a relaxed atmosphere. At civic ceremonies and when the
Head Dean checked students’ uniforms at the door, for example, rules were enforced
and the Dean adopted an authoritarian stance; but at other times, when students were
working on activities in the classroom, or in the language they used during breaks, the
school had more of a laissez-faire feel to it.
The Ideal Citizen: Someone who respects others. When discussing the ideal
citizen, students did not speak of their civil and political rights as understood by the
United Nations’ International Covenant (1966), protecting individuals’ freedom and
ensuring one’s ability to participate in society, but instead focused on values such as
“solidarity,” “honesty,” “helping and respecting others” or being “the ideal neighbor.”
The language of citizenship and rights did not resonate with them, and they had trouble
understanding my questions regarding what was an ideal citizen. They saw the decision
of being a good citizen more as a matter of individual ethics rather than determined by a
binding societal contract. But students did show awareness of the need to “respect the
law” as citizens. As one student put it, the ideal citizen “should not be going around
being a delinquent, they should be correct.”
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When asked about problems they saw in Chilean society, students identified
discrimination and intolerance as the main issues to improve, revealing an awareness of
inequality, even if they did not expand on where and how they saw these issues when
probed. As an exception, a concrete example of discrimination was provided by Mario, a
Twelfth grade student I interviewed who described how a classmate usually used strong
homophobic language against other students, without being reprimanded by teachers.
When addressing the concept of citizenship, Mario showed a participatory
notion, in which citizens should be involved in their community, and a critical
perspective, that saw dissent as positive, and citizens as capable of effecting change:
[Citizens] should express their opinion, whether they are in agreement

or in disagreement with something. They should volunteer in their
community, be mobilized by what they really want to do, participate in
different spaces. A citizen should have great participation in all of that,
be involved in their community, and know what is affecting it.
This revealed a broader perspective of citizenship compared to that of his
classmates, that recognized youth as citizens in the present, capable of manifesting their
dissent and working to improve their communities, as he did by bringing issues to the
attention of the school administration, and through a Laugh Therapy workshop to
improve youth mental health in his neighborhood, as part of an entrepreneurship
competition.
In general, students at Treehill did not identify being informed of what was
going on in the country as important as citizens, and acknowledged consciously
avoiding political information. Students, for the most part, did not have grand notions of
formal citizenship, its duties and responsibilities, but elaborated on issues such as the
sense of community of the school (with students recognizing it was a close-knit
community, where they cared about each other, and felt taken care of by
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Administrators), and not involving themselves in bullying or violence. They also
identified problems in the youth of their neighborhood such as drug addiction, a high
rate of mental problems, lack of spaces and opportunities for recreation (with students
asking for things like a gym at the school, a pool they could access for free in the
neighborhood, and theater workshops, among others), lack of information about
sexuality (including basic knowledge such as how to use a condom), and discrimination
against LGBTQ students at the school.
When asked about how the ideal citizen was promoted within the school, the
Principal and Head Dean focused on formal spaces of participation, such as Homeroom
and the Student Center within the school, or exercising the right to vote in elections, as
well as developing an attitude of respect toward others:
The school has to provide opportunities for children to appreciate what

being a citizen means, or for them to develop a stance on what is a
rightful citizen; and they also have to put in practice some aspects of
citizenship, such as in Homeroom, where they can express their
thoughts, help to build an action. The Student Center as well, where
they exercise their voting right, and assess the proposals of their
classmates. We aim for graduated students who are capable of
exercising their right to vote, knowing it is something a citizen should
do, otherwise they cannot criticize the system. (Lorna)
An ideal citizen has to be knowledgeable of everything regarding the

civic education of their country, their rights, and duties. Government
policies and educational policies aim for them to be responsible men.
(Bertha)
Bertha emphasized how adults at the school had to be role models of good
citizenship for the students, understanding citizenship as a series of duties:
The kid has to look into you as a mirror and see what is right, and that’s
the way they learn, so we who are older and already lived those stages
have to teach them to be citizens. And that being a citizen means this
entire list, and this other entire list.
This “list” approach was also evident in the numerous values for the year posted
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by the Technical-Pedagogical Unit on a bulletin board: humility, innovation, success,
leadership, effort, responsibility, patience, joy, companionship, knowledge, respect,
loyalty, honesty, goals. Implied was the need for students to comply with this version of
citizenship obediently, rather than it being open to a collective construction. The broad
and abstract nature of these values, without concomitant channels to enact them, did not
facilitate students seeing them as meaningful in their daily lives.
National and Global Citizenship: At the school you learn to value the
national symbols. Civic ceremonies at Treehill adhered to a nationalist curriculum
(Gaudelli, 2009) focused on patriotism, duties and respect for the law. As the Head Dean
of Students, Bertha, explained,
When you talk Civics, you have to cover norms, both social and legal. If
a person is not aware of the margins for behavior, they can make
mistakes and go south. Also, the concept of “nationality” is having
respect for being a part of this nation, for ecology, for our natural
resources, which is stated in Article 19 of the Constitution. But these are
things people ignore, and when they ignore them, they make mistakes
that harm them and others. There are rules that need to be respected.
The discipline manual placed the highest-level punishment for “Vandalizing
national symbols,” at the same level as stealing or selling drugs at the school. This
showed that citizenship was greatly understood as nationalism, as confirmed by the
Principal during her interview:
At the school you learn to value the national symbols, we make students
feel these are their roots, and that they have to respect them, and love
their country. All this is related to civic life.
For the Día de la Chilenidad (Chilean Day), students prepared dances
representing the different regions of the country. Teachers in traditional outfits
accompanied the students performing, acting as role models about the importance of
national symbols and customs.
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Teachers and administrators proudly described the participation of students in
rodeo culture in the neighborhood, folk dance groups, and in the traditional Quasimodo
Festival, where people in traditional huaso outfits on horseback escort a priest,
symbolically bringing the communion to the sick and elderly who cannot attend mass. It
was possible to read in students an appreciation for community in their participation in
folk and church groups.
During Maria’s Twelfth grade History class, she asked students what they
associated with Chile or with the concept of “Nation”, with students answering “flag,”
“copihue” (national flower), “coat of arms,” “empanadas” (traditional meat pie),
“cueca” (national dance), and “porotos” (traditional stew). These answers revealed a
concrete and limited view of nationality, where social and political rights were not
central, and which aligned with the nationalist emphasis on symbols promoted by the
discipline manual and civic ceremonies. In a similar fashion, when discussing the
Constitution, students seemed not to be aware of what it was, the current efforts to
change it, or the fact that it was written under Pinochet’s dictatorship. During this class,
Maria questioned the aspect of “ethnic, cultural and historic homogeneity” of the
definition of nation she had brought, calling students to recognize diversity and
indigenous cultures, but this did not start a discussion among the students.
Discourses of Class-Consciousness and Expectations: It’s because of where
they come from. At Treehill, teachers and administrators saw social origin as something
that had to be actively fought against, especially in a neighborhood perceived as
fostering taking the easy way out through delinquency, or just settling for government
assistance without having higher expectations of the future. Students were aware of how
showing their language or style could make them seem inadequate in the eyes of adults,
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but they also expressed resentment due to seeing such blatant inequality in their
neighborhood. According to teachers, that resentment did not activate the students
politically, without them organizing but only aspiring to get status symbols. This was
also observed in the lack of political organization from students within or outside the
school, and the limited role the Student Center had at the school. Class-consciousness
was not fostered at the school, without discussions of inequality from a structural
perspective, but with some teachers presenting the students the option of education as a
way to break the circle of poverty.
Teachers and administrators had a “cultural explanations” discourse for student
language and behavior, similar to what could be found at Montrose, only here students
had more leeway to express using their own language, but still showed awareness of
how this could hinder their success, as evident in the comments from the Student Center
members regarding how they had learned when and where to speak formally, such as
when presenting a project to the Principal; and when to express themselves informally,
as among friends. Code-switching was promoted by some teachers in the form of
reprimanding the students when they used bad words or misbehaved, but it was also
common to hear students using bad words in classes that were not addressed by teachers.
For example, the Administration teacher, after a class where different insults were
proffered, expressed, “Students are affectionate, but they curse a lot, but it’s because of
where they come from,” revealing a cultural deficit perspective that worked against
having high expectations of students. It was possible to observe a pattern in teachers and
administrators characterizing the families as inadequate, lacking in resources and
preparation to raise the students, and having low expectations of the students.
Class distinctions, particularly strong in Chilean society, were not only
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established by Treehill students with others in the neighborhood (where there was a
divisive line between the people from “the town” and the rich people), but also within
the school, which was exacerbated by the fact that there were three different specialties
at the school. Each specialty had a work attire: scrubs for Nurses, business outfits for
Administration, and overalls for Mechanics. These outfits were routinely used during
workshop classes, and for special occasions, such as presentations or ceremonies like the
Technical-Vocational Day. These worked as a way of forging distinct identities, with
associated characteristics. For example, Mechanics were expected to be male, with
difficulties to perform intellectual tasks (during a contest where they had to
alphabetically order some files, the host said “It seems Mechanics aren’t too good at
this”), and flaites9. This was exemplified when the nurses (mostly female, usually
looking very put together and polished in their scrubs) described the mechanics driving
and working on cars during a presentation as all having “flaite haircuts” (something that
was not allowed according to the discipline manual of the school: “Students must show
an adequate personal presentation, with short hair and no flamboyant haircuts for male
students, and well styled hair for female students”). This showed that even among
students that were for the most part homogeneous in their socioeconomic status, the
cultural tendency to discriminate according to a symbolic class was present, preventing
students from developing a common class-consciousness as working class.
Sue talked about students having some awareness of their social class, but
without it leading to a critique or political action:
They feel the difference, but not on a level to manifest themselves or do

9
A flaite is defined in the Dictionary of Spanish Use in Chile as “a person from a low social class and
flamboyant behavior, generally associated with delinquency”, or “as an adjective, with negative
characteristics typically associated to flaites, such as bad manners, bad taste, bad qualities or related to
delinquency, among others” (Rojas, 2015). The flaite, then, is more an attitude than a socioeconomic
standing; a flaite can be loud, disrespectful, and perform their identity through status symbols.
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something about it. But, in all the years that I’ve been in this
neighborhood, I’ve never seen them organizing to change things, or
participating in a political party. I think they believe they have the right
to get a lot of things, and some may talk in anger about cuicos (snobs),
as they call them, but from there to doing something, no.
I could also see the distinction students made with cuicos when taking some of
the Eleventh grade girls for a trekking outing on a nearby hill, where they joked about
crossing class lines by saying hi to the mountain bikers that were riding there. While this
was a public space and close to their homes, it was clear that these students
acknowledged the way others felt more entitled than themselves to use that space.
Dana also saw how students had an awareness of inequality that fostered
helplessness more than an active stance, which she tried to counter in her interaction
with them:
I think this neighborhood has a serious problem, which is inequality, so

you try to get social resentment out of them, because they grow up
seeing that right next to their house these big cars pass by, when they
don’t have enough to eat. So you try to teach them that they can get out
of the poverty circle through education, making the most of the
opportunities they have.
This meritocratic perspective promoted by some teachers did not acknowledge
the feelings of exclusion and injustice present in students when seeing how unequal their
neighborhood was, which could have been the platform from where to foster action for
changing these conditions.
Sue described how students worked to purchase status symbols rather than to
cover basic needs, as a way of denying their social class membership:
A lot of kids work, but I’d say the minority of them do it to really help
at home, to help their mother, to afford food... most of them work to get
a cell phone, to get different clothes. Most of them work only for those
personal achievements that nowadays are their goal.
Many students at Treehill mentioned working, especially during weekends.
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When I asked the students in the Student Center about their jobs, they mentioned a class
trip abroad for which they were saving money. An aspirational aspect can be read in
students choosing to go to Argentina for their class trip, with so many options being
available within Chile. They also commented on how some students would not attend
school during Jeans Days because they claimed they had nothing to wear, which they
considered an exaggeration on their part. As Canales (in Hopenhayn, 2016) puts it, “No
popular youth can say ‘I’m excluded’ anymore. They are hyper included: they work,
study, go into debt, consume,” in what he calls a “subordinated inclusion” (p. 18). It was
possible to see the students displaying last generation smartphones during classes, a
device that was ubiquitous at the three schools, and which provided this illusion of
equality and inclusion for Treehill students, but it was possible to see the limits to that
inclusion when students talked about the expectations they had for the future, or when
seeing the limited critical thinking that was fostered in the classroom.
Students did not have strong opinions regarding the Student Movement and did
not participate in any social movements’ marches. But they expressed a form of being
political when they said they were afraid of cops, and described their behavior as unfair
(“They should replace the cops, they hit anyone, they kill innocent people”). They were
describing their relationship to authority as one marked by fear, where they were
assumed to be delinquents. Delinquency was a common topic for Treehill students, who
described the ideal citizen as “one who follows the law,” and thought adults saw youth
as “drug addicts, alcoholics, delinquents, degenerates.”
During a class where students were distracted while working on their activity
guide, two female students privately discussed a viral message of a Chilean “low-middle
class” student asking for the State to be responsible for education rights, with one of the
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students saying “This is true, my two parents work, my sister goes to university, they are
people who have made a big effort, why can’t I obtain gratuity for university?” Another
student, Mario, showed class-consciousness when speaking against the practice of
asking students to contribute with money for different activities, also evidencing the
limitations of democracy within the classroom in the imposition of this practice. This
latent political side of students could have been addressed in class, taking students’
comments and questions as starting points for a discussion of controversial topics, but
that type of conversation mostly happened informally among students.
There was a discourse shared by teachers and students about a prevalent laziness
in the neighborhood, sustained by an abundance of opportunities provided by the State,
that kept youth mediocre, since they were able to address their basic needs without much
effort. Sue presented a view of students as unmotivated: “For a while now, I see that
kids do not have determination to succeed, they don’t have motivation.” Cultural
explanations were also given by Dana to explain low participation of students in the
classroom and low expectations of the future:
In class, they don’t want to be the one who knows more. And I think
that has to do with a cultural issue of this neighborhood, where the one
who is cool is not the one who studies the most, but the drug dealer, the
one that has the best car, the most expensive clothes, and when they are
young they don’t understand that they can also get all that through effort.
It’s not that they don’t want to be more, but the environment transmits
them that idea that what they are doing is enough. There is no
competition like in Instituto Nacional, where the one who gets a 4 is
frowned upon; here, if they get a 4 they are happy because it’s a passing
grade. That is something we have to work on, the issue of expectations.
Dana pointed out she always told students that they could not lie to her, because
she graduated from that same school, and she knew the opportunities were in place for
students to be able to go to university. The fact that many of the students who graduated
from the school did not go to university or furthered they vocational education, was not
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analyzed in depth by teachers or administrators, who presented students with the
meritocratic promise as a way to counter what they saw as cultural deficits, without
critically addressing how social class could hinder their possibilities of success.
Students agreed on the fact that there were opportunities that they did not
always take advantage of, showing that they bought into this meritocratic perspective,
preventing them from developing a critical view of structural inequities in place making
it hard for them to take those opportunities, and keeping them from analyzing and
fighting against the inequality that was so obvious in their neighborhood. For example,
students showed a meritocratic perspective when the topic of the gap between the rich
and the poor came up during a History class: “People sometimes do not take advantage
of the opportunities they have”; “Yes, because at the Municipality they even offer
Administration workshops”; “They want everything... a house, without doing anything”;
“They are lazy”; “Sometimes they make you believe that because you are poor, you will
not be able to succeed.” It was possible to see how students adhered to cultural
explanations for the poor’s socioeconomic situation, which the teacher tried to nuance
by highlighting the importance of having educational opportunities to reduce the
socioeconomic gap.
Treehill’s discipline manual stated that the main goal of the school was to
prepare students to enter the “increasingly demanding and globalized world of work.”
This focus was emphasized by the fact that the school provided the students with a
technical-vocational degree in the specialty of their choosing, allowing them to start a
job right out of school. But adults’ academic and work expectations for Treehill students
were not clear, and the same could be found among students. Since the school was
transformed from a Liceo Bicentenario, focused on academic excellence, in 2010-2011,
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to a Technical-Vocational School (Técnico Profesional) in 2012, confusion further
ensued in terms of goals for the students. As Maria put it:
I think that in the end, the school has a dichotomy, because on one hand
it wants to potentiate the Technical-Vocational side, and on the other
hand, since it was a Liceo Bicentenario, it was thought to get the
students to university. Now it’s more focused on the Technical-
Vocational, trying to get them into the world of work, so they can
follow their studies, but Technical-Vocational superior studies. And that
is also thinking of the reality of the students, where even if they get the
scholarship to study, they will have to work anyway; for them, it is an
opportunity cost to study. They are students that have to work to be able
to survive, so there is a high level of dropouts.
The more limited academic expectations for students at Treehill were shown in
the welcoming from the Principal on the first day of classes: “We hope you can bear
fruits at the end of the year: be promoted to the next grade, have a good time with your
classmates; besides learning, having fun.” Teachers also described students as having
low expectations of themselves:
I would say the first five students from each class have high
expectations of going to university, and attend pre-university classes
and all that, but when they take the test, they still have low scores. With
the new ranking policy10, they are favored. But the mean score here is
around 450 points. That means they graduate with zero preparation for
the test. (Maria)
But at other times, Treehill students were encouraged to continue studying after
school, following the technical-vocational track. The Principal, during the Technical-
Vocational Day, told students, “We have different arrangements with institutes and
universities; do not waste the opportunity of Technical-Vocational education.” High
expectations of students were evident during an Eleventh grade Language class at
Treehill, where Dana commented, “There is potential in this class; they are very

10
Since 2012, the ranking score of students within their class and educational context, started to be
considered together with the score in the PSU test for university selection, as a measure to promote
inclusion in access to tertiary education.
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analytical and critical. I hope next year they do well on the PSU test, so they can aim
higher.” She also described a growth of students’ expectations at the school:
When I arrived at the school, students’ expectations were to finish their

internship and get a job. So I used to tell them that even if they get a
degree from the school, it does not assure them a job or earning a good
salary. Now I see that it’s different, maybe it’s the work that we’ve been
doing. I think if you ask in a Tenth grade, 85% of the students have the
goal of university or a Technical-Vocational Institute, they know that
high school is not enough. For me, this has been an achievement. I try to
foster in them expectations that maybe the family doesn’t have,
sometimes families tell them “How can you think you are going to
university, if none in the family has gone?”
Students also showed this dichotomy, with some of them criticizing the school
for not being academically strict, or admitting it was not as selective as others (“It’s not
like other schools, because it prepares us for Technical-Vocational work. In other
scientific-humanistic schools, they prepare you for PSU, so I think that’s why the school
isn’t that strict”; “Here, there are kids who come with problems from home”); and others
seeing it as their best shot at success (“Here you have more opportunities than in other
schools, because you graduate with a Technical-Vocational degree”).
Matilda, an Eleventh grader attending a Pre-University School twice a week to
prepare for PSU, revealed her expectations about the future, showing the internal
contradiction of students who had high expectations of going to prestigious universities,
but knew the school was limited in helping them achieve this:
I used to hate this school, I would have never come to this school
before, but I matured, and came to the school because it’s Technical
Vocational, to have some practice. The school is not good, and
workshops are boring. I want to study Industrial Engineering or
Commercial Engineering at Pontificia Universidad Católica or USACH
[two of the most prestigious universities in Chile, with those careers
being some of the most demanding in terms of test scores].
While at Treehill there was a strong focus on discipline during civic ceremonies,
this was not the case for academics, where a more relaxed approach was the norm. It
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was common during classes to see only a fraction of the students doing the activities
explained by the teachers. Girls at an Eleventh grade class warned me jokingly that they
were “the worst class in the school.” In a Twelfth grade class, students greeted me
saying, “You are going to be disappointed, we are the laziest.” With a similar self-
deprecating humor, the Administration specialty graduation hoodie11 read, “42 thinking
minds and no one could come up with something to write here.” Sometimes students
would explicitly challenge this low self-perception, for example, the Mechanics
specialty (with a majority of male students) chose as the message for their graduation
hoodie, “Take a good look at me, I’m your future boss,” showing resilience against the
outer perception of other specialties that looked at them with disdain. Mario, the student
who had won the municipal entrepreneurship competition, said about his decision to
participate in it, “I know that when I set my mind up to something, I can do it,” showing
that some students had higher expectations of themselves.
In Chile, youth graduated from Technical Vocational schools have a
significantly higher rate of occupation and number of worked months, than youth
graduated from Scientific-Humanistic schools, and salaries up to 15% higher than the
latter. 45% of students in Chile graduate from a Technical Vocational school, being the
favored option by students from lower socioeconomic classes. 75% of the students that
do not pursue tertiary education after graduating from high school come from Technical
Vocational schools (Larrañaga, Cabezas & Dussaillant, 2013).
The problematic aspect is that Technical Vocational schools represent a form of
early tracking for students, limiting their alternatives. More than 20 hours of specialty

11
A tradition in Chile where Twelfth grade students get to use a personalized hoodie instead of the uniform
jacket, where names of all students of the class are included, as well as an image and a phrase to represent
them-usually funny, or including a pun-.
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classes a week means less hours of Language, Math and other traditional subjects
assessed by the national test used by universities to select students, and of liberal
subjects like Philosophy. When so many of Treehill students claim that they want to
study traditional careers, and are not receiving specialized preparation for those tests,
they are at a disadvantage compared with students at Scientific-Humanistic schools. In
Chile, there is also an underlying cultural understanding that Technical-Vocational
education is for those of lesser abilities, that do not aspire to go to university, but mainly
expect to work right out of school in the vocational field of their choosing, so these
students’ self-esteem may be affected by those outer perceptions.
If we consider the dichotomic inequality evident in the neighborhood, and the
mixed messages students received regarding expectations of the future, we can imagine
that students are left with a somewhat schizophrenic view of themselves and what they
are capable of, which was evident when they talked about career paths, where they
stated both high and low expectations, and occasionally revealed low self-esteem using
their sense of humor.
Discourses and Practices of Self-Expression: We don’t have student
leadership. While students declared themselves as apolitical, examples of their political
stance included them claiming more instances such as sex education talks and spaces for
addressing LGBTQ students’ needs, which implied a needs analysis of the information
and support their classmates were lacking, and proposed solutions to address the issues.
As the Student Center members explained:
I think we should have talks to inform the students about different

topics, we need that. For example, last year they gave us only one talk,
about grooming and sending nude pictures that may go viral, and they
showed us a movie. Because that had happened at the school, they
talked about it. But we need to talk more about sexuality. (Rose)
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I have seen on TV how in other schools they go and teach them how to
put a condom and things like that. And I’ve never seen that at this
school. And when you are in Eleventh grade you already know that, but
when you are in Seventh or Eighth grade, when you are just starting to
experiment, they should do it too. (Emma)
Maria described the students as aware of the local needs of youth:
I feel they are very attached to their neighborhood, so everything that

has to do with local politics in the areas of drug addiction, sexuality,
they are interested in. When they have to present social projects for
contests, they always think of workshops to get youth away from drugs,
from their context, that’s the focus. And also, the recent generations
have focused in the area of Community Pre-University classes. But they
don’t focus on national politics.
Complaints about the rules of the school and the embodied practices they
involved, such as regulations involving the uniform or makeup, spoke of students’
recognition of the personal as political. In the academic domain, during the
implementation of a research oriented program at the school, students from the Student
Center talked to the Principal about the program not working for them, and explained
how they would just copy information from the internet, without any real learning taking
place:
We talked to the principal because the SERF system didn’t work for us.
Our classmates said they didn’t like it, that they didn’t understand it,
because the self-learning thing was hard (...) Research was just copy
and paste from the internet, I didn’t even know what I was writing.
Matilda, an Eleventh grade student, with a group of her friends complained to
the Principal about the process of selection for a school trip, where only a handful of
students from each level were selected, with a criteria that did not consider academic
merits, as promised, but they received no answer from the Principal. Later, the students
found out that the decision was made on the ability of parents to pay for the trip, and
resolved during a parent meeting. She described how finding this out made them very
frustrated, but that they had decided not to continue fighting about it.
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One of the Student Center members, when I asked if they felt that they could
give their opinion, said: “Yes, we do that, and even if we didn’t have opportunities to do
so, we would do it anyway.” Another Student Center member commented what got her
fired from her job: “I got fired because I can’t keep quiet when they try to... how can I
put it... I could not stand my boss and she could not stand me, because I’m not the type
to stay silent, and just say ‘That’s OK.’”
When I asked Ninth grade students if money were not an issue and they could
improve something at their school, they seemed reluctant to imagine a situation where
they would be asked their opinion. But when prodded, they had numerous ideas, such as
building a roofed gym, so they could practice sports year-round, and having different
workshops at the school, including sports, recreational, informational, and to prevent
drug addiction, revealing their knowledge of their needs as students, but which they kept
to themselves.
Even though I could find many instances of self-expression and leadership, the
perception of the Principal was that student leadership was for the most part absent at
the school, “We don’t have student leadership, a leader coming to us and presenting us
with a project. Even the Student Center is hard to motivate.” Dana perceived some
leaders in the classroom, but with a negative connotation:
I think we have a lot of leaders at the school, but they aren’t positive.
Generally, the leader is the one who causes more trouble in the
classroom, the cool one. It’s not someone you would like the rest to
follow, but you try to transform that leader, so they can turn those
abilities into something positive, projects.
She also described the lack of spaces for students to express their opinion at the
school, and saw the need to foster resistance in them to break the circle of poverty
through recognizing their rights and promoting their self-expression:
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Maybe a school paper, somewhere where they could express their
opinion, or a bulletin board where they could write letters, or an
argumentative text about a current topic. Not everyone writes, but all
can give their opinion, so if they don’t want to write, they can draw, or
find a way to manifest what they think. I think they really need that (...)
I feel that if you don’t give them the chance to express themselves, you
form them to be subordinates, and they stay there. But if you give them
leadership tools, they can climb, have more abilities to raise their
income, argue for a better salary, or be assertive when they disagree
with someone. But we are far away from forming that type of citizen, so
I always wonder how to reenchant them with politics, with expression,
argumentation, giving their opinion.
There was some bodily resistance through exercising and performing tricks in
the male students constantly practicing at the uneven bars in the patio. It was possible to
observe the students helping each other to achieve difficult tricks on the bars, and
showing a persevering attitude when they could not perform them correctly. Students
had succeeded in a historic struggle to get the school to buy and install the uneven bars,
and the Principal talked about how the alumni complained to her about her getting the
bars for these students when they had also asked for them when they were at the school.
Bulletin boards and walls at the schools were an example of the level and form
of self-expression students were allowed when appropriating the space. In terms of
expression through texts or artwork in their classrooms, Treehill students did not
personalize the space, and the walls were blank except for posters with the “values” of
each specialty, a generic list imposed from above, in which students had no
participation, but that fostered a group identity as a specialty.
Stratified Schools, Curricula, and Citizenship Education: Critical thinking
is very underdeveloped. At Treehill, the focus was on the Technical-Vocational
specialty in terms of the curriculum. Classes did not include much participation from
students, nor in-depth reflection or expression of opinions. Teachers used the
government-approved textbooks, which they considered were a useful tool given their
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limited time to prepare classes, and focused on mandatory contents. Classes were
relaxed in terms of academic demand. Students saw classes and workshops at the school
as boring and non-engaging, and wished there was more focus on an integral formation
than in content. CE was limited to government-issued assessments, the basic curriculum
about government institutions and democracy, and civic ceremonies. Teachers saw the
students as showing an involution in terms of values compared to previous generations.
They identified the diminished CE curriculum as contributing to it, and described no CE
training made available to them. Classes for the most part followed traditional
methodologies, and teachers had an authoritative style, with distance in the teacher-
student relationship. Some teachers disclosed their political position and presented
controversial topics in class, but this did not always engage students.
Because of the focus on Technical-Vocational subjects at the school, students in
Eleventh and Twelfth grade did not have Philosophy, Arts, Music, or other elective
classes in their curriculum. Maria, the History Teacher, described a typical class: “There
is not much space for debate. Maybe if us teachers were more proactive. Because it is a
public school, the approach is very behavioral, structured; if you provide more spaces,
you lose the discipline.” She described how students only achieved the basic level of the
curriculum, focused on contents instead of skill development:
The students only reach the basic level of abilities, such as describing,
identifying, but analysis is really hard to conduct, because they have
cultural limitations, or don’t understand the readings. Sometimes, for
them to give their opinions and sustain them is hard, because they tend
to repeat what their parents said, but there is not much critical analysis. I
feel that in general, at least in History, the program is too focused on
contents. In practice, because in theory it may say that you can do a
thousand activities. Critical thinking is very underdeveloped.
This was also evident in an observation of an Administration Class, where the
activity consisted of individually filling out a chart of costs, with instructions delivered
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in an authoritative way. Some of the activities were differentiated for each student, to
prevent students from cheating, which communicated a basic distrust in them. While the
teacher had given a final deadline for students to bring the activity, she added: “If you
do not bring it, you will have to give me a very good explanation to see if I consider
giving you more time,” showing the more relaxed approach to academics when
compared to Montrose, where students complained about not being able to move any
deadline because of their already crammed evaluations schedule. At no point during the
class was a connection established between the activities of the guide and their utility in
real life for the work of an Administrator. Students were supposed to get that from the
written instruction that read, “Calculating costs is important for any business.”
Students had little room for decision-making during classes, having to copy
down from the board or power point presentations. Teachers for the most part did not
explain why they were doing the activities, nor connected them with the daily lives of
the students or current national issues. Controversial topics, for the most part, were not
common during classes. Teachers made the decisions regarding the use of time or what
activities were graded without consulting the students, even if that meant using class
periods for classes other than the scheduled ones.
In terms of the CE curriculum, there were no specific initiatives from the school
to address the subject. The Academic Coordinator described the CE Plan (to comply
with the new citizenship formation policy), where the main element was a government-
issued Citizenship test, which contents were to be covered during History class:
One of the actions we have in the curriculum, for Seventh and Twelfth
grade, is implementing an hour of CE, and that is assessed by tests,
which are the tests provided by the Ministry. We have three tests, one at
the beginning of the year, one at the middle, and one at the end. So the
idea is that the kids achieve all the learning goals in CE. The other
action is regarding the area of participation, and we are addressing that
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though extracurricular workshops, and in field trips.
The government-issued CE Assessment had a section assessing factual
knowledge, with multiple-choice questions on topics such as democracy, voting,
citizenship participation, social problems, environmental regulations, and racism; and an
analytical section, with two open-ended questions. In Twelfth grade, these questions
focused on the balance between economic growth, social equity and sustainable
development; and on possible solutions to school violence and bullying. Maria
explained how the goal of these tests was unclear for her:
These external evaluations are applied in Seventh and Twelfth grade,

and each kid is labeled as having a Low, Middle, or High level of
achievement. So they ask you for a percentage of kids that you need to
move from one level to another. It’s an assessment from the Ministry,
but there isn’t a clear institutional policy about it.
While this test was an opportunity to assess basic student knowledge regarding
rights and duties of citizenship, and it also provided students a chance to reflect on
important problems in their national and local contexts, it was not enough by itself,
disconnected from opportunities to further reflect on these topics in class, and to practice
them through different forms of participation, with teachers only applying the test
because they had to, and the data from the tests not coming back to the teachers and
students, becoming one more test among the machinery of government-issued
assessments that were routinely applied in schools. The fact that complex,
multidimensional citizenship issues were presented as having a single universally
correct answer was also problematic, as was the fact that citizen participation was
presented as mostly limited to voting, and participating in political parties, or citizen
polls. While topics such as racism and sexism were included in an abstract way in the
questions of the test, race and gender were not considered as positions from where
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citizenship was experienced in distinct ways.
In terms of the political orientation transmitted to students at Treehill, they
mostly learned the government framework and political rights during History class, and
argumentation skills during Language class, but were not encouraged to participate in
formal or informal groups or organizations. Teachers did not provide many spaces for
students to express their opinions and ideas, nor encouraged political discussions.
Students assessed their school as not being strict enough, but appreciated the
numerous opportunities they received to get good grades (“If you get held back a grade
in this school, it’s because you are stupid”), and that they could get a vocational degree.
Mario, a student who had tried to implement different projects unsuccessfully, was more
critical about the lack of spaces for reflection and recreation at the school:
I feel we don’t have many spaces for recreation at the school. For
example, we don’t have extracurricular workshops like in other schools,
like a theater workshop that allows you to engage with other people, or
have other activities, a karate or boxing workshop, which students are
very interested in. They don’t create spaces for citizenship participation,
and I feel being in a workshop makes you participate and establish a
connection to others. Or a debate workshop. I think it’s not too hard;
they just don’t take time to worry about what the community wants.
One of Maria’s classes addressed civics concepts, asking students about the
difference between the State and the Government, which they were not able to answer.
She tried to engage students in questions that could allow them to connect the contents
with their reality, such as: “Do you think society is more and more demanding in terms
of their rights such as education, health and housing?” or “How does this form of
government organization compares to your Class Government?,” but students did not
answer, making the class more unidirectional and expository. The practical activity at
the end of the class engaged students’ abilities to identify arguments, working with
controversial issues found in newspapers, finding the arguments from both sides, and
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relating the issues with the rights they involved. The teacher prompted students to
choose issues such as abortion, free education, delinquency, the right to health, or
corruption, but even though students were working in pairs, they did not start a
discussion about the topics with their classmate, dividing the tasks to perform them
individually.
During a group presentation for a History class, Eleventh grade students were
dressed in formal clothes, and read from power point presentations they had prepared,
without analyzing the facts they were delivering. The teacher asked questions after each
presentation, but students for the most part were not able to answer, so she made some
connections between the historical moment the presentations were addressing and today,
for example, connecting the motto of a radical president: “To govern is to educate,” with
today’s Student Movement; and highlighting how we take our rights for granted, but that
there were people who died fighting for them in the past. During another History class,
students read some original historical sources from their textbook, which could have
been material for further analysis, but were only used to ask basic reading
comprehension questions.
During the Evangelical Religion class, it was possible to observe a close
relationship of the students with the teacher, and a classroom climate where students’
opinions were sought and valued, which made it different from the rest of the classes
where students had mostly a passive role taking notes. Questions asked by the teacher
were abstract and did not have a unique answer, such as: Can we forgive as God
forgives? When discussing when it would be appropriate to tell a child that they were
adopted, students spontaneously started a debate, giving arguments both in favor of and
against doing it as early as possible. The fact that the Religion subject was not graded
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and there was no mandatory curriculum allowed the freedom for students to go into their
own experience and analyze issues in more depth than in other classes.
There was a space for analytical reflection at Treehill offered as an
extracurricular activity: a debate group. There, students received advice from their
teacher to make good speeches, including their attitude and body language, and
conducting a thorough research. But since the teacher organizing the debate group left to
study abroad, students did not continue getting together or participating in tournaments.
When discussing possible topics to debate during a meeting, they touched on
immigration, with students explaining it was a result of the bad economy in other
countries, and saying one of the reasons people were against it was overpopulation, but
acknowledged sometimes people were forced to flee a country, as during the
dictatorship in Chile. When asked what the State should do, they were ambivalent
between accepting all immigrants and conducting a process of selection to check if they
were involved in criminal activities, but they acknowledged the hardship of moving to
another country, and considered not receiving refugees inhumane.
Some special events at Treehill had the purpose of providing students with
cultural capital, such as the celebration of the International Book Day, and the Medieval
Fair. I observed the former, where students set up stands to promote different forms of
literature, performed dances, and received a writer as a guest speaker. The Principal
described these as relevant for students, given the fact that most students lacked
knowledge that she considered basic, such as cultural expressions in the Middle Ages.
Regarding the evolution of the CE curriculum in the last years, Principal Lorna
expressed:
It was a very bad mistake that the Ministry removed Civics as a subject,
because I think it is fundamental that all people have notions of what it
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is to be a citizen, so they can exercise all their rights, but also know that
they have duties to fulfill. And now that they realized that people are
not voting, they want to put Civics back.
For the Head Dean, Bertha, CE was related to traditional Civics, therefore she
believed it should be taught by History teachers:
It’s very important that History teachers do this, because they have the
competencies to address the topics related to Civics. There are concepts
that are too complex, like when you talk about the government, the
State, a representative democracy.
This approach to citizenship implied that it was not seen as a given right, but as
a position you had to earn through formal knowledge, which students were lacking.
Understanding it as “complex” also meant an adultist perspective, involving an intricate
path of learning to achieve the status of citizen.
Maria recognized the limited nature of the former Civics curriculum, but she
also discussed how the present situation, with no institutionalized CE program, did not
help students learn these issues in a significant way:
Before, Civics was very limited to the State, institutions, and Congress.
I think we have overcome that institutional vision, and I think the cross-
sectional approach is trying to diversify what Civics used to be. But it
also means it dilutes, because there aren’t any clear guidelines. I would
prefer it was included in History, and not only cover institutions, but
also include Human Rights, Ecology, and participation in local
community networks. Now in Twelfth grade they have some of that
content. And at the school, I think CE is not structured, we have no
specific program, contents or actions that permanently foster time and
space for CE. It is mostly initiatives from some teachers.
Dana posited the need to incorporate CE into the curriculum, characterizing
today’s generation as disengaged civically:
I think it’s important to incorporate CE into the curriculum as

mandatory, maybe not as a subject, but in a cross-sectional way form
citizens who have an opinion and speak out. I think this generation has
citizens that only give their opinion on social media. They often say,
“But I can’t change the world.” And I say, “What if Martin Luther King
had thought that way, what if Malala had thought that way,” and so
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many people who have been important in History because they have
changed the conditions of a minority group of people. I wish at some
point they incorporate these topics in a formal way in classes. They
have nine hours of classes a day, how can’t we leave room for them to
think, to be critical, to be analytical. I think we really need that as a
society.
Regarding the disclosure of their political position, Maria described how she
openly talked with students about it, but saw them as not fully understanding it:
In History, you have to be very honest, because I don’t believe in

objectivity in History, so when they ask me my position, I have no
problem in telling them. But they have this dichotomy of being from the
Left or the Right, and within that dichotomy I tell them I’m from the
Left, that I’ve always voted for the Concertación Party, and I give them
my opinion, but it’s not like they have a broad perspective to be able to
argue.
Similarly, Dana explained how she put controversial topics she was interested in
up for discussion to develop argumentation abilities in students:
It’s the topics that I’m interested in and that I would love for them to be
interested in too. For example, yesterday we did a campaign about the
feminist movement in Chile, and I showed them videos, so they can
develop critical thinking about what is going on in the country. I would
love for debates to happen in all classes. I always try, when we have the
argumentation unit, to present complex topics that can be interesting for
them, and where they have a voice, because in a couple of years they
will be adults who can vote, will be able to decide, give their opinion.
From Tenth to Twelfth grade, they are more empowered to talk about
these issues, but they don’t do anything about them, they just give their
opinion, but don’t know how important it could be for them to organize.
As observed and described by Maria and Dana, despite them sometimes
focusing their efforts on addressing controversial issues, it did not always result
in lively discussions among the students. These teachers represented a younger
generation of teachers at the school, aware of the tensions between critical
citizenship and the more traditional approach to education at the school, and
trying, in the domain of their classrooms, to incorporate activities that promoted
a broader notion of citizenship in students.
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Students used the pronoun usted12 when addressing teachers, which
established a hierarchy and distance in the teacher-student relationship. Some
students, such as Rose, saw a need for a more strict approach from teachers: “I
would say teachers need to be more authoritarian, because there are many
teachers that no one cares about and students walk over them.” On the other
hand, Mario described the kind of active pedagogy he considered should be used
by teachers to make learning more appealing to students:
Something that the school is lacking is implementing different things

that make you think, so you can have an opinion. Maybe it’s not just the
school’s fault, maybe the students should have the voice to say, “Hey, I
want this,” and take charge of our own education, but I feel the school
should give you that option (...) Classes are super normal. They would
be fun if you could give your opinion, but no, it’s just teaching contents
and nothing more than that. There is not much participation. Instead of a
written test of a book, recreate a scene, or do a puppet show about it...
things like that are not done here. Those classes are entertaining, you
want to keep doing activities like that; instead, here you get bored.
In these contrasting opinions from students, it was possible to see reflected the
tension between the traditional approach to pedagogy and the critical one, with students
having teachers that adopted one or the other, which differentiated the school from
Montrose, where the traditional approach was the norm; and from Parkside, where the
critical approach was preferred.
Pressure to Perform: Standardized Tests and the Lack of Time for
Forming Citizens: They should teach us more values instead of so many contents.
Teachers saw different spaces in the school to implement CE that the extended school
day and amount of mandatory content made impossible to use. During a History class,

12
In Spanish, there is an informal version of the “you” pronoun, tú, and a formal version, usted, which
determines a difference in how you conjugate the verbs associated to that person. Children and youth will
generally refer to adults using the formal term usted, especially in a school context, unless there is more
familiarity with the adult or it is a more relaxed setting, and usually after asking the adult if they can do so.
Adults will sometimes use the usted form to refer to students as a way of establishing formality and
distance, but it is more common for them to use tú to refer to children, youth, or younger adults.
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Tenth grade students had to prepare, in groups, a presentation using digital media, to
address a specific aspect (economic, social) of the radical governments between 1938
and 1952. The task, while allowing students to practice their abilities to talk in public,
did not require much in terms of research, since they were repeating the information
from their textbooks. But despite the mechanic nature of the activity, the teacher tried to
stimulate reflections on the topics and connect them to the students’ reality today.
Students starting discussing their local context and opportunities to break the circle of
poverty, but time was not enough to continue the discussion, and what could have been a
much more significant learning opportunity than students repeating facts about radical
governments, was cut short. Maria addressed this problem, describing how curricular
pressures worked against more democratic and critical spaces of reflection and action at
the school, and how teachers tried to do their best within those constraints:
I think that in History you can add CE in every topic, and link it to more
participation from students. The problem is the time during the class to
be able to fulfill the content requirements, and it implies coordinating
with my colleagues, searching for material, and the truth is that we work
with the material that is already available, in the textbooks, because you
don’t have that much time to prepare the lessons. And activities that
include more participation from students require more time, and you
have to make it very guided, otherwise it becomes too disorderly. In
Twelfth grade we are seeing citizenship topics: voting, the three powers
of the State, so we did a simulation activity, where each group had to be
a political party and present a candidate, and another group was in
charge of organizing the elections. And that activity engaged them, but
it meant time for preparation, and staying a little behind on the lesson
contents. And since they are measuring how you move through the
curriculum, you have to comply. The obstacle is always time, or having
the spaces to address the topics with students. Maybe students don’t ask
you about politics, but when you bring them an activity and link it to
their daily lives, with the community, they become motivated (...) A
mining company invited the Administration classes to participate in a
competition creating projects for the neighborhood. And the students
engaged with that, and in classes they would ask me to help them with
those projects to help the community. So when it’s things that directly
affect them and have to do with the neighborhood, they are motivated.
But from the school side, the support we give is not much. In class you
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can give them some space to work on them, some guidance, but it’s not
within the curriculum and there is no structure in place for it.
Similarly, some years ago, the school had tried to implement Physical Education
classes for four hours a week instead of the mandated two, but with the school having no
infrastructure, taking students to municipal fields became too complicated and time-
consuming. This was an important loss, since Physical Education was a class that
teachers acknowledged they used to transmit attitudes and abilities regarding values,
self-care, teamwork, and a respectful relationship with the natural environment. As an
example of this, during a class, Sue told the students about the importance of constant
practice and cultivating motivation, daring to take risks, gaining self-confidence, taking
care of themselves, and connecting mind and body to perform the movements well.
An Eleventh grade student, when asked about what the school could do to
improve citizenship behavior in students, had an acute diagnosis of the problem:
They should teach us more values instead of so many contents. Like

solidarity and understanding others, because if we look closely, there is
discrimination at the school.
Sue talked about the extended school day as a missed opportunity to develop
activities students would be interested in:
They would need to have fewer hours of classes, and conduct

workshops during those hours, which was the original idea of extending
the school day. And there, kids could do what they are interested in
freely. And those spaces should also be open on Saturdays. The
Municipality offers many possibilities: gymnastics, Zumba, weight
lifting, soccer, rugby. They have more spaces for recreation every year,
but the school day is too long.
Discipline Policies and School Climate: They are too uptight. The ideal
student, according to teachers and administrators at Treehill, was a well-behaved
student, shown on matters like respect for teachers, taking good care of the school
building, and correctly wearing the school uniform. The discipline manual focused on
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aspects such as attendance, punctuality, behavior and personal presentation, and it stated
a number of infractions and their corresponding punishment. As Principal Lorna put it:
This school has no writing on the walls. Not even in the bathrooms. If
you go into the students’ bathroom, they are impeccable. Our policy is
to educate in cleaning and tidying up. Because one writing invites
another, and another, and from that, disrespect to the teacher. Not here,
that is unforgivable.
The discipline manual also stated that students could not bring paper cutter
knives to the school and that their backpacks could be checked at any time, signaling the
potential violence expected from students.
While Administrators talked about being flexible according to the specific
students having discipline issues, the general climate, as described by students and
teachers, was one of authoritarian discipline (in matters like the school uniform, and
maintaining a good behavior during civic ceremonies, but that did not extend to
academics and was ambiguous regarding relationships among students, as explained in
the next section). As Sue put it,
Here, they want a disciplined, responsible student, with their uniform as

it should be. I think that kids are very respectful of authority. Students
know that a student who starts a fight is out of the school. In other
schools fights are common, but not here. Students know that they have
to follow the rules, otherwise the Head Dean is strict to make the
students follow them.
Maria concurred with this view of discipline at the school, and talked about how
it prevented more creative pedagogic approaches:
The school favors little participation, in the sense that classes are very
behaviorist. One, as a teacher, is also concerned with the students
following the rules, all sitting, all quiet. That is, somewhat, the vision, if
the Dean is passing by, that she can see that everyone is sitting, quietly
working, that the teacher has control of the group. So a lot of teachers,
myself included, have trouble doing different activities or innovating,
because you know from an outsider perspective it is not going to look
good, and also, you wear yourself out. In terms of the rules, they try for
students to follow them as much as possible, but there is no
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socialization or discussion of the rules. The rulebook is very normative
and behaviorist: “If you come with your skirt shorter than 1,5 inches
above the knee, you have the following sanction.” And the Head Dean
always tries to enforce as many rules as possible.
Sanctions at the school included suspension and working separately from the
class, but restorative practices were not used.
Students commonly engaged in resistance to discipline and academics in the
classroom through retrieving from the activity and from listening to the instructions
provided by teachers. Sometimes they would reluctantly come back to the task, asking
their classmates for what they were supposed to be doing. As a more active resistance,
students would tease each other verbally or by throwing objects, such as paper balls or
orange peels using their hollow pens. As another form of resistance, when student were
on break and the bell rang to go back to class, they would linger in the patio, sometimes
for more than ten minutes. Students, and especially female students, also engaged in
resistance through wearing clothes that were not part of their uniform, using makeup, or
taking pictures of themselves during class. This functioned as a personal act of
resistance, in which they decided to take ownership of their bodies and personal style.
They were aware of how the school perceived female students as oversexualized and
disagreed with it: “They’ll say ‘You can use pants from this date to this date’, but it’s
like they imagine we come with pants to entice men”; “For example, there is something
that I find very dumb: women can wear eye shadow, but not lipstick. It doesn’t make
sense, it’s a rule I don’t understand.” They also had acute awareness of how to bend the
rules regarding the uniform, as Emma explained:
There are times when the Dean says, “Tomorrow I’m going to check
your complete uniform.” But it is specific days, so students will come
dressed impeccable, and the next day they will come wearing whatever
they want.
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About this topic, Kristen described the school norms saying, “they are good, but
some of them go overboard. I feel they are too uptight.” As an example of this, students
explained that one of the reasons that the school Administration did not like having
Jeans Days was because they did not want students dressing inadequately.
More active resistance could be observed to the nationalist performance
demanded during civic ceremonies, and to the use of correct language expected by
teachers and administrators. Students would speak loudly to cause some form of
interruption during civic ceremonies, usually to complain about the fact that they had to
participate in them. They also used bad words without restraining themselves in class,
especially in the minutes at the beginning of the class, while the teacher was setting up
the activity or presentation on the projector, but was nonetheless able to hear the
students. They also talked among them using these words frequently interspersed in their
conversation during breaks.
During the interview with the Principal and Head Dean, they described how
they maintained a permanently vigilant attitude (that also included vigilance over
teachers and Administrators), but how at the same time that worked as a way of
transmitting care to the students, and how students themselves would come to them
when they saw their classmates misbehaving:
Students are always being observed, not so much to impose a punitive

sanction, but to listen and see how we can resolve the problem. But it
has to be clear that if you make a mistake, there is a sanction. We
always find out. Last Friday, a student came to me and told me he had
lost his cell phone, so through the speakers I asked students to help me
find it, and ten minutes later, the student returned and told me they had
found it. We always continue until we find who stole something, and we
are going to bring it out into the open, because they have to develop that
moral value, and be aware that always someone can be watching them.
Sometimes things happen during the weekends or outside the school,
and students themselves come and tell us. (Bertha)
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This view was shared by the teachers and students, who understood the
oversight of adults at the school as a way to foster the sense of community. As students
from the Student Center explained:
They care about the students, for example, if you don’t have money,
they help you. Or when students’ houses have burned down in a fire.
Once, a student died when he was run over by a car, so their classmates
raised money to help the family cover the medical bill and the funeral.
That’s the good thing about the school, we are very close-knit, we care
about each other. The Principal is very concerned about these things;
she knows the students, everyone knows everyone here, the Deans, the
teachers. Since it’s so small, they always find out about anything. It’s
like the Dean has a little bird telling her everything. (Emma)
Lucy, the Workshops Coordinator, synthesized how the process of
internalization of the panopticon principle worked among the students:
It’s part of the culture, because I remember one girl that came from
another school and she drew a graffiti in the bathroom, and immediately
the students knew she had done it, because she hadn’t been here long.
And they gave her hell. We didn’t have to start an investigation, the
students brought her to the Dean. Because this is our culture, it’s not
that we go around everyday reminding them “You don’t have to write
on the bathroom walls,” but they have it incorporated.
The ownership students felt over the school was centered around taking care of
the physical space, but it did not extend to organizing to implement projects that directly
addressed student needs, which can be related to the fact that in the exceptional cases in
which specific students tried to assert their rights, were discouraged by the threat of
sanctions.
Bodies were an arena of political struggle at the school, over which gender roles
and their concomitant behaviors were enforced, as demonstrated by a sign posted in one
of the school bathrooms, addressed only to the female students. This sign also made the
acculturation approach explicit, revealing the underlying assumption that female
students, due to their socioeconomic status, did not have basic hygiene habits:
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Dear (female) student:
Good habits and feminine respectability are specially
demonstrated in the use of toilet facilities.
We ask that you:
- In the event of getting the W.C. dirty, take care of leaving it clean (do
not leave a mess).
- Do not forget to flush.
- If you have to get rid of a sanitary napkin, take care of folding it and
wrapping it in toilet paper to then put it in the waste bin.
Remember:
- If you are careful and clean, you show your education and will be
considered a lady wherever you go.
- With your good hygiene habits, you show respect to the person who
cleans the spaces you use, and you dignify their job.
Administrators explained that as a preventive measure, bathrooms needed to be
surveyed spaces, because they were enclosed, leaving them at times out of sight of
adults, thus providing opportunities for students to engage in dangerous behavior such as
violence, drug selling and use, or other minor faults such as lingering there to cut
classes, or applying makeup.
There was an accepted level of bullying in the school culture, where you were
expected to take it as a joke instead of bringing it up as a problem to teachers and
administrators. As Mario put it, “In Twelfth grade it’s not like you are going to go up to
the Dean and tell her someone was mean to you.” Another example of how a certain
degree of bullying was accepted was when at the school year opening ceremony, the
Dean greeted Twelfth grades, which happily cheered, and then were booed by the rest of
the classes, with the Dean saying: “This makes us think that you come in good spirits,”
instead of addressing the behavior as disrespectful. The whistling from male students
when a young female teacher was introduced, or the booing directed to other teachers
was also disregarded. The Principal referred to this issue in her interview, presenting
“joking around,” especially among men, as naturalized, not seeing it as a major concern:
Kids sometimes are more adamant about discipline than adults.
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Because you know how when you are teaching a class, in a class of
only boys, and they would joke around, and those things are part of
being young, but the same students don’t tolerate that.
Maria described the process when a student was being bullied, stating that she
intervened when a student was a constant target, but also seeing minor offenses as
“typical”:
Students will tease each other about their looks, this and that. Since I
have been head teacher, there are students that have come to me saying
that they are constantly bullied, and what is done is talking with them,
always with the support from the psychologists (...) But it’s typical
teenager stuff; I haven’t seen very serious situations.
Treehill was seen as a better school in terms of discipline than the surrounding
schools in the neighborhood, as Emma described, “It’s different than other schools,
because in other schools they have more conflict; here, it’s very few people who don’t
get along.” But Mario recognized that he switched specialties because of relationship
issues at Treehill: “First I went into Mechanics, and I was doing well, I was chosen as
class president, but for different reasons, for friends, I switched to Administration, to
have better relationships.”
I observed that students addressed each other using strong curse words, and
sometimes racialized names or insults: “Black son of a bitch, give it back,” “Cherokee,”
“Can you behave yourself, wild ape.” These were not addressed by the teachers or other
students, with one of the recipients of the insults jokingly saying “Hey, you are such a
racist,” revealing that those forms of communication were naturalized and not taken
seriously. They would also use gender stereotypes to annoy each other, with Mechanics
(a specialty that had only a few girls) being called “apes” by students from other
specialties, and phrases like, “You are a lady, behave yourself, take your place” said
during class. Students from the Student Center discussed how some of these issues could
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be seen at the school:
Kristen: Older men here are Mechanics, so they are very disorderly.
Emma: Brutes.
Rose: We call them “apes.”
Emma: So it’s very hard for them to be organized. And they won the
Alliances competition, so everyone was in shock.
Rose: The Administration specialty is always very organized, very top.
And they [Mechanics] are very ape-like.
While students at Treehill declared that violence within and around the school
had subsided, especially since the vehicles from Citizen Peace, a security company hired
by the municipality, started to park outside the school at the end of the school day, I
overheard students talking about how one of their friends was beaten the day before with
a baseball bat in the neighborhood. Even if it did not happen within the school, violence
was a topic that came up in students’ conversations, and that they saw as part of their
context.
During a class activity where I asked Ninth grade students about the problems
that they saw in Chilean society, one student mentioned “Homophobia, with so many
fighting for the life of the fetus, but when they are born, if they are homosexual...”
Mario, a student who I interviewed individually, explained in depth how this was also an
issue at school:
I think something that needs to improve is the issue of integration, of

inclusion, for example, that schools are more inclusive with disabled
people, with people who have a different sexual orientation, because I
feel in most schools they discriminate a lot, and that should change. I
feel that in this class it is accepted, but there are some persons that are
like homophobic, that discriminate a lot. There are always classmates
that call others “Fucking fag,” “Shut up, homo,” things like that. All are
left like, “What the hell is wrong with this guy?” but no one says
anything. I feel there’s a lot of sexual diversity in this school, but at the
same time it’s not accepted. What is needed is more acceptance from
people who should really provide support, because a lot of times those
people don’t have the support from their families, and I think in this
school a support group is needed, psychologists, sexual education talks,
where they give you some guidance, ask you how the relationship with
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your family is going, give you advice.
The discipline manual stated among students’ rights, the right to receive an
integral education, for teachers to use diverse methodological strategies to achieve
learning, to be heard and respected by all actors of the community, and to receive clear
and timely answers. These rights were not always respected at the school, with
occasions where students felt not heard or discriminated by the administration of the
school, or felt that classes and workshops were boring, and methodologies were too
traditional.
Biopolitics of Civic Ceremonies: Rituals of Embodied Boredom: They have
us here freezing to death. At civic ceremonies in Treehill and Montrose, students must,
in most cases, remain in formation, standing, subject to the “ritualized effacement”
(Lipovetsky, 1986) of their bodies and their bodily needs and suffering, in favor of a
martial obedience that is intended to demonstrate respect, order, self-control, and a sense
of patriotism. The school uniform must be complete and spotless, without any additions
that could reveal an individual personality. The position must be kept, under the sun or
cold, and silence must prevail. Men in one line, women in other; separated by levels and
classes; and arranged by height. The national anthem must be sung showing passion and
respect. These are moments where the school intensifies its biopolitical normalization.
Schools tend not to defy the canon of civic ceremonies in terms of what to
celebrate or how. Ceremonies follow a script that does not change in its basic structure:
the Principal, Head Dean or a teacher who has received authority for that ceremony will
welcome the students and teachers, and a couple of selected students will raise the flag
while the national anthem is sung. Next, the students who have been involved in the
preparation of the ceremony will be introduced, they will read an informative discourse
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regarding the event being celebrated, and introduce the performance that has been
prepared by their classmates, rehearsed during the last month. Deans and the Principal
usually give out instructions one after another through the speakers. They call on
students to stand in line, be silent, speed up the pace of the formation, and answer
energetically when being addressed collectively. The panopticon device is in place,
omnipresent, with special force during civic ceremonies, and whoever is outside their
specific place in line, or not observing the expected behavior, is quickly admonished.
At Treehill, some of the ceremonies had all students standing in formation
divided by class and sex; and others involved bringing chairs from the classrooms so
students could sit to watch the performances. While this was aimed toward them being
more comfortable, eliminating the suffering of standing for too long, the process of
placing the chairs in the order expected by the Head Dean seemed to be more effort-
demanding and time-consuming than standing in line. During ceremonies, the Dean
usually called on teachers to help maintain the discipline and order of the formation.
During the Technical-Vocational Professions Day ceremony, for example, constant
supervision and control were exerted from the Principal, Head Dean and teachers on
students, micromanaging their behavior. The Dean called on students to stop
“smooching,” remain silent, and take off their hats or hoodies. When the Music
Workshop students played festive songs, teachers exerted control so that students did not
dance or move from their seats. There was a distinct biopolitics during civic ceremonies,
even if those ceremonies, such as this one, were supposed to be celebrations –as the
Principal put it, “Today is a day to celebrate, we have to party, be happy, but also
behave ourselves.” There was an almost eerie feeling in the scene of students sitting
quietly while cumbia was being played, and then a batucada group danced to the sound
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of loud drums; more of a simulacrum of a party than a real party. The Dean reminded
everyone that classrooms had to remain closed during the ceremony. While this is
common in schools in Chile, to prevent things going missing or students disarranging
the classrooms during breaks, making a point of it emphasized a basic distrust in
students, implying everyone was seen as a potential thief.
Performances during civic ceremonies were also an opportunity for
intensification of gender roles, as Sue explained regarding Physical Education
presentations, “I feel happy when a girl who never puts her hair in a ponytail does it on
that day, walks upright, and can remember a series of steps.”
Civic Ceremonies were used by students as opportunities for performative
resistance, in a context where the discipline manual emphasized the severity of
exhibiting bad behavior during these ceremonies. The favorite form of student resistance
during these events was the witty remark under their breath to a classmate standing next
to them. Some of the ones I heard included: “They have us here freezing to death” (with
the low temperatures during some of the ceremonies, this was hardly an exaggeration),
“We are cold,” “She acts like a cop” (referring to the Head Dean), “All I want is to
smoke some pot,” “This is so long.” While this behavior did not majorly disturb the
ceremony, it did create some noise, and usually bothered the teachers or Deans, that
called on the students to be silent. There seemed to be a tacit competition to think about
smart remarks or comebacks that were not heard by the persons they addressed, but only
by classmates. Another form of resistance came in the form of singing the national
anthem off key, shouting it, or lagging behind on the lyrics. This was a way for students
to communicate that they did not willingly accept the military discipline involved in
civic ceremonies, and to complain about the bodily suffering that came with it, which
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they recognized as irrational and unnecessary. As Anyon (1980) explains, this resistance
is liberating, but it is not intended to produce fundamental changes in the relationships
of control.
Student Centers and the Simulacrum of Democracy: I don’t see it that much
as ‘political.’ At Treehill, participation in the Student Center was not as explicitly
guided as in Montrose, but nonetheless the needs of the Administration superseded those
of the students in terms of projects and focus.
Treehill students decided to participate in the Student Center to help a friend
who was running for it by joining his list, and in their second year the Principal asked
them to remain in their position, a proposal that they explained they accepted because of
the perks that their status gave them at the school, such as “being able to cut classes
without teachers noticing”; and because of the bonds they had formed amongst
themselves and with their advisor. They declared not being interested in political
participation, and did not see being part of the Student Center as “political,” although
they recognized it had taught them abilities such as speaking in public, empowered them
to go to the Principal with a project or problem, and allowed them to identify the spaces
and moments to use a more formal language (a process that involved code-switching,
since they described avoiding the use of a specific type of slang and pronunciation that
is typically associated with lower socioeconomic levels).
For them, the identified benefits and goals of participation in the Student Center
were more on a personal level, with projects for the school centered around cultural or
sports events, without proposals for more significant changes to the school. As an
example of this, the participation of the Student Center could be defined as nominal
when the Principal consulted them regarding the use of some funds for school
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infrastructure, but predefining the areas of improvement and leaving them out of the
final decision. When consulted about future projects they had as Student Center, they
mentioned doing more marketing for the school around the neighborhood, a problem
identified by the Administration, instead of focusing on their needs as students. Among
their specific functions, students mentioned buying presents for teachers for Teachers’
Day, organizing the competitions during Students’ Day, and having a role in other civic
ceremonies during the year. They talked about the need to be creative and have
organization skills to earn money for the different events they put on, revealing an
individualistic and entrepreneurial approach to their role.
When asking other students about their Student Center, a couple of them
described it as representing all students and conducting activities such as Jeans Days,
with the money that they earned being for activities for all students. This showed some
awareness of the capacity of the Student Center to fight for student rights, and to help
student projects get developed. But another student complained about the Student Center
always organizing Jeans Days to raise money, but with students never knowing what the
money was for; and also, of students not being aware of the activities that the Student
Center organized. He also complained about not receiving enough support from the
Student Center for his proposals to address student needs, therefore not seeing the
Student Center as a democratic space:
If I were president of the Student Center, I would go by every class

asking what we should do, conduct surveys asking what students think
is needed at the school, and what could change. This Student Center
does not consider students’ opinions, and I think that is essential when
you have such position, because the Student Center is the voice of all
the students. But it hasn’t been like this, the Student Center has its small
circle, and they don’t ask for other opinions.
The limitations of the Student Center were also recognized by the teachers:
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I think we need to give them more space to give their opinion. I feel that
at this school we listen to the students, but they don’t have the spaces to
organize, or a Student Center that is really representative. I’m talking of
doing solidary campaigns, addressing political issues; they don’t do it.
The Student Center is in charge of Students’ Day, celebrations,
Teachers’ Day, getting presents, but there is no real participation. (Dana)
While I did not observe an election process at Treehill, since they did not have
one during this school year, Maria described it, similar to the other schools, as a
mandatory and guided activity.
Students learned that even if they had the best arguments, they did not always
get what they wanted when complaining to the Administration of the school or to the
Student Center. For example, Mario described the lack of support he felt from the
administration to implement projects at the school:
At the beginning of the year I talked with someone at the municipal

library to do a study group after classes, because in this school different
sexual orientations are very discriminated, so we thought about doing an
LGBTQ study group. I remember last year for the Alliances competition,
a boy put on a wig to do a performance, and they suspended him for a
week, because the Head Dean said that was inadequate... I don’t know, I
found that very stupid. So this year we thought of doing that, but I don’t
know, we had a lot of problems, so we preferred to abandon the idea,
because we were going to get in more trouble with the Dean. Once, I
wrote a letter to the Principal, I researched statistics, studies, and I
explained how there was a new national law that prohibited selling
unhealthy food at the school. Also, at the school they had eliminated
water fountains. So I included that in the letter, saying that we needed to
have water, because we had a large obese population, but they didn’t
listen to me. I went to hand in the letter, and a few days later, with a
group of friends, we printed forms to collect signatures saying, “We
want the water fountains back, it’s our right.” But the teachers told the
Dean, and they took the forms from us. They told us we couldn’t do that
at the school, that it was some kind of revolution. So the voice of the
students is very reproached, and I hate that, because in a school it’s
necessary to have the voice of the students.
The Student Center, while not explicitly seeing lack of support from the
Administration of the school, acknowledged the pressure they felt when organizing the
competitions for Students’ Day, that led them to fight with each other.
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Homeroom Period: Student Leadership: Things such as hot dog sales.
During an Eleventh grade Homeroom period, the teacher asked the class officers if they
were going to address any issues, and one of them said, “Yes,” jokingly, since they had
nothing prepared. The teacher provided students the opportunity to look at their grades
in the class book, for those students in risk of being held back a grade to estimate what
grade they should obtain in their last test. The focus was on students obtaining passing
grades. Students also filled out a form where they had to commit to improving in
academic or behavioral aspects, and set specific, feasible goals to do so, which they
would work on with the Psychologist, and which would be read when meeting with their
parents in the cases that required so. The rhetoric was of students being in trouble or at
fault. Some of the issues students discussed as areas of improvement were: talking less
during class, arriving to school on time, going to bed early, and not using their cell
phone during class.
The teacher informed me that when students organized themselves, they were
focused on things such as hot dog sales to raise money for their activities; or deciding on
things related to their graduation hoodie.
A Twelfth grade student described his class student government as non-
democratic and not representative of the students:
My class officers... They chose a girl that I feel hasn’t brought much,
because presidents are not supposed to impose things, and that is what
she does, for example, she won’t say, “Guys, this day we could do
something, do you have any opinions about what we can do?,” but she
will say, “This day we are going to do this, and you have to bring this,
and this, and this,” and you shouldn’t do that.
Participation in Politics and Groups: I wouldn’t know how to give you an
opinion. Students declared themselves “apolitical” or uninterested in politics, stemming
from a generalized disgust with politicians, such as their neighborhood’s Mayor, and the
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opportunism they had seen in politicians governing for the rich, and “only remembering
to visit poor neighborhood during campaign times.” As the following opinions from
students show:
Here in the neighborhood they hate him [Mayor], I mean, there are two
groups, there is the people, the town, and then there is this richer
neighborhood, and we are all the same municipality. So that richer
neighborhood adores the Mayor. The Mayor favors them.
The people from the town blame everything on the Mayor, even if a
light post falls down, as a joke, they blame the Mayor.
Politicians are corrupt. Everyone thinks they are on different sides, and I
have evidence that they all get along.
For the most part, students did not appear interested in knowledge about current
issues in the country. Their lack of interest in formal politics was evident when during
an Eleventh grade History class, the teacher asked for the names of today’s political
parties, and the students only named, and wrongly, one of the political alliances, without
being able to name a single political party. Student Center members described their lack
of interest in politics, seeing it as something that politicians did and that they could learn
about on the news, rather than as an available possibility for them as citizens: “I am zero
political, I do not watch anything related to politics”; “Being real, I do not like politics,
so I do not go into that”; “If you ask me if I am interested in knowing anything about
politics, no”; “I hate politics.”
Teachers also showed a view of students as apolitical. As Maria described,
On a national level, them being informed of what happens in the

country, no. This year has been very agitated in terms of the
Educational Reform and manifestations, but students are very unaware
of that. If you ask them about justice, they don’t know much. Or about
the days there are marches, they don’t know.
Students at Treehill assumed they did not know about politics, so they preferred
not to answer questions about it, or preceded their short answers with a declaration of
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ignorance, as one student put it when I asked about his position on politics: “I wouldn’t
know how to give you an opinion, because they are always selling what is good, what is
bad, so you don’t really have your own opinion about politics, since one doesn’t know.”
Regarding civil participation, students did not engage in social movements,
describing their dislike for a teacher who tried to encourage their attendance to marches:
“She is very political and she tells us that we should attend marches, but we aren’t into
that”; “We have never attended any marches. My mom would not let me.”
Distancing from the theory that characterizes low-income students as
participating more in informal or dissident types of civil involvement than in formal
groups, Treehill students did not participate in informal groups beyond their group of
friends, and did participate in neighborhood folk dance and music groups, orchestras and
carnivals, church chorus and study groups, theater groups, sports teams (rugby, soccer),
the municipal firemen squad, and the school’s music and sports workshops. Their
preferences revealed a sense of both nationalism and community, connecting them to the
territory surrounding the school. But despite the wide offer provided by the
Municipality, teachers claimed most students did not become motivated to participate,
which is why they developed other workshops at the school, such as Manicure or
Gymnastics. Dana described the participation of students in groups as low and waning
due to the disappearance of opportunities in the neighborhood, with a Youth Center that
provided free workshops having closed down. Students, with the exception of those
participating in the aforementioned groups, also described themselves and their
classmates as mostly not participating in formal groups outside the school.
Both male and female students mentioned working during the weekends, which
interfered in their participation in groups and activities. But in general, students claimed
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that they were “too lazy” to participate in a group, or that it would take time from other
activities that they liked to do, like going to parties.
The Music Workshop at the school was a form of resistance against
disengagement, with students meeting with the Music teacher every week, and playing
in most of the school ceremonies. The commitment to the group was evident in students’
disappointment about not performing in a recent ceremony due to lack of time for
preparing the show, in the fact that they were adding an extra day of practice, and in the
students asking the teacher to borrow the musical instruments to rehearse at home.
Regarding charity or volunteering work, Maria described it as not
institutionalized at the school, with the occasional campaigns organized in case of
natural disasters, or volunteering field trip organized by a teacher. Dana commented on
solidary campaigns previously organized regularly by the school as fostering social
conscience, something that she saw students as lacking today.
How the School Relates to the Community. The “Bubble” Metaphor: They
have no idea about the issues in the country. At Treehill, sports, folk and church
groups allowed students to use spaces other than the school in their neighborhood. Maria
described some of the supports students found through the Municipality:
I feel that on a local level, they participate more; it seems that our
Municipality, or the Town part, is a very small space, everyone knows
each other, and there are a lot of support networks for vulnerable kids,
they have workshops and activities, and they participate in them. There
are organizations that provide workshops and psychological support.
But, on the other hand, Mario, the Twelfth grade student, criticized the lack of
spaces for youth in the neighborhood:
I feel the place where more kids of this school get together is behind the
church to smoke pot. There aren’t many activities, from what I see. We
don’t have, for example, a pool that has free access, there is a municipal
pool, but you have to pay. Before, we used to have a youth center where
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we had different workshops: theater, oil painting, hairdressing, and that
closed down with the new mayor. Now all workshops are paid.
The school had a relationship with the institutions providing different recreation
opportunities in the neighborhood, and the school administration explained that the
workshops they offered tried to complement those offered by other institutions. Student
Center members described the sense of community that they felt when participating in
the Municipal Spring Carnival last year:
We participated in the Spring Carnival, it was very entertaining (...) It’s

not only students who participate, also senior citizens, folk groups,
neighbor associations, it was like the whole Town together, and it was a
big party, and you could socialize with everyone.
Despite a reputation of the neighborhood as being unsafe, students did not
describe it as dangerous, as Montrose students did with theirs, and they did not state a
desire to move away from it. Despite the resources administrators identified in the
neighborhood, Bertha still saw the school as called to save the students from their
cultural background:
You have all these problems today with youth being delinquents,
because neither those kids nor their parents know their rights and duties.
Schools are the only formal space that the most vulnerable students
have, there isn’t other. We are the ones called to form these kids to be
citizens, to teach them what politics are, which they don’t understand; to
teach them they live in a city, and they have rights and duties in the city.
Residents of the Treehill neighborhood had a strong sense of identity with what
they called “the Town” (a small section of the Municipality, and the place where most of
their parents and grandparents had been raised), but that did not extend to a national
identity beyond engaging in traditional customs. While the municipality in which
Treehill was located continues to grow and gentrify, with luxury housing development
and shopping malls, the town spirit is preserved in a small pocket of space.
Students’ use of public space was mostly limited to the neighborhood. A
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number of teachers mentioned the limited experiences of the students, and making
attempts to broaden their horizons by including field trips and other activities. But at the
same time, they described students as knowing first hand of realities that middle-class
children did not experience, such as the drug-dealing world. Dana commented on how
students had no reason to leave a neighborhood that offered them enough to get by, with
enough job offers and opportunities to acquire a house in social projects:
I think it’s very few students who really care about having an important
role in society; they live day to day, and I think that’s the tone of the
neighborhood, because here they give kids a lot of benefits, so it doesn’t
matter how much effort they make, maybe they won’t be successful, they
won’t have the house that they wanted, but they are going to have a
house, a job nearby, so we fight against that everyday. You ask them and
sometimes they have no idea about the issues in the country, or
something that happened that affects them; as long as it didn’t happen in
the neighborhood, it doesn’t exist, they live in this kind of bubble. And
it’s complex, because those who go into university, only there do they
realize that this isn’t Chile, this is a tiny part of all they should know. For
example, regarding student mobilizations, if you ask them what they
think, they all agree with them, but they would like to take over the
school to lose classes, not because they really feel a need to change the
way that education is approached in the country; for them, that’s
something others should worry about.
Maria and Bertha concurred with this “bubble” metaphor for the school:
About the national debates, when you ask them, there will be two or
three who tell you “Free and quality education,” which is the popular
motto. But if you probe a little more, if you ask them if they agree with
universal gratuity, or with the tax reform, they don’t know. (Maria)
People from this neighborhood are in like a bubble, so they don’t know
about strikes, about takeovers, manifestations, why people are
complaining. (Bertha)
Parents were described by the administrators as not participating too much in
school activities, but as being happy with the school, with some alumni among them,
which the Principal saw as a sign of the school being successful.
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Summary
The question with which I left Treehill after most of my visits was, “But is it
enough?” The Principal and Administrators put considerable effort in building a caring
community for the students (something I could attest to when receiving their help to
implement a trekking workshop for the Eleventh grade girls at the school), and the
students acknowledged the good climate of the school. But, at the same time, an
excessive focus on discipline and patriotism made it difficult for students such as Mario
to keep their motivation to participate and change things when faced with constant
rejection.
The contradicting ways in which the school communicated to students
expectations of them was also something that left me feeling these students were in an
unfair position, when compared with the students at Montrose and Parkside. But the
attitude of teachers such as Maria and Dana, trying to incorporate CE in their classes
despite the pressure they felt to stick to the basic curriculum assessed by tests, made me
hopeful. Through debates about controversial topics, simulations of democratic
processes, or providing support for students developing projects for the neighborhood,
these teachers were transmitting a broader version of citizenship to students, and
encouraging them to participate in society. Table 7 below provides a summary of the
different themes related to citizenship and CE at Treehill.
Table 7: Summary of Citizenship and Citizenship Education at Treehill
Obedient, disciplined, respectful, patriotic (according to Administrators).

Ideal Citizen
A good neighbor, non-discriminating, law-abiding (according to students).
National and
Nationality linked to traditional customs and community.
Global
Absence of an elaborated notion of global problems.
Citizenship
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Low-expectations of students from families and teachers. Cultural deficit
Class-
views from teachers of families and the neighborhood.
consciousness and
Students showed awareness of class and inequality, but did not turn that
expectations
into political action.
Students expressed resistance through complaints when faced with unfair
situations, through personal styling, disengagement from class activities
and disrupting civic ceremonies.
Self-expression
Administrators and teachers saw students as having no leadership.
Students sometimes faced punishment for their oppositional
demonstrations.
Focused on Technical-Vocational more than on traditional academics or
critical thinking. Traditional pedagogy, with a focus on discipline.
Curriculum
Citizenship addressed through official contents in History and
government-issued tests.
While there was no focus on the PSU test, teachers felt pressed by the
Accountability many curricular contents and assessments.
context Teachers perceived students as too exhausted with the long school day to
participate in other activities or groups.
The school emphasized discipline shown in the uniform, taking care of the
school building, and behavior during civic ceremonies. Administrators
described having a vigilant attitude to prevent violence.
Discipline and Students perceived discipline as sometimes excessive, especially girls,
Climate who felt constrained in performing their personal style and felt an outer
perception as oversexualized.
Bullying was addressed as “typical youth behavior,” with racialized and
homophobic insults being common.
They involved a high level of discipline and bodily suffering to stand in
formation, and had a focus on patriotism.
Civic ceremonies
Used by students as an opportunity for performative resistance, but in
ways that did not challenge the relationships of control.
The Student Center was in charge of preparing activities for ceremonies
during the school year, without a critical or transformative role. Students
Student Center
did not see participation in the Student Center as political.
and Homeroom
Homeroom leadership was centered around organizing events or raising
funds for future activities, without student taking ownership of this space.
Students called themselves “apolitical,” without having an interest in
Participation in knowing of or participating in politics, and seeing politicians as governing
politics and for the rich. They did not participate in social movements, but engaged in
groups cultural, church and sports groups in the neighborhood. A great percentage
of them worked after school and in the weekends.
Students showed concerns about their community and its needs. Sense of
Relationship with community cultivated through their participation in community groups.
the community But teachers criticized the excessive local focus of the students, and their
lack of awareness of national and global issues.
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Montrose (Lower-Middle Class Private-Subsidized School)
My first day visiting Montrose was the first day of the school year. Before
entering the school building, I could see that the mandatory uniform for the students
was exactly like the one I used to wear in my high school, a private independent
school in Las Condes. This gave me some clues about how the uniform was being
used in an aspirational way at the school, and how the focus on personal
presentation (as revealed by the polished look and observance of the official
uniform of all students) was part of the culture of the school. The civic ceremony to
welcome the students revealed more about the importance of discipline at the
school. Not only did students from all classes stand in perfect formation in the patio,
but they also came down from their classrooms in the four upper floors in
synchronized order, following the directions given by the Head Dean through the
speakers. Students sang the national anthem respectfully and listened attentively to
the speeches inviting them to do their best and excel.
Aria was an Eleventh grade student that I asked to interview after having an
informal conversation with her where she revealed the academic pressure that most
students felt at the school. She talked about how the focus of the school was on
academics, and how students appreciated the rigorous classes and test preparation,
as well as the promotion of values such as responsibility. She described a stance that
was common in Montrose students regarding the ideal citizen: someone informed,
respectful, and participating in democracy through voting. She acknowledged not
having time to participate in groups outside the school, but was part of her class
government as vice-president, where she described her role as supporting her
classmates in academic matters.
These two examples provide a sense of Montrose, but while the general rule
was of students doing their best to adapt to the strict discipline and academic rigor,
there were also stories of students resisting this, as when students took over the
school during the 2011 Student Movement and publicly criticized the
administration. Also, according to students, many of their classmates had left the
school because they felt that they could not handle the academic pressure, or the
limited freedom to act or express themselves at the school.
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Montrose was a private-subsidized school with an add-on fee of U.S. $800 a
year that families had to pay to complement the per-student voucher that the school
received from the State. The school had a mix in terms of the socioeconomic status of
their students, with some of the families being exempt from the tuition through
scholarships provided by the school. It had a Catholic orientation, representing this
important orientation in private-subsidized education13 in Chile, and providing an
example of a religious approach to CE. The school did not apply a test to select the
students, but it emphasized the academic excellence and commitment required from
students and their families when they enrolled. Its mission focused on developing the
values of effort and hard work for academic and professional success, as well as spiritual
development manifested in solidarity and commitment to others.
The Montrose school building was a large, U-shaped, four-story structure with
balconies that looked into a center patio, with a grass soccer field next to it, and smaller
areas in-between that included the cafeteria —a separate octagonal building that was
also used for ceremonies—; a smaller patio with bleachers, next to a food kiosk; and the
children’s playground. The entrance hall exhibited student artwork from different school
contests and a trophy case, with prizes from sports and academic competitions. Classes
had between 30 and 40 students. During the ceremonies where parents attended, it was
common to see them dressed in formal and ceremonial-looking outfits. Across the street
from the school there was a park that extended for many blocks. It was a residential
neighborhood, with some small bodegas and restaurants nearby.
The school Administrators claimed to have intervened with the Municipality to
keep the streets around the school clean and safe, and they referred to the neighborhood

13
13% of private-subsidized schools in Chile are declaredly Catholic, with an enrollment of 452,306
students in 2013 (Candia, 2014).
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as dangerous and extremely poor, a reality that did not immediately come across in my
visits to the school. Both the Principal and the Head Dean had been in the school since
its beginnings, when there was not much around the school, which meant they had seen
the neighborhood grow and improve.
The school climate was of military-like discipline, with students orderly
entering or coming out of their classrooms for breaks or to change rooms, and with this
discipline intensified in the correct use of the uniform, use of proper language, and the
orderly formation during civic ceremonies. The same feel was present during classes,
with all students attentively listening to teachers and answering their questions.
The Ideal Citizen: A responsible, respectful person, with clear principles.
When asked about the ideal citizen, students put the focus on formal political duties such
as voting, and on the need to be informed about what happens in the country. They
understood what you must do and know as a citizen as already established, more than as
an opportunity for creation or deliberation; and participation, as being more of an
individual responsibility than a form of collective action. Students participated in
different groups and motivated their classmates to participate, but the extent of that
participation was somewhat limited and circumscribed to formal, institutional
modalities.
Maybe attend the marches, support the passive, peaceful marches, that
kind. Voting is definitely a must, we need to vote. And I think that is it
in terms of duties, I wouldn’t do anything too flashy, unless I became
really involved in politics. Voting is optional, but that is horrible, it
should be mandatory. So that is an important part, being more engaged
in politics. In my track, Humanities, they teach you about politics. But
in the Math and Biology tracks, they have no Civics. So I believe
schools need more civic conscience. And the citizen has to be a
responsible, respectful person, with clear principles. (Aria)
I believe a citizen should fulfill their mission in elections by voting.

Now, voting is optional, but everyone should vote, because if they don’t,
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they can’t complain against the State in a way. (Carly)
An educated people, knowledgeable, interested in the important issues

in the country. (Francis)
I think a good citizen would be someone who is always willing to help

others, but respecting their own limits and the limits of morality. (Phil)
The exiting Student Center president, Lane, mentioned a more community-
based form of politics as an option:
Besides the political aspect, another way to participate is in solidary

organizations or things that are not that related to politics. In society
there are a number of organizations, such as NGOs, neighbors
associations, or Centros de Madres (mothers community organizations)
that have a function within society.
Students referred to education as a form of achieving an informed citizenry,
seeing the responsibility to be informed and to critically assess the information provided
by the media, as central in their role as citizens:
In my opinion, when voting, as a citizen duty, one should be informed,

because if you vote being uninformed, it is going to be a vote without
motive or reasons. So the citizen has to be informed to vote, and make it
a conscious vote. (Francis)
People should be informed; they have zero interest in finding out more
about different issues (...) They should participate, because they are
always complaining about the Government, but don’t do much to be a
part of it or be informed, and they don’t even vote. (Mia)
I don’t like watching Chilean television, because it’s only celebrities,

and the important stuff they only mention in passing. (Carlie)
National and Global Citizenship: Obeys and respects the national anthem.
The Honor Code included in Montrose’s discipline manual began with “Obeys and
respects the national anthem and national symbols,” showing the adscription to a
nationalist curriculum. For the Día de la Chilenidad, students dedicated great effort to
decorating their classrooms, setting up stands, and preparing dance performances to earn
points for their ongoing alliances competition during the year. Points were given for the
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number of students attending, and for the number of teachers and parents in traditional
outfits, according to the region of the country assigned to their children. Parents seemed
very anxious about where to register for the points to count. Outfits were very elaborate,
and parents showed concern about last minute fine-tunes for their children to look
perfect. Stands representing different regions of the country and indigenous tribes
showed a thorough research and work put into the artistic features of the set up. The
Principal visited each of them, evaluating them with a rubric to decide on the winning
stands. Dances and other games also earned points for each alliance, and students
showed great proficiency and preparation when performing. When describing Chileans,
students saw them as being pressed by many obligations, and signified the national
holidays as the moment during the year where they could break the routine.
Students could not identify any racist behavior directed to students of
nationalities other than Chilean at the school, and addressed this by commenting on a
couple of cases of allegedly successful integration of these students (one, Asian, and the
other, a black Latin American), describing racism as a problem that was present in some
Chileans but outside the school (“There is a lot of discrimination, a lot of prejudice
against others,” “There are Chileans who are very racist”).
At the same time, students adopted a classist stance where any attitude or
clothing style resembling that of a flaite would be rebuked with disdain and fear, but did
not understand this as discrimination. This was the dominant discourse from adults at
the school: trying to get rid of the cultural signs of being poor in order to camouflage
with those of higher socioeconomic status, aided by the uniform and discipline. Social
class mediated the description Uma made of Chileans: “They are flaites, but they try to
behave themselves,” in what could be a metaphor for what students and teachers saw as
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the goal of the school.
Discourses of Class-Consciousness and Expectations: The only professionals
in their families. Students showed awareness of the class structure when recognizing
that they were “middle class”14 and did not have some of the privileges of lower classes
(such as government benefits, like gratuity in education) and upper classes (such as the
opportunity to afford private independent schools), which they understood as a
justification for meritocracy, believing that through hard work they could break the
circle of social reproduction, do better than their parents, be the first professionals in
their families, or get out of a neighborhood that they saw as dangerous and dominated
by delinquency. This meritocratic ideology, which was actively promoted by the school,
was evident in the following answers from students,
People know all of their rights, but not their duties. Chileans demand
and demand, but don’t do anything in return. I think Chileans are lazy.
Sometimes I feel that, yes, people are stressed out, but there are also a
lot of people who don’t do anything. (Jessie)
I think that if you make an effort, you can achieve anything. (Aria)
I think equality for all is horrible, because if I make a bigger effort, I

cannot have the same as someone who doesn’t do anything, because we
would be promoting laziness. (Mia)
Some students showed a more nuanced perspective, recognizing that there were
not equal opportunities for all:
Delinquency can be solved with more education, because if that

delinquent had had more possibilities of a good education, he wouldn’t
have become a delinquent, he could have had a job. (Phil)
If someone made an effort to study, obviously they should have a high

salary, but that does not mean we are going to dismiss the people who

14 In Chile, “middle class” is a broad, ambiguous term that is used to refer to socioeconomic classes ranging
from just over the vulnerability line to affluent conditions, with a monthly income per household ranging
from US $750 to US $3,185. 70% of the population self-identifies as “middle class”, but less than 50% are
officially in this range (La Tercera, 2015).
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did not have the opportunities. I’ve always thought that there is a chance
to succeed in life, but maybe with a salary as low as the minimum
salary, it’s hard. (Francis)
Adults at Montrose had a strong discourse of cultural explanations regarding the
students and their families, looking at them from a deficit perspective, where their
cultural background was seen as negative, identifying a need for a good language and
behavior to substitute for it, and to raise their expectations of the students. The fact that
the school was within a neighborhood with a bad reputation due to delinquency,
sustained the cultural deficit perspective from administrators. A high level of vigilance
at the school was to ensure this code-switching in students. As the Head Dean put it:
I’m proud of these kids, I always tell them, because if you knew where
they come from, they live in real ghettos, these shantytowns, and here
they all look the same, but in their real lives, they live completely
different lives. Here, the kids make an effort, they repress themselves,
because they know they have an important goal. Our pride is to have
professionals who are the only ones in their families. When they get
married, they get out of this area. I think here in the neighborhood we
are like an island, because if you visit a school nearby, it’s a completely
different reality. At this school we tell them that the language has to be
semi-formal, and that is very difficult for them, because they have their
own language. That is why Deans walk around the school on breaks,
and if they hear something, they correct it. And we tell the kids that
outside the school, whatever they want, if their families allow it, but not
in the school. We also have kids that come to the school with a high
degree of aggressiveness, because of their sociocultural level.
Anna took an active stance to address what she saw as cultural deficits from the
families:
Here, the family is not sufficiently involved; I think they want the
school to do everything. I always tell the kids “You come from families
that tell you ‘Poor thing, you study so much.’” I always reprimand the
parents for this, because that is a mediocre mentality, you have to dream,
and dream big.
Students showed a contradiction in how they saw education as the main path to
achieve a more equal society, and showed recognition of social inequality in education,
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of some municipalities having more resources for education than others, and of private
schools being better than public schools, but at the same time defended the system of
school choice that kept some students from having some of their educational privileges.
They also had conflicted opinions about the Student Movement and gratuity in
education, having a general approval of the idea of quality education, but being
concerned about the feasibility and injustice of universal free higher education, with
them seeing that not everyone had the merits for it. And the same applied to the closing
of private-subsidized schools promoted by the Educational Reform, that they saw as
affecting those making an effort to succeed. As shown in their opinions below,
I’m both for and against paying for university. Admittedly, we have
rights, but not anyone should be able to go to a prestigious university.
(Aria)
Regarding quality education, I think everyone agrees, we all feel bad

about some schools having such good education and others, such
precarious education. But I don’t agree with free education for all. We
have a lot of opportunities for gratuity, there are a lot of scholarships, of
benefits you can obtain. (Lane)
Now they are evaluating if the school has to close down, they are
buying private-subsidized schools to turn them into public schools. I
think that is a bad investment. Differences are clear; in a private-
subsidized school you are going to have a better environment, better
quality. (Phil)
Students talked about delinquency as something they were afraid of, describing
it as common in the neighborhood, with students typically arranging commuting
together to minimize risks, and the school having a protocol in place to respond in case
of a student being robbed.
Montrose students constantly watched how they dressed and spoke, and
sanctioned their classmates who did not follow these tacit rules (those who looked or
acted like flaites). As Anna explained, “If a flaite kid comes to the school –as they say,
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because they believe they aren’t flaites– they try to educate him. Until he ends up
talking nicely, being a gentleman, being respectful, not walking over others.” The
assertion of not being flaite worked as a form of differentiation, of establishing the
category of “the other,” reinforcing their identity as not-the-other. This was present at
both Treehill and Montrose, but with special strength in the latter. As Phil put it,
students who they deemed flaites had trouble adapting to the school: “A number of
friends left after middle school, and they were all sort of flaites, street kids.” Othering
the flaite worked as a way to develop an identity as better than them. With the ever-
present danger of falling into that label, students had to pay attention to looking
presentable and speaking well, which was also enforced by deans at the school through a
high level of surveillance and strict enforcement of rules regarding personal
presentation.
Teachers at Montrose also commonly referred to this notion. Ruby talked with
pride of the cultural capital they provided the students in the Leadership Workshop
(promoting good language and behavior), and in the field trips to the Municipal Theater,
so that they did not stand out (following rules such as not taking pictures, not eating
inside the theatre, and returning to their seat when the bell rings).
When talking about a career fair that they would attend, the Twelfth grade class
vice-president told her classmates: “Don’t go as flaites to this visit, dress nice.” The
teacher reinforced this adding, “If you go as flaites, we will pretend not to know you.”
Later that day, two students had been wearing a hoodie that was not part of the uniform,
and the Dean of Students came into the classroom to publicly admonish them and
another student who had an “improper” haircut, sending them to talk to the Head Dean,
and saying, “No student is going to graduate with an indecent haircut, out of respect for
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your parents and people who come to see you. Not because you are in Twelfth grade...
we give you more liberties, but you have to look impeccable, check your uniform on
Sundays.” A classmate told them disapprovingly, “You look like flaites,” showing that
they had internalized both the norm and classism, with the teacher reinforcing this,
“They don’t look like flaites; they are.”
While students showed some awareness about inequality of opportunities, that
clashed with their prejudice against those labeled as flaites. While the Principal talked
proudly of students writing essays for a contest focusing on social problems such as
spatial segregation and school dropouts, these issues were addressed intellectually, but
the othering of those affected by those problems functioned as a way for students to
detach themselves from those issues, in order to maintain their meritocratic ideology
where they saw the poor as not making enough of an effort.
For Montrose students, the path set by the school was clear, and students had to
believe in the meritocratic discourse and put great effort into their academic work, or
leave the school. Being in a more comfortable economic position than Treehill students,
they had higher expectations for their future, and some conscience of the structural
barriers they faced in being first-generation professionals in their families, and not being
part of the in-group with the cultural capital, opportunities and connections provided by
wealth. But in othering flaite students from schools in their own neighborhood,
Montrose students showed that they were not fully aware of how they were and will
continue to be othered in a Chilean society that does not have job opportunities for all
new professionals, and that is not precisely meritocratic in distributing those jobs. As
Canales (in Hopenhayn, 2016) puts it, “these students do not read the small print on the
‘you can do it’ meritocratic promise” (p. 18). It was precisely this defensive denial,
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though, that allowed them to comply with the demands of their school, thus actually
raising their individual chances of success.
Both teachers and administrators recognized that some of the students obtained
scholarships at the school and at universities, even when their families had enough
money to pay for tuition. While being critical of this phenomenon, teachers supported
providing tips for students to apply for as many scholarships for university as possible,
and monitored the process in class, in order for students to do it correctly. These tips
included forms of presenting their income or their guardian situation so that they had
more chances of being selected, teaching students to use the system in their favor while
staying within the rules, this way resisting structural inequality without the need to
explicitly speak against it.
Ruby discussed how she had seen issues regarding class-consciousness in
students, and how they tried to eradicate social resentment:
Before, when they went to tournaments at schools in fancy

neighborhoods, kids were resentful and looked down on themselves; they
would come back depressed, saying “How ugly is our school, how ugly
is my house,” “I’m black,” “My face is ugly.” Now they are friends or
couples with those kids, they gave each other their phone numbers, and
they have come to tournaments here too. It’s important that our students
know that they can, so when they are in university, they can feel
comfortable with people of all classes.
Elements such as wearing a uniform like the ones used in private independent
schools, teachers constantly telling students that they could get to university, and having
spaces such as the Leadership Workshop to promote skills for a successful adaptation to
the system, aimed for students to deny the social differences that separated them from
students in private independent schools, and to have high expectations of being in
positions of power in the future.
According to administrators and teachers at Montrose, the school was very
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socioeconomically diverse, as Anna explained:
I have students whose parents can earn U.S. $15,000 a month, and
others whose parents earn, with luck, U.S. $600. I have the two
extremes, so I have to deal with that range.
But this diversity was not used as a starting point to explicitly discuss inequality
in society or discrimination according to class.
The first day of classes revealed a high expectations discourse that contrasted
with the one at Treehill, with the Religion teacher emphasizing that students should
make the best of their gifts and strive for excellence, before guiding a collective prayer
that called to keeping alive their dreams and projects, with a very entrepreneurial
discourse. When addressing the Twelfth grade students, the Principal described them as
a generation that was proud of their capabilities, and eager to achieve success, and he
congratulated last year graduates for their PSU results.
During the Leadership Workshop, Ruby made the expectations of the students
clear:
If you are in this school, your goals are clear: to get to university, be a
manager, have a lot of money... High school students are starting to feel
that the moment is coming where you will have to make a lot of
decisions, you are crafting your vision, to study the career you want and
not the one your score allows you to.
Students described how they felt a lot of pressure, but also high expectations
from teachers to succeed:
Most of the students have high expectations. Sometimes we have so

many evaluations, for example, next week I have six tests. You can feel
the pressure, and you wonder, “Will university be like this?” And
teachers laugh at us and say, “It will be worse.” Since Ninth grade, the
first day of classes they even show you a Power Point presentation with
the GPA and the score it translates to for university. “What university
do you want to attend?” “Católica,” “Then, smarten up.” So early on
they put that pressure on you to be better each day. And you value that.
(Aria)
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High academic expectations were linked to traditional careers, and this was
evident when a head teacher, when discussing scholarships with a Twelfth grade, said,
“No one is going to earn this one: New Millennium Scholarship, for those who want to
study a Technical-Vocational career,” communicating to students that studying such
career would be considered unsuccessful. As the students described, not everyone
managed to adjust to the demands and pressures of the school: “It is not a school for
everyone.”
Discourses and Practices of Self-Expression: Moments of reflection are few.
Students expressed their opinions on inequality when asked about it on interviews, but it
was not a topic that spontaneously came up in class for the most part. The way that
students wanted to defeat their odds was by studying hard and adapting to the system so
that they could climb the social ladder, and that meant focusing on academics rather than
engaging in deep reflection. As Arthur put it, “At the school, everything is fast paced, so
moments of reflection are few, and since they are so few, we have to make the most of
them.” Teachers described the interest of students in current or controversial issues as
lacking:
Depending on the topic of the class, some issues will come up, but it’s
usually me who will present them. But they won’t bring interests from
home, say “Teacher, I saw this documentary.” The other day there was a
documentary on TV, and I told them to watch it, but they had a test next
day, so they preferred to study for the test. So you realize that the
constant academic pressure prevents them from thinking. (Edward)
Generally, a more critical thinking appears in Twelfth grade, maybe

because the curriculum has civics in that grade. They are concerned
with how to pay for university, the Student Movement, work, the
importance of participating in democracy, if they should participate in
elaborating the new Constitution, their rights and duties. Most of them
are very committed to their duties, which is rare on a national level. The
kids have a clear idea of what they should and shouldn’t do. Most of
them want to vote when they turn 18, because they know that’s
important. But in general, the school is pretty dull in terms of critical
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thinking. Students just come here to study, so for anything else they
have no time, or maybe they are not interested or don’t like it. (Arthur)
Students saw the school as providing them spaces for self-expression, but
observations showed that this only took place through the curriculum and in predefined
spaces:
We can provide our opinion in the classroom; or in Orientation, when

we are discussing a topic, they give us the opportunity to express our
opinion, for example, in Ninth and Tenth grade we see the topic of drug
use. We can express our likes, what we want. (Aria)
Aria talked about how she didn’t usually speak up, but when she saw injustices
she had to do it, making sure, this way, that meritocracy was enforced in the space of the
classroom:
The issue of cheating in tests in my class is horrible. Not all the

students, we are 40, but a small group of 5 always copy each other or
get the questions in advance. So once I raised my hand and told, “You
copied, you did this.” I try to bring out injustices into the light, because
I hate injustices. I don’t like that you bust your ass studying and do
worse than someone who didn’t study. It hurts when you make an effort
and you don’t get rewarded for it.
Students tended to avoid discussion in classes, and when I asked students about
the obstacles they saw to improving problems in society, they showed a negative view of
conflict or dissent: “Differences of opinion are an obstacle. You say your opinion and a
fight begins, so just by saying your opinion you are wrong,” “It’s normal that people
have different opinions, but we shouldn’t reach the level of starting a discussion.”
Conflict was also systematically avoided from the top at the school, with the Student
Center and Parent Association being more controlled by the Administration after
students took over the school in 2011, during the Student Movement.
Students were able to customize the space of their classroom, but the kind of
information that they posted was all related to academics: points needed for each
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university, student grades, schedules with test dates, career information, and a
countdown to the university selection test.
Stratified Schools, Curricula, and Citizenship Education: Discipline, doing
things well, respect, responsibility. At Montrose, the focus was on academics, getting to
university, and developing values associated with a meritocratic perspective. CE was
mostly limited to the basic curriculum, and relegated to make space for PSU preparation.
The integral educational mission of the school was mostly implemented through sports
and artistic academies, but there was not much space for student democratic
participation. Students felt that they had opportunities to choose at the school, but the
decisions in which they had a say were limited to academics. Classes were focused on
facts and memorizing, rather than on discussion, and teachers had high expectations of
students knowing the answers. Teachers had an authoritative style, and students
appreciated strict teachers and rigorous classes, but many could not adapt to the high
academic pressure. Teachers did not discuss their political opinion in classes too openly,
and debate was mostly avoided. While some teachers used textbooks, they were not used
at every class, and were supplemented with other reading sources. The educational
mission of the school was defined by Arthur as follows:
I think most teachers at the school try to convey the theme of discipline,
perfection, doing things well, respecting others, respecting teachers,
some basic codes such as honesty, responsibility. These are things that
are transmitted in practice. In most or all classes at the school, things
don’t change that much, there is a thread that is maintained: being
academically strict, planning the classes. This school is structured, it
teaches the classes that are planned, teachers attend their classes, which
are things that don’t happen at other schools. Here you see the mission
of the school embodied, which is the integral formation of the student:
students who graduate from here are very respectful, orderly, educated.
It’s not hard for them to go from school to university. That is the
mission of the school: to form students that get to university as prepared
as possible.
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Another teacher described it as an “Integral Man Project” and focused on social
mobility, with a majority of students hoping to become the first professional generation
in their families.
Students learned the traditional notion of democratic participation through
voting; and alternative forms of participation, such as marches, were not presented as
acceptable, except in the case of defending the school against the Educational Reform.
The Student Movement, in general, was not supported by teachers at the school, and had
little participation from students:
The Student Movement has barely been noticeable at the school,

although we had a takeover in 2011, that could have been motivated by
alumni that were angry at the school or had been expelled, and by
students who participated in the movement outside of the school,
because inside we never had a reflection of any kind to figure out what
the Student Movement was about. Anything that the kids knew came
from outside. Here, you see little participation in political parties, or
free thought. (Edward)
A student described how they appreciated other activities at the school that
encouraged participation, despite the focus on academics:
I don’t know any school that is as good in the academic side, PSU
essays and grades, and that also has high participation of students; I
think’s it’s really hard to have both things, and this school tries to do
both and it works, and while obviously the priority is studies,
participation at the school, with all the activities the school has, is
something that is always fostered.
Ideologically, students at Montrose were presented with the neoliberal approach,
and a religious justification for it, with other views, according to one teacher, presented
as “evil,” or ignored by presenting only one hegemonic perspective without
acknowledging it was an option among many.
When asked about opportunities to express their opinion and develop critical
thinking at school, students assessed their school as giving plenty of opportunities to
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choose, but when expanding on them, it was possible to see that they were limited to
curricular aspects: academic tracks and elective workshops. But for these students, it
was the academic dimension that they saw as the main goal of education and as the
reason for choosing their school, and through this achieve social mobility:
I feel we have different occasions to choose what we like, to express

what we like, because we have a lot of academies we can choose in
sports, arts; and we can choose if we like the Math, Biology or
Humanities track. (Francis)
It depends on the ideals that you have, for example, I set for myself the
goal of getting into university and that is why I came here, but if another
person is not interested in that, they will look for another kind of place,
and it will have another type of activities because we have other
interests; this school is very organized in that sense, it’s like we all have
one focus. (Lane)
There was a strong presence of the Catholic religion in the curriculum and
special ceremonies, but for students this was not as important as academics when talking
about the reasons for choosing or liking the school. From what teachers said, it was also
possible to deduce that religion was in favor of promoting obedience, responsibility and
meritocratic values, more than the religious content per se.
The Leadership Workshop, in its second year of implementation, was a three-
session experience for selected students according to their observed leadership abilities,
aiming to further develop them. During the first session, 170 students from Seventh to
Eleventh grade attended, and the Principal welcomed the students, making the
meritocratic ethos of the school clear: “You are the best and you are called to lead, but
you have to prepare yourselves, it is not enough to have the qualities.” The same was
reinforced in the speech from a teacher: “I congratulate all of you for being here. I
always tell my students that success is 80% willpower and 20% talent, and the fact that
you are here on a Saturday morning shows willpower.” While one of the two hosting
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teachers presented the workshop as an informal and more relaxed space, where they
would play and have a good time, activities were highly structured and students received
a lot of instructions to keep the order, with a micromanaging approach. To work on
identifying leader characteristics, students had to choose from a list of famous
international leaders, with no examples closer to the Chilean or Latin American reality.
Students copied the leaders’ characteristics from their guidebooks, without much
reflection. The teacher used these examples to further emphasize effort: “Mandela,
Martin Luther King sacrificed years of their lives, because they knew they were going to
effect changes.” All of the exemplary leaders were male, with the exception of Margaret
Thatcher, about whom Ruby said: “There are situations where being authoritarian is
necessary, that is why she was called the ‘Iron Lady.’” When asking the students “Do
you know any authoritarian leader?” the teacher only waited one second and moved on
to another topic, as if to prevent any controversial answer. She described the type of
leadership at the school as bureaucratic, with all the rules clearly specified in discipline
manuals. Ruby explained how to become a positive leader: “A leader has to control their
impulses; if they are angry, reflect about the situation (...) Fight for what you think is
right, not with weapons, but with dialogue (...) We Chileans are very good to criticize
everything, but that doesn’t work.” The ideal leader described was one that mainly
avoided conflict and put the emphasis on consensus rather than on critique.
As examples of projects they could lead as students, the teachers mentioned
organizing a charitable campaign, or planning going to university. In these
conceptualizations, it was possible to observe a conservative view of a leader, where
individual goals were central, and they did not radically question the school or society.
The final session of this Leadership Workshop took place in an Event Center
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during a whole day. The event had the feel of a corporate annual retreat, thus working to
prepare students for these situations. The teachers made constant remarks reminding
students to take good care of the place and respect their owners, an order of nuns. Before
starting, there was a power point presentation of the rules for the day, and students were
encouraged to adequately represent the school in their behavior. Throughout the day,
discipline was made explicit by the teachers, for example, when sitting at the table for
breakfast: “Nobody starts eating yet,” “Eat like ladies and gentlemen.”
An Eleventh grade student told me how she was the only “old” student in the
group attending this session, because her five classmates had stopped attending after the
first session, which she explained due to laziness, and added that Twelfth grade students
did not participate because their priority was the upcoming PSU test. Only 88 students
attended this third session, almost a 50% drop in attendance from the first one.
The objectives of this last session were: to recognize the importance of
communication as a leadership tool, to identify the stages in the development of a
project, and to create a feasible and simple project for the school (in the areas of
Homeroom, Academies, or Pastoral Group). During warming up exercises in teams that
would have allowed for students to naturally exercise their leadership, teachers
intervened to help the groups, showing the tendency to heavily guide the students, rather
than providing them with freedom to make their own decisions and solve problems.
When representing different types of leaders and leadership situations, students all chose
classroom situations, reflecting a limited vision of their potential as leaders in their
communities. When performing, it was possible to observe developed rhetoric skills in
the students acting as leaders, but the situations represented involved inconsequential
matters such as deciding to sell pizza or hot dogs to raise money for the class, revealing
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the limited spectrum in which students believed they had a say in.
When students discussed possible areas and problems to develop their projects
for the school, they had many ideas that they later discarded, for being outside the scope
of the instructions (“nothing to do with teachers, or with infrastructure, or the schedule,”
“that can show results in one semester or year”): “We could do something about the
Education Reform,” “But that concerns the government, and we have no say in that;” “I
want to make a social change in the school, for students to be more respectful,” “But we
cannot make a student more polite, because that depends on your home, on how you
were raised,” “But I think it depends on your home and the school;” “That teachers
respect our time during breaks,” “They are too close minded,” “But we can’t change
how a teacher thinks;” “Let’s see what belongs to us: breaks,” “We could have music
during the break,” “But if they put music on we are going to seem flaite,” “And we
cannot put music on because younger students are in class,” “Music can raise your
spirits and all that, but how does it help you study?” Students, sounding defeated, moved
on to smaller proposals, such as getting more microwaves, a ping pong or foosball table,
and having soap in the bathrooms.
The Leadership Workshop at Montrose presented a series of values associated to
leadership, but from an entrepreneurial approach focused on results. More than a real
competition of student projects for the school, it staged a simulation, which taught
students to think on the go and to be confident when presenting to large audiences.
Aligned with what Anderson (2009) sees as a discursive shift promoted by the market-
based and performance-based strategies brought about by neoliberalism, Montrose
students learned to become entrepreneurial leaders, who could make the most of the
opportunities the system offered them, using an individualistic go-get-it mentality.
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In Biesta’s classification, education at Montrose tended to take the form of
socialization, as evident in this workshop, where a positive leader was described as
controlling their impulses, and following the values of the school, which included being
hard working, studious, responsible, autonomous, reflective, sympathetic, honest,
transparent, and available to others.
During a Twelfth grade History class, the teacher showed a didactic style, asked
the students questions about previously memorized facts, with high expectations of
students having learnt those facts, and using sarcasm to make students feel bad when
they did not know an answer. Many historical events were covered in quick succession,
and the class had the style of a game show, which rules you had to know to understand
what was going on, without space to further analyze what each of the historical events
entailed or how they connected to the present, even when the topics called for that
parallel, for example, the description of the four social classes in the 1920’s-1930’s, the
identification of wrongdoings during the election process (with the class taking place
during the month of Municipal Elections), or the mention of the education system during
that period. It seemed like the focus was on covering all the mandatory content that
would be assessed on the PSU test. The teacher asked at one point, “Too much
information?” but it was mostly a rhetorical question. The mass killing of members of
the Socialist National Movement in 1938 was mentioned in passing, as if not requiring
more than a brief line in Chilean History.
The religious patron of Montrose provided a narrative for the school emphasis
on effort and rigor. During the Patron’s Day at the school, students had a reflection on
values during the first period, followed by a Civic Ceremony. Ninth grade students
showed a nostalgic, conservative approach to values when identifying the negative and
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positive aspects of our society. As negative aspects, students identified fear and distrust
in others, not being solidary, not respecting elders: “Nobody gives the seat to grandpas
on the subway anymore;” and a generalized and diffuse feeling of loss of values: “We
are few, you can count us with the fingers in your hand, who maintain values.” A
student expressed that a more authoritarian approach was seen as necessary at times: “In
our parents’ generation, they had more values, it was more authoritarian, which has its
bad side (they don’t let you express yourself), but also a good side (to become a good
person).” The teacher tried to present an alternative view: “Values have changed, I’m
not going to say that they are lost. Sometimes we find values from 30, 40 years ago
attractive, but we have to rescue what we have today, the transgressions that have
allowed changes.” As positive aspects, students described how Chileans come together
to help when there are natural disasters.
The citizenship curriculum was also delivered through the Religion class, where
the teacher explained the economic doctrine of the Catholic Church, and how it
supported a free market perspective. While the teacher pointed out that this was the view
of the church, no alternatives were presented for the students to compare it to. When
asking students about problems that no State could solve by itself, one student answered,
“Immigration,” and no further discussion was had about this issue, even though it is a
pressing concern in Chile nowadays. When compared to Treehill’s religion class, this
one provided students with theoretical concepts and connected religion to economics
and politics, but did not consider the opinion of students as important in arriving to an
understanding of the world, as Treehill students did when discussing situations from
their own context.
Ruby acknowledged that CE was not a priority at the school, commenting on
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some of the elective Academies eliminated this year due to budget cuts, including the
Civic Education and Journalism Academies, with Robotics and Chemistry remaining.
During a Chemistry class, the class seemed to be geared toward a future test,
since there were no examples or possible applications for what students were learning,
which were abstract chemical laws. Finishing the class, the teacher asked, “So are you
clear on where to study from and what you have to do to do well on the test?”
Teachers, similarly than in Treehill, saw both the CE curriculum and the
political engagement of students as having suffered an involution:
I think the lack of citizenship formation is because at the schools they

start to think it’s useless. Everyone says about Civics, “What is it good
for?” Here we celebrate the National Holidays in a grand way, and
behind that there is a lot of work. So sometimes you say, “What is all
this work good for, for just one day? And we start to lose our traditions.
We could perfectly eliminate that celebration and continue having
classes, which are less tiresome than singing and dancing. Here, any kid
from First to Twelfth grade dances cueca beautifully. These are
traditions of this school that we don’t have to lose. When they removed
Civics as a subject, it was because people asked what it was good for.
And now kids don’t even care about politics, they are not interested.
(Anna)
Arthur proposed having Civics starting earlier than Twelfth grade:
To have at least one weekly hour of Civics from Ninth to Eleventh

grade, and not wait until Twelfth grade. Because except for Twelfth
grade, the curriculum has little pointing toward citizenship formation, it
is pretty content-based, at least from Ninth to Eleventh grade. So you
lose three years where the kids could be a little more conscious, a little
more critical, but the curriculum is not done to develop that. Now it’s
very hard to find someone who has a political position, a preference.
Besides, the curriculum is done for kids to have more hours of Science,
Math, so all related to citizenship formation is always reduced to
nothing. That results in the kids having little capacity for critical
judgment.
During classes, students did not have many chances to disagree with teachers or
debate with their classmates, since questions were factual, and in most cases there was a
climate where the teacher held great authority. Students used the more formal pronoun
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usted to refer to teachers, maintaining a more vertical relationship with them. Students
described the ideal teacher as having high expectations, and being academically
demanding, able to maintain the order in the classroom and the attention of students,
conducting hard and rigorous classes, and promoting responsibility.
Teachers did not generally disclose their political opinion to students, since
politics were discussed as more of an abstract matter. Edward saw students as not very
interested in teachers’ political opinions, and was concerned about students buying into
specific ideologies when disclosing his political position:
I don’t reveal my opinion in classes, and that is a more personal policy,

because I’m forming kids, so I’m installing prejudices about the system,
and that isn’t the idea. In fact, no one here at the school knows my
political position, or my political history.
There were other teachers who were more open about their political stance. For
example, during a class, Arthur recognized that he did not like the Popular Front, a
coalition of leftist parties in Spain and France, and referred to some of the achievements
of the Radical Party in Chile ironically, calling the University they created the “Molotov
University” or “Strikes and more Strikes University,” and saying they give you a gas
mask with your enrollment.
When I asked students if they gave their political opinion in class, they
explained that it was mostly the vision of the teacher that predominated, with few
students giving their opinion or making reflections; and when that happened, for
example, when students asked about the Military Coup or Allende’s death, and started a
debate about it, the teacher would change the subject to remain on topic.
Forming Citizens: The goal of this school is to get the kids to university. Edward
described how the focus of the school was clearly on academics: “This school is for one
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goal; if the goal of this school is to get the kids to university, it’s doing well. In terms of
its orientation, it is obsessed with students being successful.” He discussed the
possibility of implementing CE as a cross-sectional goal as utopic, given the many
demands on teachers:
I think it’s utopic; if you look at the programs, they have too many
contents. And if you look at the law, if you are hired for a number of
hours, you are supposed to have a proportional number of free hours for
lesson planning, but this is rarely respected at the school, with teachers
who have 44 hours of classes, and in what moment can they grade their
assessments? So when we have to comply with the curriculum, in what
time can we sit to think, “Here we could add this” to have citizenship
formation.
He also described how this academic and accountability focus made it difficult
to organize activities outside of classes, such as a Debate Group:
Maybe critical conscience wasn’t well developed, because of lack of

time or lack of motivation. And this school has the characteristic of
being very demanding academically, especially in Eleventh and Twelfth
grade. Adapting to those grades is hard. And in Twelfth grade, all they
want is to prepare a good PSU. So when I selected students for the
Debate Group and the Student Center, time was always an issue. There
are weeks where the kids have two evaluations a day every day. So it is
very demanding, and that affects the area of CE, making it a challenge
for the school. I think the curriculum could be connected with CE, but
we are so organized in terms of units, lesson plans, chronograms, that if
you fall behind or interrupt it, it’s a problem.
Arthur agreed on the lack of time to foster student participation:
If we didn’t have an extended school day, and we had fewer classes, we

would have time. But the type of student that comes to this school, and
this is weird, comes to study. It isn’t even a matter of being uninterested,
but of lack of time, so it’s only a few kids that end up participating,
because they feel that participating in a youth group will take time from
studying. But overall, it’s a matter of the school structure that doesn’t
allow more participation. And there is also an important number of
students who are apathetic, they don’t like to participate.
This academic focus was also clear in students’ discourse, seeing artistic and
sports academies as less relevant than other subjects:
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I think some things are unnecessary. I mean... not unnecessary, but I
feel the Academies help to raise your GPA, because it’s easier to have
good grades in them, but they also use up time. I think in Twelfth grade
they are super unnecessary. Maybe, it’s true, they foster arts, sports, all
that, but on top of that we have preuniversity classes in Twelfth grade,
so you have even less time. (Jessie)
Students from the Student Center, when telling their classmates about the
experience of being part of it, mentioned that academics were not negatively affected by
the time spent on Student Center matters. The vice-president put it this way: “If you
have the mindset that you can do two things at the same time, you can. You may say it is
because we are nerds, but the truth is, it doesn’t demand that much time.” But Uma did
identify a conflict between academic duties and their role in the Student Center:
Sometimes when we want to get together, someone has to study,

someone has a class, so it’s hard. Besides, the majority of the Student
Center members are in Eleventh grade, which is a difficult grade, so it’s
complicated. (Uma)
When describing a drawing competition that they organized as Student Center,
Mia identified the conflict between student participation in these activities and
academics, explaining that they had to postpone the contest until after midterms, to get
students to participate.
Students also described how some of their classmates were not able to adapt to
the high academic demands and had to leave the school, because they felt they were not
capable, and that it would be easier to keep a good GPA at a less demanding school.
Aria described how she felt the pressure to perform as early as Third Grade at
the school and how they were overwhelmed by evaluations:
I’ve been in this school my whole life, since First grade. Since you are
little, they try to teach you responsibility. For example, in Third grade,
they emphasize that you have to keep your binder in order, with the files
from all subjects. I used to forget it at home, and teachers reprimanded
me because they said that was the basic instrument to learn. And when
you enter high school, it’s horrible. I used to have a GPA of 5, and now
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in high school I have over 6. And I think it’s in part because they tell
you “OK, now your grades count to apply for university.” And you put
pressure on yourself. And also I’m in Eleventh grade, and the evaluation
calendar is horrible, one test after the other, so if you want to postpone
one, you can’t, because there is always a test the next day. Teachers are
very strict, if you want to postpone a test, they’ll say “No, it’s on the
calendar, and we have seen all the contents, so you have to take it.” So
it’s fundamental for you to be organized.
Other student commented how the PSU was central among their concerns:
We have the PSU test in our minds. At this school they are very
concerned about it. Even in Ninth and Tenth grade they start to worry
about that, and you take PSU essays. They also motivate us to take test
essays outside the school, the ones given by universities.
As a symbol of the pressure felt by students at Montrose regarding their future,
one of the mascots for Students’ Day was a ghost, with the words “PSU,” “Ranking”
and “GPA” written across it.
Discipline Policies and School Climate: We have a rulebook for everything.
At Montrose, an emphasis on uniforms created order and homogeneity at the school, and
contributed to a military feel, together with a large number of rulebooks and procedure
manuals for every situation, and a high level of surveillance with deans using whistles
and walkie-talkies to cover the space. Students appreciated this discipline more than
resisting it, signifying it as a necessary in their path to success, and as an element that
positively distinguished them from students at other schools. There was a discourse of
promotion of dialogue, but monologues from adults to students predominated, with an
authoritarian feel of the teacher-student relationship, fostering obedience from students.
Resistance from students was rarely displayed, and those who engaged in it,
according to the interviewed students, left the school out of their own decision or were
expelled. There were stories told by teachers about students who engaged in the take
over of the school during the 2011 Student Movement, but since then, more control was
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exerted by the administration over Student Centers and Parent Associations to prevent
situations like that. But although students complied with the rules, they expressed how
they felt frustrated about institutional constraints.
Montrose’s discipline manual included a series of specific rulebooks: for
elective and mandatory academies, use of the educational resources center, Student
Centers, and the use of lockers, among others.
Teachers and students described the school as “different” or “special,” with a
strong focus on academics and good behavior of students, both aspects that were
sustained by a series of stated values and a meritocratic ideology:
This school is atypical regarding behavior, what kids do and don’t do,
the way they act, and that escapes where they come from, where they
were born, it is a generalized attitude. Most of the kids at this school
have absolute clarity about hard work as a value, respect, being polite,
having a good personal presentation, responding courteously, getting
along with their peers. For example, it is very rare to have an issue of
bad coexistence, bullying, or harassment. (Arthur)
We have a rulebook for everything. The high level of organization we

have in the school is something the kids love, nothing is improvised,
nothing. All is planned, has a goal, an intention. (Oscar)
Students discussed how strict rules and academics at the school were, but how
they appreciated that:
They control that you are not late, they send a note to your parents and
the third time you get suspended. In that sense, it helps you a lot, with
responsibility, being on time, attending classes. (Rachel)
Deans are very strict; if they see as much as a little lipstick, that is
horrible to them; the same with nail polish, they make you remove it
and send you to the Dean’s office. They are very rigorous with those
matters. (Aria)
I love it, I like that it’s like this. Because sometimes you are on the
street and see a kid with a black hoodie and blue pants and you ask
yourself, “Is he really going to school?” They don’t look like students.
Sometimes they are too strict, but I like that we respect the uniform.
(Jessie)
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The good thing about this school is that it’s rigorous, and if you don’t
adapt to the rules, you leave. If you don’t like it, the doors are wide. I
know it’s all for our own good, in order for us to be cultured and
respectful, but I think sometimes the school goes over the limit, goes to
an extreme, and that is tiresome. (Uma)
Montrose’s discipline manual stated great expectations for students, involving
depth of thought and intelligence, harmonious physical development, commitment to
society and historical events, a sense of service and giving toward everyone, and an
experience of divinity and transcendence to give meaning to their lives. The student
must be “a lover of truth; who struggles happily and optimistically for a better world;
with a commitment to humanity, especially those in need; a dreamer of great ideals for
themselves and the world; a restless worker; and a pursuiter of well done work”. In this
definition, students must search for a preexisting truth, and learn to adapt to the world of
work as efficient, hard workers. The emphasis on optimism when talking about
improving the world prevented a more critical and active stance that questioned existing
systemic arrangements.
At an Eleventh grade class, students had a poster on the wall with their
priorities: “Focus on Academics. Focus on Career. The discipline that characterizes us,”
showing how they had internalized these and how the culture of the school, including
texts, fostered them.
Teachers described students as accepting of the rules and discipline of the
school, and discussed how that allowed them to make their classes in a climate that
promoted learning and respect, in contrast to the reality of other schools.
Kids manage themselves with these rules. The discipline, the imposed
actions, a sense of duty, it is all very restricted by the Deans. Here you
can get 1,300 students to be in silence very easily. It’s very enjoyable to
work at this school, and admittedly there is a very marked discipline in
the sense that you stand in front of the kids and they keep their silence. I
don’t have to be yelling in the classroom. (Edward)
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Deans and teachers explained the rules to students in order for them to
understand the reasons why they were in place, how they helped them become good
citizens, and contributed toward their long-term goal of getting into university. They
expected for students to internalize them and consider them as their own, following the
panopticon principle. It was possible to see how the rules had become part of students’
inner moral compass in many opportunities where they monitored the behavior of their
classmates, promoting strict rule following and trying to keep their classmates from
showing flaite or inappropriate attitudes. Students at Montrose happily engaged in a
surveillance mode, and believed in a narrative of duty and values to guide their
behavior. For example, during an English class, a student called out his classmate for not
working, even when the teacher was not paying attention to them, and after the other
student continued playing with his cell phone, he insisted, “Remember how last time
you got a demerit,” which prompted the student to work on his activity guide.
During the Student Center elections, discipline was very explicitly exerted by
the exiting Student Center, giving students instructions to remain in their corresponding
lines and telling them how to vote, in the context of a voting exercise that very much
mimicked the process of voting in municipal and presidential elections in the country in
terms of procedures and surveillance. Students appeared empowered in their role as
leaders, but the authoritarian discourse they used showed that this was a successful case
of deans distributing their own power.
Solving conflicts among students usually took the form of a dialogue mediated
by the Head Dean. I observed a mediation between two Third grade students who had
been involved in a fight. But there was no dialogue between the students, with a
unidirectional conversation where the Dean tried to convince the students not to hit each
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other in the future, and instead tell an adult if anything similar happened again. Students
agreed to do so, without room for much discussion.
Students differentiated between two types of teachers: strict and laissez-faire,
valuing much more the former, and they behaved accordingly, feeling more freedom to
engage in non-related activities (although, for the most part, academic) during classes
with less strict teachers, especially when having to study for a test in other subject.
When the bell rang, students swiftly returned to class if they were on break, or
changed rooms stopping by their lockers, in what looked like a coordinated school-wide
ballet that did not take more than three minutes. If any student seemed to be too slow to
go back to class, a dean would come and say something to speed them up. This was tied
to a discourse of efficiency and hard work at the school, where anything outside the
scope of the planned activities was deemed as wasting time.
At the school, there was a highly structured vigilance system, which the
Head Dean described:
These walkie-talkies are very useful, because the school is so big. To

complement that, deans carry whistles, because for example, if you see
that there are students in the fourth floor when they should be
downstairs, you blow the whistle and the student immediately knows.
But it’s a way to call on them, to be somehow in control. Deans are
responsible about classes never being left alone, because things can
happen in a second. Teachers are strictly forbidden from leaving a class
alone. And we have to always follow protocol; the dean who does not
apply it gets reprimanded.
In these declarations, the lack of trust in students and the adultist perspective at
the school were revealed, which prevented students from organizing autonomously.
Students also described this high vigilance at the school, which did not seem to bother
them, and which they understood as a way of keeping them safe:
In other schools, students get attacked in the bathroom and deans don’t
do anything, they prefer to look the other way. Here, try and do
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something. (Peter)
Even if we are just messing around; I can push someone as a joke, and
deans can suspend you. (Nate)
Similar than in Treehill, students saw Montrose as having a better climate and
discipline when compared with surrounding schools:
The climate there [referring to his previous school] compared to the one
here is totally different. People there, and I don’t want to discriminate,
but they were very different people; also, my class didn’t even have
class government. When I got here it was new for me that they had
Student Center elections. When I voted for the first time it was like,
“Wow, I have to vote.” Here, teachers also give you a lot of support,
they motivate you to study, I feel supported in this school regarding
being better. (Francis)
Although there was a strong “no bullying” discourse, and students described the
school as having a good climate, it was possible to observe that a culture of being
“tough” was promoted in different ways. For example, students would get bullied by
some of their teachers and receive irony from them, but signified this as preparing them
for life, which they expected would be harder after they graduated from school. As Aria
put it:
Yeah, teachers are kind of sarcastic in that sense, they make fun of you
too, but obviously it’s not, “Oh, the teacher said this to me, I’m gonna
tell.” But teachers will always tell you that you are lazy, that you are
going to be nothing in life, but obviously it’s not that that will happen,
but they say it like that for you to get scared and do things. So it’s not
that they are being cruel, but we need people who tell it to you like it is.
Here teachers are very… they don’t mince their words to say things, and
that’s very good.
As another example of the “tough” and “macho” culture promoted at the school,
a dean made a remark to a teacher implying that he was being too “soft” and “womanly”
in his efforts to get the students to stay in line to vote during the Student Center election.
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The Lista Negra or Black List15 at Montrose, although it did not imply violent
behavior, was naturalized, but with some oversight from teachers. According to Anna:
They publish a Black List, but since they know each other for so many
years, they publish the list and it’s nothing more than that, highlighted
nicknames or characteristics, but not offensive, because they ask me
first. And I tell them to publish it, but I don’t want the kids to feel
offended, or have parents complaining. Obviously, some have issues
just with being on the list, but it doesn’t go beyond that.
Students were expected to take their descriptions on the list lightly, as a joke.
And the same, as Oscar stated, went for online harassment. More than a matter of
punishing bullies, the discourse was that you should have thick skin if you decided to
use social media, from a victim-blaming stance:
Sometimes there are websites online where your participation is

voluntary, if you want you go and sign up for them. But if you go into
that, don’t be making allegations later, because sometimes they would
say: “They are bullying me, I’m suffering school harassment on that
website!” OK, but why did you sign up for it. “No, because in the
beginning it was entertaining.” But if no one forced you, why did you
sign up. Identifying who is doing the bullying is hard. It also involves
the family, it is a complex matter for us, but it doesn’t happen a lot,
because we warn them. Especially in high school, if you sign up for
them, then don’t complain, because in the beginning they may like you,
but at some point the insults and threats and all that will begin. So you
have to know that, and have very thick skin so all they are saying about
you in there doesn’t affect you.
In general, it was possible to see a helpful attitude among students, as when two
female students approached the dean, with one saying for the other “Someone threw a
juice box to her face,” which the dean dismissed as not important; and when two male
students approached the secretary, with one saying for the other: “He has a tummy
ache.” Accordingly, students described very little cases of bullying at the school:

15
Listas Negras are a common practice in Chilean schools where graduating students put up a list with the
names of students who they deemed worthy of being hazed at some unknown point before the year ends, for
some action or physical characteristic that they did not appreciate (sometimes posted along their names).
Possible forms of hazing include humiliating tasks such as having to panhandle, or having their hair dyed or
cut.
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I’ve never seen a case of a girl suffering bullying or something like that.
Other than the typical case of a student teasing another one that you see
in every school. But teachers help us a lot in that sense, even to the
extreme of having expelled a student because of it. But here you don’t
see it that much, because when you become older, you talk it out: “Hey,
it bothers me when you do this.” (Aria)
Yet, a teacher mentioned cases of students that had left the school because they
were bullied and received no support from the school, adding that there was no real
conflict resolution at the school, where representatives from the students participated.
On this matter, an Eleventh grade student approached me to talk about how she had
suffered bullying in earlier grades and developed depression because of it, but that she
was satisfied with how the school dealt with it, disciplining the other student.
Gender stereotypes influenced the way teachers communicated with students. A
male Physical Education teacher encouraged the girls running during an evaluation to “run
at their own rhythm,” to “smile,” and to “stop thinking of the breakup with her boyfriend;”
and the boys, to “think of their girlfriend” to go faster, and to “show all of your medals,
champion.” The History teacher used the fact that a Twelfth grade female student was
distracted to go on a rant about historical sexism and how that had changed, but making
the student feel bad for being a woman by expressing a number of gender stereotypes:
You are looking at your hair, you have split ends. Keratin, Pantene,
Tresemmé, they are all good. Paradoxically, women voted in mass for
Ibáñez because he gave them brooms, as a symbol that he would sweep
away politicians and corruption. What could he give them now? For
them to be sporty, smart, have topics of conversation, to solve problems
on their own, not to act psycho with their boyfriends. And to men, he
could give: being clean, not being jealous. The girls know the market
isn’t good in Chile, they have probed the market... you can take
advantage of the offers at Kayak.com.
Regarding sexual orientation, students did not see it as causing bullying or other
issues at the school, as Jessie put it, “Sexual orientation is not an issue, in fact, you don’t
see fights here because of that, well, you don’t see fights for any reason.” Teachers, on
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the other hand, were more aware of the need for supporting the students in this matter.
As Anna explained:
I think students who have another sexual orientation, those are not
topics that we discuss, and we should, because in the last years,
everyone has come out of the closet, and these are topics we need to
deal with because they are heavy. For me, at least, that I’m old, it’s hard
for me to see two girls together, because before you did not see it as
much as today, and you can see it here, two girls together, two boys
together, but it hasn’t opened a conversation. We don’t have spaces for
support around the topic.
Biopolitics of Civic Ceremonies: Rituals of Embodied Boredom: Nobody
pays attention. Every monthly civic ceremony at Montrose involved a choreographed
formation, where students orderly came down from their classrooms, guided by their
teachers, and stood in formation, in two lines per class, for male and female students,
and then returned to their classrooms maintaining those lines, in a specific order called
out by the Head Dean. This order was considered an important part of the CE of
students. As Arthur put it when describing the process of elections:
It is very orderly, I don’t know how it might be at other schools, but if

you let the kids come down on their own, participate on their own; if
they want, they go; if they don’t want, they don’t go... in the end, it
becomes a charade. That is, at least, the stance of the school, which I
share. If you don’t guide their participation, kids won’t give it the
importance it has, and won’t learn about civic formation. The only way
kids learn is for them to assume it as a duty more than as an opportunity
to waste time.
While performative resistance during ceremonies was not as evident as in
Treehill, there were occasions where students would talk among themselves or laugh
discreetly at the readings or performances. When asked about civic ceremonies, students
acknowledged that the school had too many of these. Aria described students’ attitude
toward these ceremonies negatively:
I think sometimes they don’t care about what’s happening on stage.

Because the audio doesn’t work well, nobody pays attention, unless it is
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something showier, such as a dance. Besides, they celebrate everything:
Workers Day, Day of this and that, because each class has a topic and
prepares something.
Even a teacher made fun of the large number of civic ceremonies they had,
when he asked: “Is there anything going on this week? Groundhog Day? Turkey Day?
Pig Day?”
Even the most relaxed ceremony, Students’ Day, had an aura of order,
competitiveness and orientation to results, since the six rival Alliances had to wear a
specific color to show their membership, and gathered points for different activities
(group dances, sports, challenges), adding those points to the ones earned during
National Holidays celebrations, in a year-long competition. The teachers acting as hosts
tried to keep the groups in their designated areas throughout the day, with phrases such
as “Control your classmates” or “Go back to your areas.” If you were not a part of the
dances or the sports games, this celebration involved a very passive role, where you
were limited to staying in order with your color-coded group, move across the patio to
make room for the different activities, and cheer when instructed to do so.
World Environment Day was celebrated with a civic ceremony organized by
Fifth grade. Students read the Chief Seattle’s letter to the U.S. President saying that no
one can buy or sell the land, which contradicted the privatization promoted by the
neoliberal model, which the school upheld in its curriculum and in its stance against the
educational reform closing private-subsidized schools.
The Music Academies Gala was a very formal affair, with the cafeteria
decorated for the occasion with flower arrangements, and a stage set for performances.
Teachers wore elegant outfits and most of the students presenting had made an extra
effort to look polished for their performance, which was more evident in the case of the
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girls, with braids and ornaments in their hair, and makeup, as if the ceremony called for
the intensification of gender roles. Parents attended the ceremony dressed formally.
Students seemed very anxious, saying things like “I’m afraid” or “It’s going to sound
horrible.” Teachers reminded students not to play with their instruments while they were
sitting listening to the other performances. Many of the songs played were from militant
leftist artists, but there was no reflection about why they were chosen, once again
showing how discourses during civic ceremonies could be in evident conflict with the
school ideology, implying that you were not to take them seriously.
Student Centers and the Simulacrum of Democracy: A space to participate
in and organize activities. The Student Center Statutes at Montrose understood the
students as not-yet-citizens, giving them a limited role within the school:
To collaborate with the Principal motivating the students to experience

their learning process and personal development by taking ownership of
the school spirit, actively participating in the school community,
fulfilling their youth role, and living educational, sports, cultural and
communitarian experiences with a sense of communion and personal
growth.
An emphasis on “unity and harmony” when “solving problems regarding
student needs” in the statutes prevented dissent on the part of the students. The “clear
sense of identification with the spirit of the school” required to be a Student Center
officer reinforced the agreement on the part of the students with the existing norms,
signifying it as commitment to a shared identity. The statutes specified that any Student
Center decision regarding monetary funds over U.S. $40 must be approved by the
advisor teacher and the Principal; and that any matter that is discussed in ordinary
assembly sessions by the officers with the students had to be previously approved and
included in the annual work plan, preventing any consideration of students’ opinions and
projects arising after that.
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Student Center members highlighted how their participation taught them to
organize their schedules, to speak up, and allowed them to prove to themselves and
others that they could do many things successfully. Two students described these self-
improvement goals for participating in the Student Center, with one of them also seeing
it as a gateway to future political participation:
I saw the Student Center as a way to grow personally, more than having
a community vision. Because I was very withdrawn, I would give my
opinion only if they asked me. And when I first entered the Student
Center I was ashamed to stand in front of a class, but I remember when
we had to present our proposals, it went away, and I’ve learned a lot of
things, I’ve improved myself. (Nate)
I have always liked to organize events, things, all that. I am very

motivated, and I have a voice. The Student Center allows you to
develop character, to grow, you have a lot of roles and activities that
make you grow as a citizen and that will be useful when we graduate, in
University, where they also have Student Centers, and that is bigger,
and since I’m doing this now, obviously I will want to participate in that
or in other things in the future. (Alexa)
Similarly as in Treehill, students saw mostly personal benefits of participating in
the Student Center, but with a more long-term horizon. Students’ participation in the
Student Center was not to question the existing system, but a way to practice formal
civic engagement, including practices that they identified as important, such as voting or
helping others. Student Center members showed a sense of duty in participating in the
different opportunities offered by the school (sports, religious celebrations, school
ceremonies), and in doing things for others, aligned with a perspective of personally
responsible and participatory citizenship. The fact that their projects did not propose
significant changes to the school could be explained because of them seeing the school
as having no major aspects to improve, or because of the bureaucratic process for a
proposal of the Student Center to be accepted by the Principal.
Montrose teachers described students’ participation in the Student Center,
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election process and civic ceremonies as a form of guided involvement, a simulation, or
a way of practicing democracy for the future. As a teacher put it: “They vote as if it were
a real election.” Students were not seen as political actors now nor was the school seen
as a political space, as revealed by teachers mentioning that students usually needed an
adult leader guiding them, did not have that many leadership positions outside the
school, and were somewhat disconnected from their neighborhoods; or that when
involved in politics outside the school, they did not show this at the school:
Here in the neighborhood it’s hard for them to be leaders, because the
school is like a bubble; if they do not have the teacher leading, they are
lost; they are used to a more present teacher leadership. (Ruby)
During 2006 and 2011, there was more movement on a local level, and
kids would go as a Student Center to participate in assemblies about the
Educational Reform. But besides that, there aren’t that many
opportunities for participation. (Arthur)
Anna acknowledged an evolution of the Student Center’s role within the school,
within the boundaries that the academic focus imposed:
It’s been a process, albeit slow. Every year, they have achieved more,
looking for spaces, participating in School Councils, which they didn’t
do before; with the students feeling that the president is their
representative. They want to have more participation, and the Principal,
while he doesn’t have an open door policy, is very welcoming, so if a
kid from any level has a concern, they can go and tell him; whether he
will say yes or no that’s another matter, but if the Principal says no, they
understand it or give their argument. Because kids here are good at
arguing, we teach them that. And now the Student Center has its articles,
norms, everything is specified. Before they were always out of the
classroom organizing things, now they do it in specific time slots. And
they have achieved things, like getting more microwaves for the
cafeteria, the girls being able to use pants, not using the apron, having
toilet paper and soap in the bathroom, using a t-shirt instead of a
buttoned-down shirt. (Anna)
The 2015 Student Center bought soap dispensers, and one of the lists for 2016
proposed a renewed focus on the bathrooms, to improve the availability of soap.
Bathrooms were an arena of struggle and resistance at schools, involving basic rights,
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biopolitics and control. Student Centers at Montrose and Parkside made improving the
bathrooms a part of their proposals, and in Treehill, bathrooms appeared as an important
space in conversations with teachers. These micro-level struggles that involved the
personal dimension showed that resistance always appeared at schools, in this case in
regards to a space students seemed to have a little more ownership of compared to the
classroom. Anna explained: “To us, these things may seem banal, but for them they are
important, and they have achieved them because they have been able to present good
arguments.”
But, on the other hand, students from the 2016 Student Center revealed their
frustration stemming from the institutional limitations they found, expressing that they
did not feel comfortable with the “guided” approach that teachers and administrators
described as most effective. While students did not manifest active resistance to broaden
the power of the Student Center, they admitted their defeat in terms of carrying out the
projects that they had developed, and in motivating the students to participate. Students
let me know that some activities like talks from professionals for career orientation, or
from health educators to promote good habits, or from people from different social
classes to know different realities, were not able to be implemented. It was precisely
these proposals that the vice-president had referred to as “mature, important,” in
comparison with thematic parties, during their campaign. As students described:
Being in the Student Center is hard, because you need the participation
from the students, and at the school they are very irresponsible, because
we were worried about informing through all social media, the bulletin
board, and then they said, “Oh, I never knew about that, when was it?”
And then we would get reprimanded, and that worked against us,
because they limited the projects we could implement. It came a
moment where there was so much pressure that I felt like quitting,
because the support from the school isn’t much, I feel like we are alone,
and to add to that, the criticism from the students, that we don’t do
anything and things like that... it’s too much pressure, and on top of that
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the academic pressure of the school. (Uma)
What being in the Student Center taught me was understanding the

pressure of having a high position, and how difficult it is, because even
when you want to help and give your best, they put too many
restrictions. (Phil)
There are things that the school is very restrictive about, I don’t know if
it is because of fear of parents complaining, or that there could be an
accident, I don’t know. They will say, “How boring is the student
Center,” but they put too many restrictions, so it’s hard to do things.
(Jessie)
At the State of the Union of the 2015 Student Center, the president of the
Student Center criticized students for their lack of participation in the various activities
that they organized during the year, telling them about the effort they had made to wake
up early on Saturdays to come to the school for sports leagues, and how they spent
money on prizes that could not be awarded.
Edward, having previously held the role of Student Center Advisor, recognized
a lack of democratic participation from the students, something Arthur, the current
Student Center Advisor, concurred with.
Generally, the activities organized by students are in three areas:

cultural (literature, arts), sports, and the emphasis each Student Center
wants to imprint on the party, where they have to do a better party than
the previous Student Center. Those are the areas, but they are lacking
participation, they haven’t been incorporated into the institutional
dynamics, for example, during graduation, the president doesn’t speak,
he doesn’t send off the students. They don’t participate in the academic
award ceremonies each semester. So the president is only a title, the
Student Center is only a title, but their participation is still very guided.
(Edward)
In terms of democracy, the school doesn’t have that many spaces for
democratic participation, I’m not saying it’s a dictatorship or something,
but it’s not a school where you can say “Oh, what a level of
participation.” In fact, the Student Center, more than a space for
democratic participation, here it’s conceived as a space to participate in
and organize activities. It’s also a matter of the school structure, because
the school is very academic, so the students don’t have much time to be
organizing democratic activities in which to participate. Participation in
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the school is very guided, because it’s assumed as a duty to participate
in the elections, in the competitions they organize, in the projects of the
Student Center. That is the kind of democracy that exists in the school, a
very particular kind of democracy, it’s not like participation is optional.
Projects are mainly for the students to have fun and relax, because they
are supposedly stressed out with academic stuff. (Arthur)
When I asked students about what they would like the Student Center to
propose, their imagination seemed contrived by the already existing rules, only coming
up with “being able to have lunch on the grass field once a week or once a month,”
which was a privilege exclusive to Twelfth grade.
Similar to the scope of action provided to the Student Center, Ruby described
how the final projects developed by the students in the Leadership Workshop needed to
be brought back to reality, because they were too vast (“they want to change everything,
change the world”), or involved areas that were “not of their competence” (“they don’t
realize that there are things that the Principal or the Student Center have to do”), such as
a proposal to have an Art Room, or modify the schedule.
Homeroom Period: Student Leadership: It’s mostly used to complete your
homework. The Twelfth grade Homeroom period I observed was conducted by the
teacher, who gave students instructions for their upcoming visit to a Career Fair. She
advised students to make the most of the services provided, and went on to deal with
housekeeping issues that did not involve important decisions. Students seemed
distracted finishing a Math activity guide. During the Orientation hour, the teacher
provided students detailed information about scholarships for universities, and students
were told that applications for those scholarships would be made during class hours, so
teachers could help them.
Some of he topics they addressed in Orientation, according to students, included
sexual education, risk behavior prevention, career orientation, the university selection
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test, and socioemotional aspects. Edward synthetized the functioning of the hours of
Orientation and Homeroom at Montrose, emphasizing the guided quality of these
spaces:
In fact, both Orientation and Homeroom are directed by the teacher,

you’ll never see the class officers in the front of the class, except for
rare occasions.
Aria, who was class vice-president in Eleventh grade, described her role as
focused on academics:
The president is more concerned with organizing activities, and I am

more concerned with academics; I despise lazy people, I need people to
be motivated because their futures are on the line. During Homeroom
period, we will tell the students, “What’s your opinion?” “Come on,
guys, look at your grades.” So we try to motivate the class.
Students acknowledged the secondary importance they gave to Homeroom
period, how they used it to complete their homework or study for tests that they had on
that day:
Although they are opportunities for participation, the school provides

them, but we don’t take advantage of them. (Alexa)
In Orientation, they try to implement that citizen motivation, but the

class is disregarded, since it doesn’t have a grade, no one pays attention,
they are doing other things. But I think you cannot reinforce
participation, because it would go against the school, since the focus is
on academics, it is preferable to get good grades than to be attentive
during Orientation or Homeroom. Sometimes they do talks in the
library, and they ask for students’ opinions, but they don’t give it. The
space in Orientation and Homeroom to give your opinion is also there,
but it’s not used. In the Presidents Council it’s the same. We give them
information, we ask for their opinion, if they liked what we did, if they
didn’t like it, if we can improve, anything, but they don’t talk. (Peter)
Participation in Politics and Groups: I don’t choose any party, none of that
appeals to me. Montrose students also declared themselves “apolitical,” but from a
closer knowledge of the political left and right than in Treehill, especially when having
experienced strong political affiliations at home. But they did talk about wanting to have
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leadership roles, as when the students described their participation in the Leadership
Workshop as a good experience in terms of helping them become better leaders and
“having more personality” to stand in front of an audience.
Students’ political interest was somewhere in-between when compared with
Treehill and Parkside students, with family participation in politics not being common,
as teachers described:
A lot of kids that graduated from this school and are now in university,
were the first ones with a professional education in their homes. So,
their families don’t have an intellectual formation that allows them to
assume an active social stance. In fact, one kid that is studying Law, and
has no one from his family in a political party... his mom came to talk to
me and said: “Where does he get this from?” A social conscience. But
we don’t have families supporting that, because resources are scarce at
home, in the majority of cases, so possibilities of participating in this
and that, with the level of academic pressure the kids have, they have no
time and no money. And parents lack the cultural capital to foster that
social conscience. And as a school, it seems this is convenient for us,
honestly. (Edward)
No one teaches them anything, at home they don’t talk about politics,
there is no one to show them a different view. For them, everyone is a
crook, so they don’t want to go into that. So they see politics as
something for older people, and say they are not interested. (Anna)
Some students at the Student Center had politicized families, but preferred to
abstain from that kind of political involvement, or had families that explicitly
disengaged from politics:
At home, my grandmother loves with her life anything communist, she

is a communist to death. So she goes to party meetings, union meetings,
and I go with her. When I was little, I went to Human Rights marches,
and all those things. So at my house, we have always talked politics.
But for that same reason, I feel I don’t care much about it now, I don’t
want to get involved, I know a lot about the Communist Party and the
Right, and I don’t like them. So I’m kind of neutral. (Alexa)
In my family, it is very present. My grandfather was a cop, so he always

supported Pinochet. And he died, but now my grandmother is against
Communism. My father takes this all lightly, he supports Pinochet, but
he has a portrait of Pinochet, and when a visit comes to the house who
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supports the left, he turns the portrait around and it has a picture of
Allende. So it’s a joke for him. My mother’s family takes it more
seriously, and my dad enjoys making them fight. I stay out of that, I just
watch the show from afar. (Nate)
In my house, politics are not a topic. They are more concerned about the
soap opera. My father doesn’t like to vote, he says, “If no one goes to
vote anyway.” (Peter)
Voting and being informed to make the best choice were the main forms of
participation students saw as available for citizens to effect change in society. Some
students declared disliking political parties, but admitted they would be interested in
working on a more local level in a political capacity. Peter explained,
In that sense, I am apolitical, I don’t choose any party, none of that

appeals to me. But I would go into politics to serve, to do something for
this country, and change things from within.
Students assessed Chilean politicians as taking advantage of citizens and
disregarding their social class:
Politics are a very controversial topic, because everyone has a different

opinion, and corruption is always present, it’s a very murky world, I
don’t like it. (Jessie)
Only few people go to vote, there is lack of trust in politics, in the

people in power, people don’t believe in anyone because they do not
fulfill their promises, so why will you go to stand in line all day to vote
if then the candidate is bad. People don’t want to lose their time,
because they have other things to do. Politicians make me angry,
because they don’t want to raise the salaries of workers, but they can
spend money on things like putting up a special kind of safety window
to protect the Congress officers from the audience. I think the
authorities only worry about themselves and what they think, and they
don’t consider the opinions of the real people. They are always
concerned about the upper class and the lower class, the poor. But what
happens with the middle-class, they abandon it. (Uma)
They also saw people as uninterested in participating both in politics and in their
communities:
Recently they had an assembly about the Constitution, and that was an
opportunity to participate, but not many people participated. Also, when
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they have to vote, not everyone goes, so we are lacking participation:
neighbors associations, going to talk to your Municipality, knowing
your Municipal government. There are also a lot of events done in
public areas of the neighborhood. (Peter)
Students did not disclose their political affiliation at the school. As a teacher put
it: “I’ve always had students that participated in political parties, but they don’t bring
their militancia (adherence) to the school.” Students concurred with this view: “In the
school you don’t see much politics.”
Arthur, when asked about what kind of participation he fostered in students,
explained:
Participating in an activity outside the school, a youth group, Scouts, a

religious group. Some kids participate in church, but something beyond
getting together with a group of friends. The other thing is for them to
vote when they graduate, fulfill their duties. In Twelfth grade, I always
emphasize the military service for male students, so they know that they
have to comply with that or when they can skip it, know what their
citizen responsibilities are, why they have to pay taxes, why it’s wrong
to falsify information, how it affects the community. I think that
together with emphasizing rights, they have to know their duties.
Anna talked about making an effort to promote leaders in her class:
I try to bring out leaderships, these kids that you know you have to
potentiate. And I make them campaign to be president, vice-president. I
have a Student Center vice-president that is the best student in the
school, so she has to develop her character, make herself heard.
Montrose students, in general, disagreed with the means of struggle chosen by
the Student Movement, which they found violent, but recognized their potential to call
the attention of the authorities:
In marches, there is a large number that just goes to cause disturbances,

and they have nothing to do there, they don’t even know why they are
marching; that’s the flaite group. (Phil)
I don’t like marches and those things, because it becomes chaos, it is

never quiet, never peaceful. (Jessie)
I don’t like protests because students are good to complain, but their
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quality as students is bad, they come to the school just to sit, so it’s
weird that they ask for quality education. But it’s a good thing that the
authorities listen to the people’s opinion. But some marches go to
extremes, and the cops have to intervene. I like peaceful marches, where
people walk with signs, so the media shows it and the authorities realize
that people want something. (Uma)
Marches end up being violent, but they always have good intentions,
they aim to say what the people want, but they are misunderstood.
(Carlie)
Frank described the lack of interest on the part of the students in analyzing the
Student Movement in depth: “Maybe as the news of the week, they will talk about the
Student Movement, but not many are interested or give their opinion.”
It was possible to see a contrast in teachers claiming that students had no
political knowledge or conscience, when the students revealed awareness of the Chilean
political landscape, but had made a choice not to become involved in politics, whether
formal or informal.
Students experienced getting to know other realities through organized
voluntary work, but did not have the opportunity to critically reflect about it, focusing
on the act of volunteering as a once-a-year event, as part of a Solidarity Week where all
classes visited different social organizations (schools, retirement homes, youth centers).
Eleventh graders visited a home for the elderly, who attended different activities to keep
them active both physically and cognitively. Students helped the service personnel in the
kitchen, removed weeds from the garden, and cleaned a room used for exercises. After
an hour, those tasks were mostly done, and it seemed the activity was more symbolic
regarding those practical aspects, but students also prepared a bingo and dancing
performances, and engaged in conversations with the elderly.
These activities were described by Arthur as part of the school’s work to promote
values:
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That is the best opportunity for the kids to share, to develop values, to
address the solidary aspect. There is also a big group who participates in
Pastoral activities, they go to walks, and once a year they bring food to
a home nearby. In that sense, the solidary aspect is much more present
than the democratic aspect.
Oscar concurred with the impact that these activities had for students, as an
opportunity for them to see other realities and value theirs, more than as an opportunity
to question the system that sustains inequality:
The experiences students have are deep. Some cry when they see real
life situations of living in homes, of some kids, or pregnant teenagers,
and they have to face those realities that are shocking for them, because
they haven’t lived them.
Jessie, from the Pastoral group, described the reasons she had to enter this
school organization:
I went into the Pastoral group because my family is very religious. It’s
very entertaining, everyone thinks we are like nuns or saints, but we are
very dynamic, we get together to eat, we have a close relationship with
the teacher. And I love helping, the solidary field trip, we help a lot with
that, we collect the merchandise from the elementary school kids. We
also help in a home, and I like that part a lot, sharing with other people,
knowing their reality.
Some teachers claimed Montrose students were not involved in many groups
outside of the school, but as one student explained, they considered they did not have
real opportunities for participation in their neighborhood:
I think the Municipality should do things like... It’s always the same
groups: Neighbors Associations, mothers, grandmothers knitting, doing
pottery, and those things, but they don’t worry about the youth, about us
having a space to motivate us to participate in politics, for civic
formation, for people to be more informed and know how the
government works. Or spaces for recreation, like story telling or music
concerts for kids.
Regardless of the perception of low participation from teachers, students did
mention a significant number of memberships in groups, with them seeing value in their
participation: Scouts, Taekwondo Instructors Program, orchestras, religious groups,
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chorus, Kumon math program, and in the case of the Student Center members, they
mentioned a special relationship with the Pastoral group at the school, helping them with
activities such as walks, the chorus, or doing charity work, even if some of them
declared themselves as non religious, because they saw it as “a matter of the common
good, of participation, beyond religion and ideology.” Being part of a school group
became part of students’ identity, as signified by the special t-shirts and hoodies students
from the Pastoral group and the Student Center made for themselves, and which they
were allowed to wear daily, as a way for other students to recognize them.
Members of the Student Center described other memberships they had that
involved them with the community and allowed them to exercise a leadership role:
I’m in a club where I play basketball, and they also have a directive, and
I’m there as a vice-president too, so we organize games, or runs to help
the community, things like that. (Alexa)
We train Taekwondo, both inside and outside the school. It’s an

academy, which involves a community, it also has a hierarchy, you need
to have values, respect, you have an influence within the academy. It’s a
group of people who organizes for different goals. (Mia)
In the Instructors Program we are being prepared to be instructors when

we reach the black belt, so we organize for tournaments, exams, help
others so they perform well. It’s great that the community involves 50-
year-olds to 10-year-old kids, so you need to know how to talk to each
one, because an older person can take it badly, like a critique. (Carlie)
The Head Dean described how students in the Red Cross group had a special
role when they performed simulations of evacuations of the PISE (Integral School
Security Plan) at the school, where they also worked with the theater group in the drills.
Anna explained the ethos she tried to communicate to students, which involved
different kinds of engagement with others, as a way to counter the exclusively academic
focus that predominated at the school:
I try to communicate to the kids that they always have to aim for five
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things: First, to have a romantic partner, it doesn’t matter if they last a
week; second, to practice a sport, because that gives you life; third,
belong to a group: in their church, a Scouts group, a Trekking group,
but belong to a group; fourth, visit their family, their grandparents, that
is very important; and finally, have time for yourselves. I think that
makes a whole, because a student that only studies is no good for me,
because he will be a nerd that will get to university and when they ask
them to critique what is happening in society, they will have no idea.
But while teachers and the school tried to foster this integral perspective, there
was a shared identity among all students centered on getting good grades, going to
university, and being successful. As they put it: “We are all a little nerdy.” Being a
Montrose student worked as a powerful identity that was both classed and academic,
related to excellence and meritocracy. This is why, when she called her peers to join the
Student Center, the exiting president said: “You need to have the name of the school
tattooed on your forehead, cry when you hear the school hymn.”
How the School Relates to the Community. The “Bubble” Metaphor: The
reality of the school is a bubble. Students’ relationship with the surrounding
neighborhood was one of fear, and school efforts were focused on safety: promoting in
the students preventive behavior such as walking in groups to avoid being robbed, and
answering quickly to protect them and file a report in case of them suffering a robbery.
Yesterday, we were walking a few blocks from the school and the cops
were chasing a thief, and caught him. I think if we had been there a few
minutes before, we could have been victims. (Rachel)
I am confined in my house, I don’t go out, the neighborhood is bad; my

street is very quiet, but on the street behind it everything happens:
shootouts, drug trafficking, all bad. (Jessie)
Montrose students wanted to get out of their neighborhood as soon as possible;
they saw themselves as better than the neighborhood, in which the school was seen as an
“island” of excellence. As Anna put it: “The reality of the school is a bubble compared
to other realities; in other schools, there’s a lot of bullying, kids don’t respect teachers.”
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The students saw the school as comparatively better both academically and in terms of
school culture and climate, compared to other schools in the neighborhood:
This school is different from many schools in the neighborhood; in fact,

it stands out. I met with a friend and told her I was in this school, and
she said “Oh, that’s the school for kids with money,” and that we were
different. The school I used to go to was very flaite, kids used to fight
everywhere, they played hooky, and you don’t see that here. In fact, the
most flaite student here is a wimp there. (Jessie)
I think it’s an achievement for the school having a good performance

considering where it is, because it’s surrounded by delinquency, but you
don’t see that inside the school, compared to other schools. (Peter)
Edward commented on how students’ households also promoted keeping them
in a “bubble” state, with energies focused on the immediate economic urgency rather
than in analyzing societal problems:
In their families, economic resources are scarce; the kids live in an

imposed “bubble,” not of freethinking, but where if there is an
emergency in the house, they have to help, or otherwise they have to
study, because the school costs them.
Arthur agreed with the limited horizons that students had in terms of what
happened beyond their neighborhood:
I would like for students to get out of the school, so they get to know the
world. Most students don’t even go to parties. From their house to the
school, and from the school to their house. Generally, in their
neighborhood, they don’t have much contact with the people who live
there. If you send the kids anywhere outside the radius of where they
live, they get overwhelmed, because they don’t know how to get there.
Regarding the participation of parents at Montrose, Edward described it as
excessively guided:
The Parents Association should be an autonomous entity, but there is a

lot of intervention from the administration. In fact, all projects, dates,
activities, go through the Principal, and these activities are imposed on
parents in the parent meetings, and parents have to participate, and pay
the entrance fee. So that school identity sometimes is because of an
imposition more than out of free will.
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Summary
While the feeling I got after visiting Treehill was one of worrying about the kids
and their perspectives for the future, at Montrose, I got the feeling that these kids were,
for the most part, going to do well, but this was related to the two things that bothered
me: First, the fact that the school was tacitly selective, which perpetuated segregation
within the neighborhood and even within the private-subsidized school system, and that
it pushed out any student who showed problems adapting to the strict academic or
behavioral discipline of the school. These were stories that I did not get to hear from the
pushed out students themselves, and which would have nuanced the success narrative
told by the school about its students. A second aspect that bothered me was all that was
left aside in order for students to achieve this narrow notion of success (academic and
professional), which included a CE understood as more than volunteering, and being
obedient, orderly and responsible. What the students signified as them being a little
“nerdy” also meant that they were not visualizing more critical and defiant ways of
participation in society, that would allow them to acknowledge and change inequality,
but instead were focused on adapting to the system. Table 8 below provides a summary
of the different citizenship and CE themes at Montrose.
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Table 8: Summary of Citizenship and Citizenship Education at Montrose
Individually responsible, with a focus on formal participation: voting,

Ideal Citizen
informing themselves, and participating in community service.
National and Emphasis on patriotism: respect for national symbols and traditions.
Global Students critically acknowledged discrimination related to race and
Citizenship nationality, but engaged in classist distinctions.
Students recognized themselves as “middle class,” stripped of the privileges
of upper classes and the State benefits received by lower classes. They
believed in meritocracy, and that great academic effort would allow them to
become first-generation professionals and achieve economic success,
Class- having high expectations of themselves.
consciousness Students reinforced their identities by rejecting their neighborhood, which
and expectations they saw as dangerous, and flaites, who they deemed as acting and looking
inadequate.
Teachers and administrators had a deficit perspective of students’ families,
promoting the erasure of their cultural origin revealed in language, personal
style and behavior, through code-switching.
A focus on academics prevented students from engaging in deep or critical
reflections, or becoming interested in topics beyond the official curriculum.
Self-expression
Student decision-making was limited to academics, with classes not
fostering discussions or democratic participation.
Focused on preparation for the PSU test, but including an “integral
education” dimension through extracurricular sports and artistic academies,
civic ceremonies and a Leadership Workshop.
Curriculum Traditional pedagogy focused on students memorizing facts. Classes were
strict and disciplined.
CE was focused on voting and knowledge about government institutions.
Neoliberal model taught in connection with a Catholic approach.
Teachers saw students as overwhelmed with academic demands and no
Accountability time for citizenship participation.
context Students did not take advantage of the spaces for organizing or giving their
opinion provided by the school.
Focus on strict discipline, with numerous rulebooks, constant surveillance
from deans, and policing of uniforms and language used by students.
Students had internalized the norms, monitoring their classmates.
Discipline and Resistance was rarely displayed.
Climate “Tough skin” culture promoted at the school, with a certain degree of
bullying and sexism naturalized.
Perception of the school as having better climate and less violence than
surrounding schools.
Highly disciplined and ordered affairs, with students showing effort in their
Civic ceremonies
preparation. Large number of ceremonies during the school year.
Student Center Limited role of student leadership at the school, with participation in
and Homeroom student government heavily guided.
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Student Centers focused on organizing cultural and sports activities, and
motivating the rest of the student body to participate in them. The political
aspect was not developed, but teachers recognized some measures taken
thanks to the influence of the Student Centers. Students saw their
participation as mostly benefitting them personally, as a way to develop
character. They acknowledged institutional constraints to some of their
more creative projects.
Class government was mostly guided by Head Teachers, with students
using this period to complete their homework.
Students declared themselves “apolitical,” but had some knowledge of
political parties, in which they were not interested in participating. They did
not participate in social movements, and did not agree with violent methods
Participation in used by the Student Movement. Most students’ families did not engage in
politics and political participation.
groups Students engaged in voluntary community service through the school, but it
was not linked to a critical analysis. They participated in various groups in
their community (church, sports, scouts), but teachers saw most students as
too focused on academics to have time to participate in other groups.
The school was seen by teachers and students as an island or bubble within
Relationship the neighborhood, as having better academic performance and climate than
with the other schools.
community Teachers perceived the students as overprotected and with little awareness
of the world beyond their neighborhood, and of social issues.
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Parkside (Private-Independent School)
Gus and Bart were two Ninth grade students who participated in the
Philosophy Conversation Group, and who held a critical view of their school and of
the Student Center, which they saw as limited in its openness to students’ feedback
and projects. Gus had been part of the candidate list for the Student Center that did not
get elected, which is why, he explained, he was so dissatisfied with what he saw as
blatant inefficiency on the part of the Student Center. Bart was vice-president in his
class government, and described his classmates’ motivation to participate as
discouraging and lacking in commitment. Coincidentally, both students had lived
during a couple of years in Spain, while their parents were in graduate school, and
they criticized the dominant patriotic approach in citizenship education linked to
national war heroes. They described the school as having good climate and promoting
critical thinking, and students as being tolerant, but found that the school was not
rigorous enough regarding academics, and sometimes too lax in terms of
administrating discipline; with students not politically commited enough.
While these examples correspond to two students that were highly active at
the school, most Parkside students had a similar discourse in terms of being critical of
their classmates, who they saw as disinformed and disengaged politically; and of the
school, which they saw as waning in its active commitment to defending human rights
and fighting inequality.
Parkside was a private independent school with a progressive orientation in its
curriculum, with students from a high socioeconomic status (the annual tuition was
U.S.$3,300), and generally from families with a history of active political participation
against the dictatorship. Many of them were immigrants, with their parents holding
diplomatic positions, or families that had lived in exile. The school mission aimed to
form a critical and transformative human being, who valued culture, pluralism and
democracy. There was a focus on developing critical thinking, and highlighting
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historical memory and Latin American culture.
The Parkside school building was a small three-story structure with balconies
that looked to the side area of the roofed main patio underneath; and a back patio with
the kindergarten classrooms and playground, and a platform for ceremonies and
performances. There was small library on a fourth floor annex and a room in the
basement used for school-wide meetings. In the main patio, there was a food kiosk and
two ping-pong tables. In the front of the school, there was an open space, with a garden
and a skywalker. A couple of small rooms were used as teacher lounges on the first and
second floors. The school had numerous bulletin boards with updated news and topics of
interest, and displayed different forms of art (murals, mosaics, embroideries) regarding
human rights and historical events from the dictatorship period. Classes had between 11
and 25 students. It was common to see parents arrive to pick up their kids by bike or by
foot, wearing casual and hippie-looking clothes. The neighborhood was residential, with
many old, aristocratic-looking houses, and some commercial establishments around,
such as restaurants, supermarkets and drugstores.
The climate of the school was of a relaxed atmosphere, both during breaks and
classes, which was emphasized by the school not having a mandatory uniform, allowing
students to cultivate different personal styles. Classes were co-constructed, with students
having active participation through questions, comments and interdisciplinary
connections.
The Ideal Citizen: A conscious citizen. For Parkside students, the ideal citizen
was not such a clear and predefined notion as in Montrose −where students associated it
with voting and helping others− but something they could have an active role in defining
through organizing, activism and political participation. This implied a collective notion
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of citizenship that was not present in the other two schools.
Teachers described the ideal citizen in relationship to the goals they saw for
education:
Education should be thought for a student to come out formed not as an

entity for the system, but as an entity with values. I think values have
been lost in society, and now we work toward a functional, technical
being, rather than a social, cultural being, who is responsible for their
society. I think today kids go into higher education because they have to
work in the future, not because they have their responsibility as citizens
clear. But this school tries to do something different. (Joan)
To prepare future citizens who ask themselves what they want from life,
and from there develop a vision of values: if they want a more or less
humane world, a world with war or a well organized world. (Kurt)
Students at Parkside, recipients of their Principal and teachers’ discourse about
them being in a position of privilege and thus having a responsibility as such, had
developed a similar discourse of having responsibilities to help the people or the
working class to fight for their rights. They understood that “the citizen has rights and
duties in society.” For them, political participation was important, but they
acknowledged lack of trust as an issue preventing participation:
In general, society is alienated from politics, and that is why they should
be more informed, but it is clear that people don’t know whom to trust,
because they see that politicians constantly walk over their rights.
(Frank)
People should try to be informed about politics (...) we have too many
learnt discourses, abstention in elections. My classmates don’t know
what to say when discussing what is going on in the country, or they
have that learnt discourse of “All politicians are corrupt.” (Gus)
Being informed, while seen as a difficult task by Parkside students due to a
dishonest media, still was considered a personal responsibility to uphold. The following
are some of the critiques students had of media and lack of engagement in national
issues from citizens,
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The ideal citizen should be informed of all that is happening in the
country, and through different media, not just one. (Ellen)
In Chile it is very complex to be informed, because if you decide not to

watch television and read the newspaper instead, newspapers also lie.
(Frank)
It is true what they say on social media, “Turn off the TV,” because
television not only hides information, but it also lies to you. (Ellen)
Whenever something important is happening in the country, the first

thing they do is put on something that distracts the people from the truly
important things: reality shows, soccer cups. (Daniel)
Parkside’s Philosophy Conversation Group, an extracurricular workshop
meeting weekly, and led by the Philosophy and History teachers, with students from
Eighth to Twelfth grade, also discussed how the media constructed reality, and how
celebrity culture and image permeated politics, instead of politicians discussing
important ideas and taking action.
Bart applied the need to be informed to participating in school government:
I try to attend all assemblies to have a say, so they can’t talk about me
not fulfilling my duties as a student; I try to participate, so I feel that I
have more of a right to complain than people who don’t attend the
assemblies, because I feel that this is, excuse the word, somewhat of a
“game,” so either you play the game or you don’t; if you play the game,
you have to follow the rules that you like and those you don’t like; if
you don’t play it, you are not going to have the benefits nor the duties.
It’s like the game of Democracy.
National and Global Citizenship: Students are concerned about everything.
Different from the nationalist approach in the other two schools, at Parkside a notion of
global citizenship was promoted as the ideal, fostering empathy with all others suffering
worldwide. The curriculum actively guided students to this, as Kurt explained:
The intention is to propose reflections around local and far away issues,
for example, when the conflict in Syria was heightened, experts on the
Middle East were brought to talk with the kids. That connects them with
the reality out there. Because if we think about it, this is a private school,
what interest can a kid who has everything, have in society? None. So if
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we are able to open the world to which they are used to, they can make
sense of the things happening in the world.
Special ceremonies at the school were also aimed toward this goal. As Sara
described:
For example, we have the Americas Day, which identifies the school.
Each class is assigned a country, and the students, parents, and teachers
have to organize a stand, and the kids do a performance, whether it’s
music, dance, theater, whatever they choose. And that’s an open
opportunity for participation, everyone comes.
Lisa saw these emphases as having an effect on students in terms of what they
showed interest in, but not enough in the domain of action, similar to the “armchair
activists” described by Westheimer (2015, l. 1037), “who have articulate conversations
over coffee, without ever acting.”
Students are concerned about everything: about the Mapuche people

issues, the now trending AFP (Administradoras de Fondos de Pensiones
or Pension Fund Administrators) issue, the issue of gender inequality, the
war in Syria, the favelas in Brazil. Because the school project integrates
students and parents from different nationalities and religions, it posits
these issues on a daily basis, and that is the richness of this school, that
diversity, based on solidarity and empathy, it is not just discourse; you
don’t see the degree of violence of other schools, there is a very
established tolerance, and that is very positive. If you talk to students
about anything, the topics will come up. And it’s everything: why
firemen don’t have an income, public education in Chile... everything is
an issue for them. They are restless, intellectually restless, but when it
comes to acting, very passive.
This perspective was shared by Kurt, who saw students choosing to attend
protests as the easy way of participating politically, requiring no further organization or
reflection on their part.
The curriculum and events promoted reflection on multiculturalism, and the
school regularly received affluent students from other countries, and many students had
travelled or lived abroad, which translated into having different perspectives, and a more
global than patriotic approach to citizenship at the school. For example, one of the
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students in the Student Center was Cuban, and two students from the Philosophy
Conversation Group had lived and attended school in Spain.
Students embraced in their discourse diversity in all of its forms (cultures,
nationalities, sexuality, race), but from a post-racial and post-sexual approach that
evaded talking in more depth about how the diversity they experienced in their daily
lives played a role in their understandings of the world and its oppressions. As a student
revealed, their awareness of difference almost made it a non-issue: “We all know that
you can be that way, the fact of your sexual orientation or nationality, but it is not like
we are afraid to speak about sexual orientation or nationality.” The lack of
socioeconomic diversity at the school was not discussed in all of its implications, even if
students showed awareness of their privileges. Students did not talk about discrimination
in the Chilean context as an issue that they experienced or saw on a daily basis. On the
other hand, they talked eloquently about human rights violations in different parts of the
world, revealing a cognitive understanding of these issues. As an example, Bart
criticized the limited views of those against immigrants as uninformed, showing a
critique against discrimination, but from a distant, theoretical perspective:
Are immigrants really taking our jobs as right wing people trying to
pass anti-immigration laws say? Or is it those people paying you
nothing for your job, and immigrants the ones keeping the country
afloat by working endlessly for less money?
But, as Spreen and Monaghan (2015) posit for HRE, it requires combining legal
perspectives, and an understanding of moral and ethical aspects, with an affective
dimension focused on the lived experiences of those whose rights are violated. The lack
of a closer, affective engagement of the students with these issues (except with human
rights violations during the dictatorship, where their families were more directly
affected) prevented them from acting.
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The official nationalist curriculum was criticized by Gus, who also cautioned
about blindly embracing patriotism while not fulfilling democratic responsibilities such
as voting or engaging in your community:
I don’t agree with celebrations such as the death of Arturo Prat,

celebrated in every school. You are celebrating that we won a useless
war, when countries are left poor after wars, and personally you
continue to live in a shantytown... It’s a weapon to control people and
give them a sense of unity. Arturo Prat was an excuse for us to have a
hero, he didn’t do much, he jumped onto a ship and said a catchy
phrase we are not even sure he said, and then died. Sometimes the
homeland notion is exaggerated, and other important things about
being Chilean are left aside, such as voting and participating in your
community.
More importantly than celebrating the national independence, at the school,
September was devoted to reflection about the military coup of 1973 and the Human
Rights violations committed during the dictatorship. The Latin American orientation of
the school also nuanced the way the national holidays were approached. As Lisa put it:
There is a theme of belonging to Latin America. Each class has one or

two students from other Latin American countries, and there could be
a Spanish student that is surprised to learn history from a Latin
American perspective, that their ancestors were invaders, that they
brought barbarie instead of civilization. So the concept of chilenidad
(nationality) is not stressed, but the emphasis is on Latin America.
Discourses of Class-Consciousness and Expectations: You are the thinking
elite. Students showed acknowledgement of their socioeconomic privileges, which was
also fostered by teachers and the Principal in their daily discourse reminding students of
these privileges. But there was also an underlying belief that they were special, a leftist
subgroup of that elite that was more conscious of social problems, “with the people,” as
Gus put it:
We should recover the working class that strives for more, the working
class busting their asses working, searching for more, that aims to be
informed and to change things, because they know that if they are
thousands they can do it, and really change things.
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But the ways to enact “being with the people” were not that clear. Teachers tried
to caution students about the comforts of privilege and how that could prevent them
from understanding the needs of other socioeconomic classes, as Joan told them during a
History class:
You are the elite of the country, you do not know what it is to be cold
and to walk barefoot (...) But maybe you are not as bad, I am talking
about the other elite, the one who has no idea about anything. You are
the thinking elite, you are not going to be working in the mines, you are
going to devote yourself to the arts, to office jobs, middle management
at least; at this precise moment, in another Twelfth grade, there are
students thinking that they are going to have to fish, plant. Is this fair,
unfair, do you have any criticism?
One way that students at Parkside discussed class-consciousness was by finding
distasteful the fact that some of their classmates joked about being poor (a complaint
that I was also able to hear during observations), when they knew they were part of the
richest 10% of the population.
During their research projects presentations, Eleventh grade students addressed
different social issues, with one of them proposing to install solar panels in La Pintana
(one of the poorest neighborhoods in Santiago); when asked why he had chosen that
neighborhood, he answered,
Since I am Cuban, I do not have a prejudice about it. Everyone told me

it is a poor neighborhood and said bad things about people there, so I
preferred to do it in this neighborhood with interesting people rather
than with rich people who always follow the same routine.
It was possible to see how students were critical of their own social class, their
clueless or snobbish behavior, and had a discourse of focusing on the oppressed and
poor in society, from a romanticized view of them as “more interesting.”
Contrasting with Montrose, students did not want to be confused with cuicos,
which was not only a socioeconomic category, but also a cultural and ideological one:
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right wing, not conscious of social problems in Chile, or addressing them from an
assistentialist perspective that did not challenge the neoliberal system. They
strengthened their identity by othering cuicos and embracing a social justice orientation.
During a fieldtrip, students joked about being in an upscale neighborhood, even if the
area where the school is located was just as upscale. While students tended to use a
formal language, highly politicized and with a broad vocabulary, they stayed away from
the slang and tone that characterized a cuico speech.
Similar to Montrose students, they also believed they were “special,” different
from their peers in surrounding private schools, but by being more “hippie,” with a
broader understanding of social problems, and a more proactive attitude towards solving
them. This classed and ideological distinction was evident when Ninth grade students
were at the park, and they saw a group of girls from another school, and two male
students acted as if chasing them, but quickly returned to the group, with the students
looking disappointed and having the following dialogue:
Mark: They are ABC116, I don’t want to chase them anymore.

Teacher: Do not discriminate.
Mark: I think they are from a church, because of their t-shirt.
Ben: We have to burn it; the only good church is a burnt church.
While not representing real intentions from the students, and being dismissed by
the teacher with a facial expression communicating that they were talking nonsense,
these radical courses of action were common as the subject of students’ informal
conversations, and it was hard to tell if they considered them as adequate ideas that they
could set in motion, or if it was part of a daily performance of anarchy as an eternal

16
Classification for the section of the Chilean population that includes the two highest socioeconomic
groups: “High Class” (AB), with an average monthly household income of US $6,750; and
“Affluent/Emergent Middle Class” (C1), with an average monthly household income ranging between US
$2,111 and $3,185 (Emol, 2016).
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promise, but never fulfilled. In this and other opportunities, students played with a
revolutionary discourse in performatic and cynical ways, making it difficult to find out
to what degree they truly believed in what they declared.
Regarding meritocracy, Joan asked students during a History class about their
opinion on the matter of income according to professions. Students seemed to agree on
the view that doctors should earn more than janitors, because they did things that not
everyone could do. The teacher questioned this perspective saying that it was not a
matter of capabilities, but of opportunities.
While Parkside students were in a more privileged socioeconomic position, they
showed greater awareness of the structural forces that sustain inequality in the country
than students in the other two schools. For example, they advocated for free quality
education for all, and saw education as a main factor in solving inequality, as part of a
need for deeper structural changes:
It all begins with education. If not all citizens can have means of
education that are of the same good quality, we will never achieve that
they are all informed. I think the base is education. When everyone is
informed and knows how to argue, we will achieve an economic
change. There are countries that have stopped putting money into the
military and have given it to people, to education, and then the country
starts to grow both economically and socially. (Paul)
Parkside students saw the right to education as universal, and they advocated for
it by actively participating in the Student Movement, even if they would not be direct
beneficiaries of the reforms. They saw better and more extended education as the way to
a more conscious population that could fight for structural changes. But while they
recognized the inequality present in the educational system, they failed to see how
cultural capital and the privileges that they enjoyed in having politically involved
families influenced their own interest in politics, something that was not available for
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the wide majority of their age peers, who they saw as selfishly uninterested in what was
happening in the country and uninformed.
Expectations of Parkside students were high in terms of them becoming leaders,
but were not constrained to the traditional academic and professional paths. The school
website proudly presented renowned alumni in artistic fields, such as music or theater,
and in politics. With members of their families as protagonists in formal and
revolutionary politics, this allowed them to conceive the possibility of participating in,
and effecting change through these channels:
Since I can remember, we have discussed politics in my house. Besides,

my parents had a significant role during the dictatorship and in the
return to Democracy. That’s why since I was a kid I was interested in
politics. (Frank)
My father and my stepmom are philosophers, and they read a lot, and
know a lot about politics from both sides. So I have that influence at
home, every day political conversations about society. (Corey)
In my house, they have always talked about politics. And I am also

inspired by the fact that my grandmother was a political prisoner.
(Daniel)
A teacher revealed how high expectations of the future for students did not
mean that they saw them as necessarily concerned with helping others: “Students will be
in positions of power and influence; they can make a difference, but many don’t care
about it... it’s the bubble of the school.” This was a concern shared by teachers, who
talked about focusing on transmitting students the notion of social justice and agency.
Discourses and Practices of Self-Expression: Sometimes they criticize just to
criticize. Students and teachers recognized that while students were good at criticizing
the current system, they sometimes failed in being active in pursuing social change. In
fact, there was a play on words with the name of the school to refer to the fact that
students became more talk than action. According to Lisa, for the school it was a more
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comfortable position to have students who were not authentically critical, because that
meant they did not criticize the institution itself. Joan saw that an excess of ideas
prevented action from students:
Sometimes you cover those issues so much, that you overwhelm them.
So over-education makes them unclear regarding how to organize.
Maybe we need to be more concrete, we are a school that is full of ideas,
but we need to work on management skills, so students can bring their
ideas down to their daily actions.
Students recognized that sometimes they criticized everything without being
constructive:
Sometimes I think that people criticize just to criticize, and that also
happens beyond the school, where people criticize without basis or
justifications, without proposing a solution to what they are criticizing.
Kurt agreed with this perspective, saying that a lot of times, “It’s just a lot of
empty discourses, without depth.” Nonetheless, during classes, it was common to see a
deep level of analysis from the students compared to the other schools. For example,
when practicing writing for their research projects, Eleventh grade students gave the
following possible causes for the growing numbers of femicides, demonstrating an
understanding of intersectionality: “lack of education in the population,” “cultural
sexism,” “lack of civic education in the family,” “the political and economic system,”
“the possessive notion of romantic love in couples,” “lack of lawsuits due to fear,”
“economic dependence of women.”
Students had a more critical view of their school than in Treehill and Montrose,
even if they recognized their educational privileges. For them, the focus was on critical
thinking and social conscience when talking about the goals of schooling, and they saw
the school as having abandoned this path:
The educational mission of this school is to form citizens; it’s a good

mission in itself, but whether it is achieved, that’s another matter. The
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mission involves integration, and the creation of critical, conscious
persons. And it has not been fulfilled. The school is becoming a normal
school, like all schools in Chile, and what used to make the school
different is that it had a history. (Corey)
In the classrooms, students had bulletin boards with selected national and
international news, and opinion columns written by the students themselves or by
teachers that they asked to comment on a given topic (e.g.: the opinion of the Philosophy
teacher on the government’s declared intention to remove the Philosophy subject from
schools, where he discussed the specificity of the discipline as the one asking the
difficult questions). At the Seventh grade classroom, posters on the wall called the
students to “Think for yourself” (as part of the feminist movement) and “Revolt.” In the
Twelfth grade classroom, a calendar had the date marked for the “Damned PSU.”
Stratified Schools, Curricula, and Citizenship Education: Our final goal is
that the kids go out to change society. While the school followed the national
curriculum, there was a special emphasis on students developing critical thinking, being
aware of social inequality, participating politically, and transforming society.
Controversial topics and Human Rights were explicitly discussed in classes and
ceremonies. There was a special Civics subject for Seventh and Eighth grade, and
Political Philosophy was taught in Ninth and Tenth grade. Students had some freedom to
make decisions about their own learning and research their interests, and they had space
in classes to give their opinion, have in-depth reflections, and ask big questions. There
was a Marxist curriculum transmitted through special activities at the school, and
students could learn about a global citizenship perspective, connecting the global and
local reality. Teachers for the most part disclosed their political opinion in the
classroom, and presented students with activities that implied active participation. There
was a close, horizontal relationship between teachers and students. Official textbooks
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were not used, and teachers brought in different sources for students to read.
Teachers assumed their students were going to be in positions of power after
graduating, having a chance to effect changes. They encouraged students to participate
politically, including radical forms of participation; to self-organize and reflect about
topics such as the Student Movement.
Kurt explained how during 2015 they had tried to update the Educational
Mission of the school, which he saw as an urgent necessity given that the one that they
were working with was from the 80’s, representing other teachers, students and
historical situation, but lack of participation from teachers and students made it
impossible.
Kate described the curricular emphasis at Parkside:
We adhere to a sociocritical curriculum, so our final goal is that kids go

out to change society, and to do that, the idea is that each subject takes a
stance where contents are directly linked with what is happening. So,
for example, in Chemistry, the conflict around copper, lithium, the issue
of hydroelectric power stations; in Math, the issue of social control; and
in Language and Humanities, it’s a little easier, sometimes in Science
subjects it’s more difficult to make the connection, but that’s the idea.
And we do that through pedagogic discussion, clarifying how to address
a class: from problematization, from challenge, from a connection with
experience, linked to meaningful learning, with kids seeing where they
can apply it, so it becomes more interesting for them, instead of the
eternal question, “What is this useful for?”
Teachers also described how their sociocritical curriculum and activities aimed
to develop critical thinking and a notion of social justice in students:
We try to foster in the kids the issue of social problems, that inequality
in Chile is a problem that we have to assume, and that it’s not a problem
that just happened, but you can trace its roots to the economy, to
education. I try to foster in them a critical stance about things, so that
they have their opinion, and don’t swallow everything the TV says, or
they friends say. In the classroom, we have the freedom to work with
the kids and approach the contents not from a banking model, where
kids are supposed to learn and then repeat contents, but I try for the
students to see what happens in the school and outside the school. (Kurt)
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We cover the contents, as the Ministry states them, but then the school
guidelines ask us to link that to the social aspect. To achieve that, we
have activities every month that are different from other schools, always
looking at the social issues, the indigenous people, Americas Day,
Human Rights, commemorating September Eleven. (Joan)
As an example of the sociocritical curriculum at Parkside, in the special Civics
class to prepare students for the plebiscite to choose between having a horizontal
Assembly or a representative Student Center, Joan explained different forms of
organization throughout history, specifying how there was always some group in power,
and called students to have a critical position in society, recognize their rights and
duties, and be morally and ethically responsible for their decisions, taking charge of
their micro-society at school. As an example of what she saw as a lack of commitment
from the students, she reprimanded them for not assisting to a march to a memorial the
day before, with students answering using an individualistic logic: “We had three tests
the day after the march, and also Chile was playing the soccer match later,” “Besides the
homework of six pages given by the teacher.”
Teaching of values at Parkside was planned around thematic activities each
month, which Kate saw as sometimes difficult to implement given the time constraints:
We work with ten fundamental cross-sectional values of the school,

which are to be covered by all subjects. We plan with a monthly goal,
and that is also decided by a committee that includes teachers, parents
and students. This year, we didn’t have any parents, but committees are
open nonetheless. Each month has a theme, and this month is Human
Rights month, we had a talk with journalists, and we all have to try to
cover the theme in each subject. Now, if it works in practice, I am not
sure, because it’s hard, and that’s why I feel it’s dangerous to put out a
theme but not go in depth into it, not connect it with what you are
teaching, that it is too forced. And I think the same happens with CE.
Human Rights were an explicit topic at Parskside, with a month devoted to
discussing them, and other activities such as a morning for reflecting on the ’73 military
coup and the dictatorship, and a 60’s Fair, where students focused on the global
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struggles for rights. Discussion of trauma, its emotional aspect and its link to memory
and History, were common, for a History made up of personal stories, including those of
students’ families.
While still constrained by the national curriculum, teachers at Parkside had
more freedom than in other schools to incorporate other contents, as Kurt explained:
Despite the fact that we follow the contents of the official curriculum, I
think that in this school, teachers are more aware that we have a 30% of
the curriculum that we can change and arrange however we want, as
long as we maintain the contents. For example, in the case of
Philosophy, from Fifth thru Tenth grade, while there are programs that
we could take from textbooks, there is nothing official from the
Ministry. So we have a proposal that includes Civics for Seventh and
Eighth grade, and Political Philosophy for Ninth and Tenth grade.
These special educational programs had been recently officially approved by the
Ministry of Education, so they could be graded as a separate subject at the school. The
Civics curriculum at Parkside specified a focus on respecting diversity (cultural, social,
sexual, gender, religious, ethnical, and in pace of learning and level of knowledge),
working toward equality and harmonious coexistence, and taking a critical stance.
For Seventh Grade, contents were centered on understanding the notions of
person and dignity, Human Rights, family, and society, and reviewing the Chilean
Constitution and its historical context. It explicitly stated that these contents were aimed
toward the “civic development of students as present and future citizens,” showing that
they were trying to fight the adultist perspective about youth. Different views of family
were presented, so that students could respect sexual diversity and assess how rights
were distributed in society. Different ethnic and cultural groups within Chile were
recognized, so that students could problematize the notion of State and norms.
During a Seventh grade Civics class students received feedback from a test
assessing students’ knowledge about Democracy. One of the questions was “Name the
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aspects that a citizen should have in a democratic society.” The class examined the
different dimensions of the notion of “person,” with the teacher providing the example
of the Holocaust, and students commenting: “They forgot that the Jews were persons,”
“They forgot Human Rights.”
For Eighth Grade, contents were centered on the notions of Democracy, State,
Legislative Branch, Regional Governments, and Public Policy. The curriculum
presented different types of government and aimed to foster an appreciation of
democracy from students through action and participation.
Regarding the CE curriculum, for Lisa, it was very important for each school to
have sufficient freedom to decide how to address it:
I think that each educational community, and not the State, has to
decide the contents to address, maybe we can have a main structure, like
“Democracy and Participation,” “Being a citizen today,” “The electoral
system in Chile”, but that each community can decide how to address
them.
Kate had issued an invitation to teachers to revise their planning in order not to
invisibilize women in the different disciplines, and this way achieve a non-sexist
planning, paying attention to language, for example, specifying both genders when
talking about the students17.
Fifth grade students participated in an annual camping trip, as part of their
Physical Education Curriculum. They also had regular trekking field trips to a nearby
hill. I observed the Ninth grade field trip, which students recognized as a valuable
learning experience, not just in terms of sports achievement, but in teaching them
values. The independence that they were granted to take risks allowed students to
ponder those risks and their abilities, and make decisions, as well as work in groups to

17
In Spanish, articles and nouns have the gender incorporated into the word. Usually, the masculine is used
to refer to both genders, but lately, the point has been made to use both in order to raise women’s visibility.
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overcome difficulties, such as how to help a student having anxiety issues when
encountering a difficult section of the trail. Students were given the choice to walk fast,
jog or run to the top of the hill, and to decide whom to group with. The teacher talked
about how providing students this autonomy was a conscious choice for her: “I leave
them very free, because they already know the dynamics. The idea is for them to fall in
love with Physical Education, that is why we do these activities.”
During classes, students were allowed to interrupt the teacher –which they
routinely did– with anecdotes, stories, pop culture references, or comments, since there
was the expectation that it could be significantly related to the topic being discussed. For
example, during the Philosophy Conversation Group, a student took a long time to tell
the story of a video game he liked to play, to then connect it to the notion of post-
humanity, and how if Artificial Intelligence could learn to be peaceful against its
original programming, there was hope for humanity to live in peace.
Students were also expected to know about current events, since they were
usually thrown in during classes as examples of more abstract concepts. If the teacher
made a question, and students did not answer, they would make a remark to motivate
them to participate, sometimes using irony.
Students and teachers at the Philosophy Conversation Group discussed the
relative and constructed notion of truth (differently from Montrose, where students were
invited to search for a preexisting truth), and criticized the notion of natural sciences as
rational and taken as the only truth, while sciences of the spirit were disregarded, when
it was them that held the possibility for a truth that did not align with the status quo. One
student pointed out that Occident got it wrong, searching for totalizing truths. They also
discussed how History comes from those in power to justify the state of things, and we
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should be able to question History. The same relativism, they concluded, applies to the
notions of “good” and “evil.” Students also discussed the notion of the Other and how in
our capitalist society we ignore others. Kurt added that we need an Ethics of the face-to-
face encounter, instead of an Other that I cannot recognize, and therefore I can hurt. The
group also reflected self-critically about the prevalence of discourse over action at the
school:
Jude: We inhabit poetry.

Leon: But our age is for that; we defend ideals, not methods.
Stuart: Maybe we are poetic because we don’t have the need to practice
it, we have a very clear discourse, but we are not in that position... maybe
in other contexts it makes more sense to practice it, because they have
more needs, for example, in schools that are very authoritarian, or that
only prepare students for University.
Teacher (Joan): It is regrettable that you remain in the poetic discourse.
High school is also the moment to do concrete things, to complement the
discourse with action. You have the theoretical framework, but you take
it from others, instead of creating it at the school as a political space.
Considering your comfortable position, you should read more, analyze,
develop a stance toward society, make the most of your position of
power in the system, not only have a demagogic discourse. You have the
intentions, but how are you going to remain in poetry?
As the activity for the Human Rights Month, a representative from the National
Children Service was invited to give a talk, open to all students from Seventh to Twelfth
grade. She started by asking students about what Rights of the Child they knew, with
students mentioning: education, learning, housing, name or identification, growing in a
healthy environment, health, right to live, right to a family, and right not to work. This
showed an understanding of their rights that went beyond mere survival. Then the
speaker asked them for forms of children rights violation, with the students mentioning
children soldiers in Mexico, children in war situations, child abuse, excessive use of
technology hindering their creativity, bullying among children, and child labor. This
showed a global perspective of citizenship, where they were aware of the forms of
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suffering of those oppressed all over the world. In contrast, at Treehill, when the same
question was asked about rights violation during a History class, students only
answered, “torture.”
Each year, the school held a reflection day to discuss the 09.11.1973 coup. I
observed the Tenth grade class, where students analyzed photographs of this period,
describing, interpreting and ethically judging them. Students discussed in groups and
then with the rest of the class, recognizing the emotions the photos made them feel and
what they interpreted from the images: “I see courage in the people facing the soldier,
and cowardice in the soldier pointing them with a gun,” “I think the people are looking
to confront the soldier, they are looking at him, looking at the camera; the military has
the weapons, but the people are united.”
In the second period, students had to make an artistic creation that expressed the
reflection they had had in the previous hour. Students were given broad, ambiguous
instructions and while it generated some anxiety initially, it forced them to interpret the
task in their own way, resulting in artistic products of different kinds among the
students, with students showing comfort in expressing ideas artistically, since they
usually prepared songs, speeches, performances and other forms of creative expression
that they got to perform for others. The openness of the task meant that both violent and
conciliatory approaches to fight oppression were expressed. One teacher pointed to me
how he disagreed with teachers allowing students to put up posters like the one that
read, “The only good cop is a dead cop.”
In the third period, there was a talk with two guests who worked as graphic
reporters during the dictatorship, for which students had prepared by watching the
documentary “The city of photographers,” about the work of photographers during the
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Chilean dictatorship. A student from Eleventh grade sang the song he composed in the
previous hour, with verses like, “This September Eleven we must remember. Comrades,
let’s take it to the streets, build roadblocks, with a guitar.” Another Eleventh grade
student read her poetry, with verses such as, “Unjustly spilled blood. Disappeared,
tortured, in fear of the military. People live with the ghost. We have the power for this
not to be repeated. Do not forgive nor forget.” A teacher introduced the guests and
compared the media then with today’s duopoly in Chilean media. The guests talked
about their work as part of a collective struggle and an attempt to contribute to
preserving historical memory for future generations. They described the climate of
violence, fear and censorship, and explained the global political scenario at the time; and
proposed to fight through building community, memory, dissenting through art and
voting, and using legal resources. Students asked questions such as, “Can photographs
be used by the ones in power, to distort reality?” “What would effective media look like
today, in the age of the internet?” “Did you continue to register Human Rights violations
after the return to democracy?” “Do you have any traumas from that time?”
In Gaudelli’s (2009) characterization of types of citizenship curriculum,
Parkside had a Marxist approach, that is, seeing capitalism as fundamentally
exploitative, identifying a need to redistribute wealth, achieving public ownership of
social means and egalitarianism. This was evident during the 60’s Fair, where a teacher
described the historical context as a fight between two blocks: capitalism and socialism,
which in Chile manifested in the struggles of farmers and workers organized to fight for
their rights. Students performed the songs they had prepared, including a cueca of the
Unitary Workers Central (CUT). A student characterized as Víctor Jara gave a speech
that included part of his last poem, written when he was held prisoner in the national
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stadium, where he was tortured and murdered: “We are 5,000 (...) Today, the slums are
sad, the worker is depressed, the dream that we built together is destroyed, 10,000 hands
less (...) We are the exploited ones.” Eleventh grade students had prepared performances
and stands with information and pictures about different aspects of the decade (Cold
War, Cuban Revolution, Feminism, Countercultures, Chilean Context). Teachers
expressed a lack of effort that they saw in the students, how they had started late, did not
prepare the materials, and did not show the enthusiasm of previous years. One teacher
said: “This is why this activity has to be graded,” revealing how grades, despite the more
relaxed climate of the school, still worked as powerful extrinsic motivators for the
students. While the sixties topics that each group researched allowed them to develop a
critical perspective on history, globalization and forms of resistance, and to internalize
the contents through teaching them to younger students, the lack of effort put into the
task limited the depth of the learning experience.
Students presenting and in the audience had previous knowledge of the topics,
for example, an elementary school student dressed as Che Guevara commented his
grandmother had met Che Guevara in person, another mentioned that his grandmother
liked Violeta Parra, and two Cuban students were in charge of the Cuban Revolution
stand. Presentations included examples and questions to make them relevant to the
audience, and connected the issues with Chile and today’s problems. Role models like
Angela Davis, Elena Caffarena, Gabriela Mistral, Violeta Parra, Víctor Jara, Martin
Luther King, Miguel Henríquez, Salvador Allende, Che Guevara, the Revolutionary Left
Movement (MIR), the muralist brigade Ramona Parra, the Hippie Movement and the
Black Panthers were discussed. A teacher used the feminism portion of the presentation
to remind students to be careful with the language they used: “When you get angry and
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you call someone ‘son of a bitch’ or ‘motherfucker’, that is a direct aggression toward
women, and when we reprimand you about it, you say ‘it was a joke.’”
Teachers promoted a feminist curriculum, as evident in the discussion they tried
to generate in the Philosophy Conversation Group, regarding the different−yet in both
cases unfair−treatment received in the media by a left wing and a right wing female
politician; and when Kurt and Joan made the distinction between the ornamental role
women had in classic Greece and today’s role.
Eleventh graders conducted a year-long research project on a topic of their
choosing, connecting it with their track (Math, Sciences, or Humanities). Most students
chose a topic that involved social justice related or political issues (“Consequences of
neoliberalism on mental states,” “Low motivation to vote in our democracy,”
“Sustainable housing,” “Imports and the economy,” “The stigma of mental disorders”),
with a few of them focusing on topics more related to personal hobbies (“Martial Arts in
the East and the West,” “Videogames as art,” “The film industry”). The presentation of
these projects was made in a formal style in the main hall, with students from different
grades, and some parents of the presenters attending, together with a panel of teachers
who assessed each presentation using a rubric, and provided oral feedback. Beyond the
content of the presentations, students learned to present to a large audience, and to
adequately deal with their anxiety, which many of the students exhibited before and
during their presentations. While the opportunity to research a topic during a whole year
allowed students to explore it in depth and establish interdisciplinary connections, as
well as learn about research methodology and develop project proposals, students failed
to connect their topics with a structural perspective of society, and had difficulties to
identify problems, propose solutions, and choose adequate research methodologies. One
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of the students, who had developed a music therapy proposal, tried to actually
implement it with Fourth grade students, with the goal of stimulating their motivation to
learn, but in the end there was not enough time to do it, given the required bureaucracy
involved. Despite not making the most of this learning opportunity in some cases,
students appreciated the chance to go beyond their comfort zone, as one of the students
put it after the presentations, “I want to thank our teacher for making us work to develop
our personality, expand our vocabulary, and better face University,” showing that they
appreciated how these experiences prepared them for a future about which they had high
academic expectations.
At the school, students learned about the cultural products of resistance,
especially music and visual arts opposing the military dictatorship, which were also
featured on the school walls and performed at ceremonies. The history of the school was
always a point of reference when talking about current political disengagement from
students. There was a struggle that past generations were involved in that could not be
ignored: murals were painted around the school, rituals reminded students of it, and their
families had had some kind of involvement in politics then or now.
While teachers described Parkside students as “immature” for not being
concerned enough about their GPA and PSU test, they showed maturity to reflect and
criticize the system they lived in. The ethical formation that students received in classes
and in spaces such as the Philosophy Conversation group went beyond what the
curriculum of Philosophy and the Cross-sectional Learning Goals proposed for high
schools, and it transmitted students high expectations of their intelligence, since they
tackled questions that were highly complex and could not be answered by looking them
up in a textbook. Doubting the notion of an only truth coming from Sciences opened up
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possibilities for students to value CE and the spaces that promoted it, instead of just
focusing on the traditional subjects that are assessed in a supposedly objective manner
by standardized tests.
HRE at Parkside, present in different ceremonies and in the culture of the
school, connected students with their family stories, but it did not reach the stage of
being critical of the very notion of Human Rights, with students using Human Rights as
their go-to discourse when discussing Chilean history. Nonetheless, the inclusion of this
topic allowed students to develop a sense of being protagonists of History, instead of on
the margins; they could see themselves and the stories of their families represented in
the curriculum, and not feel it as a series of dates and events to memorize with no
connection to them.
Teachers talked about providing spaces for students to reflect and give
their opinion, as well as feeling free to disclose their personal opinions, as Sara
put it:
I think kids feel motivated to give their opinion when you show interest
or include that opinion in your class. One of the things I like about the
school is that when I teach, it’s first as me, Sara, and then as the
Language teacher. And that allows you total sincerity and freedom of
expression, so I feel very free and heard by the kids, without walking
over what they think. And at the school, from early on we teach kids the
most important is your opinion, and to establish a dialogue with other
opinions. And we include that in every class. As teachers, we are
facilitators, we mediate knowledge, but we are not the source of it. So
we teach by listening to the student, without imposing.
Lisa described how students were interested in knowing her opinion on different
subjects:
They like to know my opinion, “What do you think, what could be done
about it?” And not just regarding the small things, I feel they are
connected to everything that is happening in the world, what is
happening with Donald Trump, with the Syrian refugees, the Mapuche
conflict. They are always asking about everything.
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But other teachers were weary of imposing their own perspective on the
students, so they revealed it only when they specifically inquired it, as Joan explained:
In History classes, if they ask me, I manifest my position, but I feel that
it can contaminate them with my own apprehensions about politics or
my views of society, so my methodology is to listen to them first,
understand their opinions, where they come from, probably from their
homes or from talks with friends, or maybe they don’t have a stance.
And when they start to develop their position, I start to show them mine,
but I feel you have to be very careful. I feel the History class can be
very partial, and to respect the individual that we are forming, I believe
you have to justify how you arrived to your position.
Controversial topics were commonly discussed in classes, as Sara conveyed:
A lot of kids like to talk about Chile in ’73, Chile during the dictatorship,
because of their family history. Here the majority of students has a
history with Disappeared Detainees, or know people in the artistic world
who are related to a folk period very active during the ‘70s.
Students referred to adults by their first names or nicknames, using the more
informal pronoun tú. Talking back to teachers was common, not seen as a lack of
respect, but as part of a constant negotiation of rules in the context of a more horizontal
relationship between teachers and students.
Regarding CE training, Kurt participated in a CE training session organized by
the Ministry of Education for the Coordinators of the CE Plans in private schools, as
part of the national Citizenship Month. At this meeting, the government representative
highlighted the importance of democratic spaces of the school, like the School Council,
Student Center, Teachers Council, and tools like the Inclusion Law and the CE Plan, to
form integral human beings. He described the results of last year’s research of students’
opinions about participation at their schools, which revealed that there was an adultist
perspective and that, in general, students felt that they were not heard by adults, could
not make important decisions, were treated badly and discriminated, and had no spaces
for expression and recreation.
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Forming Citizens: We are also constrained by the mandatory curriculum. The tension
between promoting social justice, critical thinking and cross-sectional goals, and
covering the mandatory curriculum from a more traditional approach that did not disrupt
the status quo, was recognized by teachers:
I feel that we aspire for kids to have values, have critical thinking, and
all that, but when you see the contents and the suggested activities in the
curriculum, and you have to also follow the guidelines of the school, all
that starts to limit what you want to teach. (Joan)
We could foster that kids transform society, and link their critical
thinking and the critical pedagogy in the classroom, with the struggle,
social mobilization, and social transformation. But teachers can’t make
that link, because of our working conditions and how they overwhelm
us. Anything we do would fall under the label of volunteering. It’s
complicated, especially in a city like Santiago, where commuting is
long, and teachers are very tired. But with some effort from the school,
it could be possible. But having kids questioning the institution is also
difficult for the administrators, and that’s understandable. Is it really
convenient to promote critical pedagogy at school? I think not; it’s a
private school, so kids question the fact that it’s a business, because
they are very lucid students (...) It doesn’t help how the national
curriculum and system are set up, because we have an extended school
day, but it’s not made up of workshops or spaces for student
organization, but just content, content, content. Kids are tired at the end
of the day. And in Eleventh and Twelfth grade, they begin with pre-
university classes. So the topic of CE is very complex if the school
doesn’t take ownership of it, but we are also constrained by the
mandatory curriculum. (Lisa)
Students had a critical stance on competition and the university selection tests,
as Corey put it:
Not even the State knows what they want to foster in citizens. Because
they only think about benefits on the economic domain, and don’t think
about the future. That is what happens with education, with PSU, and
while it’s not wrong to identify the students that are good at Math or
Humanities, in my opinion, PSU doesn’t measure it.
Regarding the PSU test, Lisa talked about how the resistance to it from students
eventually caved in the face of pressures:
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The school is not focused on PSU, but on giving the students an integral
pedagogic formation, but in the end, kids always take the PSU test, and
families expect them to go to university, it’s very rare that they are
encouraged to follow other path. So that is their north, and if it’s not in a
State university, it’s going to be in a private university; if it’s not in
Chile, it will be abroad. Here at the school there isn’t a formal rejection
of SIMCE, and it’s thought of as a tool that helps measure, and that
means validating standardized tests. I think that although we have an
alternative program of education, it’s just on paper, because we adhere
to all the programs of the Ministry of Education. The school fosters
critical thinking, yes, but it doesn’t speak of social transformation, of
building a society, it doesn’t intervene in the community.
During a Philosophy class, Twelfth grade students criticized the societal
expectation to study a well-paid career: “If you say ‘I’m an engineer,’ the old ladies will
go, ‘Oh, good for you.’ I hate those old broads, and if you say ‘I’m going to study
dance,’ they’ll say: ‘How will you make a living?’”
Students recognized how non-traditional subjects did not receive the
same importance as traditional subjects at the school:
I think in the areas of Arts and Music, Film and all that, the lack of
equipment and the little investment in it are unmotivating for students.
And that is supposed to be part of the educational mission, to support
areas that aren’t only Math and those subjects.
Discipline Policies and School Climate: There is a somewhat overflowing
freedom. At Parkside, there was a relaxed feel in terms of discipline, with no mandatory
uniform, and an emphasis on personal responsibility more than on enforcing rules. There
was some participation of students in setting the rules, and more negotiation about them
than in the other two schools, as well as flexibility from administrators when applying
them. There was some resistance from students when having to do class activities that
they considered not challenging or entertaining enough, or when they identified
hypocrisy in the discourse from adults. This resistance was, for the most part,
encouraged by teachers, when it involved generating discussions in class, or presenting a
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project to make changes in the school. The fact that it was a small school helped create a
sense of community, and the relationship between teachers and students was more
horizontal than in the other two schools. There was no Dean of Students specifically in
charge of discipline, but Kate, the Academic Coordinator, acted as mediator in case of
discipline issues; and Joan, the History teacher, was in charge of Orientation.
Parkside’s discipline manual highlighted the fact that it was not a merely
prescriptive document, but a tool to help form the students in respecting Human Rights
and the dignity of human beings, the environment and society. The ideal student
described by this manual expressed high expectations of the students both intellectually
and in terms of democratic participation:
[The ideal student] Values knowledge as a source of self and collective

growth; recognizes themselves as an integral human being; is an
original, authentic, and creative person; uses their knowledge to
address, analyze, and explain the world, generating their own and
original forms of knowledge; can constructively criticize the world they
live in, and exercise self-criticism for self-improvement; understands
dialogue and tolerance as the best way to coexist; knows their own
roots, valuing national and Latin-American identity; knows, values, and
respects Human Rights locally and globally; and exercises their citizen
role in a responsible, pluralist and democratic way.
The way the student was described in the manual as a singular, reflective and
autonomous person, with the school having the goal to promote Latin-American
identity, social conscience, ethical practice, and a democratic spirit in students, revealed
an acknowledgement of them as citizens in the present rather than only as future
citizens. The manual stated both rights and duties, showing students that rights were
important, and based on International Covenants. While low-level and high-level faults
were established and described in a similar manner as in the other two schools,
Parkside’s manual included a section to explain that context and motivations will be
considered when assessing the fault and determining sanctions. Verbal sanctions,
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according to the manual, should include a reflection with the student about their acts, its
consequences, and how to restore the situation. Teachers talked of how the rules at
Parkside did not feel imposed, but as the product of a collective agreement:
The discipline manual is created with representatives from all groups at

the school, so students have a leading role, and that way they tend to
better follow the rules. They know they are not imposed from above
because someone felt like it. We try to call it more a consequence than a
punishment. And sometimes we don’t just apply the norms, but try to
accommodate the norms to a specific case. In general, kids accept when
the teachers call on them. Or sometimes they have to repair the damage,
so if they have done something wrong, they have to come and paint, or
clean their classroom, or go supervise a younger class, and a series of
things because the idea is that they understand that whatever they do
affects the whole community, and they have to repair it. And then it
makes more sense to them. (Kate)
Students could question the rules and be agents in the process of setting them,
but it was only a few students who had actually participated in that process. Rules in the
discipline manual were less strict than in the other schools, and Kate described them as
applied with flexibility. But while students had more freedom than at other schools,
teachers described some essential values:
On one hand, we try to foster a critical mentality, and on the other hand,
we try to keep a few fix values that are, in a certain way, inflexible, for
example, respect, dialogue, those are untouchable values. (Kurt)
This was possible to observe during classes, where students had freedom to
make decisions regarding class behavior, such as standing from their seats or going to
the bathroom without asking permission, or sometimes interrupting the teacher to make
a comment, but when they were not listening to what a classmate was saying, teachers
would quickly make a point of it, and explain the student why they should listen to their
classmate. When a student was reprimanded for not complying with the teacher (for
example, by not changing seats when asked to), teachers would explain to the rest of the
students that the behavior of their classmate was being inappropriate, or that it was
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preventing all of them from learning, and that they would talk later with that particular
student. In another example, during a History class, Joan told a student that if he were
mature enough, he would decide to change seats because his classmate was distracting
him, instead of commanding him to do so.
Restorative discipline decided in conjunction with students had been applied in
the previous year, using the Student Assembly as a space for all students to decide ways
of restoring justice when a classmate had broken the rules. But as described by Sara, it
did not work as expected:
We don’t have a system or a formal channel where students do

something about a classmate that did something wrong. There was,
when we had the Student Assembly, but it wasn’t respected, it looked
like a public stoning, and it got out of control. I think we haven’t
managed this topic, and it is very complex to have the students settle it,
there is always an adult as mediator.
There were no sections of the school that were off limits to students. While there
was a doorman, students would sometimes cover for him for a few minutes, and stay at
the door to open it for people visiting the school, a task also intermittently done by the
Principal. In case a ball was accidentally thrown outside the school grounds, students
would go out to get it back without asking permission. All this put more emphasis on
personal responsibility for attending class, than on the norms that kept the students
within the school. Adults would tell students not to run or scream in the entrance hall,
but since it also worked as a connecting space between the small patio in the front of the
school and the central patio, this was not always enforced, letting the students play there
during breaks. The Principal would often joke about a baby asleep in one of the offices
to promote students’ use of their “inside voices,” which would turn into a faux
discussion, with students joking around with the principal, breaking down the line of
authority.
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The greater degree of autonomy provided to students was also evident during a
Physical Education field trip, where students took different form of transportation from
the school to the hill they were going to climb, with the teacher trusting they would get
there; and divided into different groups for the trek, with the teacher directly monitoring
only one of them.
As an example of how students at Parkside saw norms as open to discussion and
interpretation, two students from the Philosophy Conversation Group discussed during
an interview their opinion on discipline at the school:
Gus: I think they should be a little more strict, I’m not saying that they
should be punishing, that nothing should be allowed. But there are a lot
of people that come to the school thinking “I’m gonna do whatever I
want.” So for the ones that have been here longer, it affects us. They are
a little soft with the sanctions, because the other time they found people
smoking pot in the bathroom, and according to the manual that should
mean cancelling their enrolment. But those people remained at the
school this year, and they keep being disorderly.
Bart: Yes, but sometimes I feel people are too harsh. We are all humans,
we can all make mistakes. And I feel we should have a degree of
flexibility. In fact, I do not like the word discipline. To be methodical
can be useful, but being disciplined has no use, because you follow the
rules blindly, and that happens to a lot of people. Discipline is a way in
which they control you; being methodical is a way in which you, for
your own reasons, make an effort to achieve something and you know
you will make it if you do things like you are supposed to do them. In
general, there is a somewhat overflowing freedom, to put it somehow.
For me, freedom requires responsibility, a commitment.
Students performance through their clothing and personal style (with no
mandatory school uniform) showed that they had an understanding of the personal as
political: many of the students had dyed their hair in colors like green, blue or pink, or
used hairstyles that would not be accepted at other schools, such as long hair for male
students. There was also a carefully crafted “hippie” and “relaxed” look evident in their
clothes and disheveled hairstyles, which functioned as a way of “othering” the youth of
the higher socioeconomic class to which they belonged, by looking slightly different
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from them, never polished or trendy enough to be confused with them. The freedom
provided by not being required to wear a uniform also meant more possibilities for
gender performance, with a number of students choosing gender-neutral outfits and
hairstyles. As an example of this, an elementary school male student, after a
performance about gender stereotypes, proudly said “What’s wrong with me using this?
(showing a belt made out of flowers).” This degree of embodied freedom was hard to
find at the other two schools, with the example of a male student suspended at Treehill
for wearing a wig during a performance for the anniversary celebration, which was
deemed inadequate since it did not correspond to his gender.
Students were vocal when they did not agree with a given activity, such as
copying a long definition in their notebook, dictated by the teacher, or participating in
the school anniversary when they felt the school was not respecting the educational
mission. Another form of resistance from students was when they referred ironically to
the discourse from adults at the school claiming that they “had it easy” because of their
socioeconomic privilege. They recognized a reductionism in that kind of speech, and
thought it did not paint a complete picture of their struggles.
Students felt free to talk to adults about aspects of their lives that they would
cover up at the other schools. For example, they would discuss their use of alcohol
during the week with teachers; or they would write intimate questions about sexuality to
discuss with their teacher and classmates during the Sexual Education unit. This worked
in favor of a more horizontal relationship between students and teachers.
The greater freedom provided to students was signified by Kurt as the main
asset of the school:
If you ask me what CE the school gives, maybe it’s not in academics,
not in the social influence we can have through the graduating students,
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but in generating a micro-climate where being gay is not wrong, but
normal; where dressing however you want is not wrong, but another
form of diversity; and I think you don’t see that in other spaces. And
you form kids who think different at university, on the streets, on their
jobs; divergent people. And that can be the contribution of the school, a
contribution that is very invisible and humble.
Teachers promoted a safe environment for students to express themselves,
actively fighting the bullying culture, as Joan explained:
Last year, the Twelfth grade class made a Black List, and that is
something that is not done at this school, it is not the identity of the
school. Not only did they put up the names, but also a characteristic of
each person on the list, some more offensive than others. That created
conflict, so the posters were removed, and the students argued that they
were not being allowed to give their opinion; other students said they
liked them; and others, that they had felt bad. So we had a conversation,
because there was an underlying naturalization of this kind of thing as
being allowed and being funny.
Students, in general, saw the school as having a good climate and relationships,
with the fact that it was a small school as contributing to a sense of community:
People at this school are very special, you have an environment that in
many other places could be weird, and when you first get to the school,
it’s weird, but actually it’s good; people get along, there are no major
fights, no major animosities, there is no interest in walking all over
others. (Bart)
The climate here, luckily, is not like in other schools, where they can
start a fistfight in the classroom, they would start a fight about anything.
In the end, here this is a much more welcoming space, besides, you
know almost the whole school, all of the students, so it’s hard not to feel
part of a group. Here, you can be in preschool and be friends with
someone from Eleventh grade. (Gus)
The good school climate was described by Bart as a result of the school focus on
democratic participation and critical thinking rather than on academics:
I think that you cannot achieve being an elite school and having a good
school climate, because if you teach people to compete with each other,
you are never going to achieve an environment that is good for them,
because they will compete not only in terms of homework, they are
going to compete about anything they come across with in life.
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During the Eleventh grade students’ presentation of their research project, some
of them showed signs of anxiety, crying or having their minds go blank in the middle of
a sentence. Students in the audience and teachers tried to create a safe space for them to
continue their presentations, telling them to calm down and collect themselves, or asking
them questions about the topic, and then publicly congratulating them recognizing it was
hard for them to overcome their anxiety issues.
Students and teachers talked about different sexual orientations being accepted
and normal at the school, with discrimination due to this reason being strongly reproved;
similarly, they did not see issues in terms of gender inequality, in fact seeing women as
having more of a leadership role:
In general, there are no differences made between boys and girls,

because we deal with the topic of gender. Respect here is major, and
that includes accepting that women have a main role, that they also have
the right to give their opinion. And here, girls are very empowered. And
boys don’t frown upon that. In that area we have no problems. (Joan)
While Parkside students described themselves as very open minded, a view that
was reaffirmed by teachers, it was also possible to hear them making homophobic
remarks, such as, “So gay. Or it may be transsexual, disgusting” or “That scarf gives you
a whole homosexual vibe.” And a similar double discourse was observed when it came
to gender roles, as when students asked the teacher to go fry sopaipillas (savory pastry)
to sell during the break, and the teacher allowed four of them to go, with a male student
jokingly proposing “the women” should go. And the same with issues of racism, where
even if they had black and brown schoolmates, students made remarks such as, “That’s
because they are black” when talking about femicides in Africa.
LGBTQ students and allies may feel more marginalized in the more traditional
settings of Treehill and Montrose, where homophobic slur was naturalized and not
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always addressed by teachers, administrators or students. At Parkside, there was more
acceptance of different sexual orientations, but students and teachers seemed guarded
when discussing how they dealt with different sexual orientations or races at the school,
mostly declaring these non-issues, in what seemed like a post-sexual, post-racial
approach. While this created a good climate within the school, it did not allow the
students to have the important, controversial conversations needed to address
discrimination in Chile, and to visualize the extent of this problem beyond the safe space
of the school. Kurt saw this as a risk in terms of students becoming “lazy” when they
should denounce homophobic or racist attitudes. He talked about how immigration was
a topic ignored at the school, except when referring to the cases of immigrant students,
who represented a privileged fraction of immigrants in Chile.
Biopolitics of Civic Ceremonies: Rituals of Embodied Boredom: Low-key
affairs. Civic ceremonies were different at Parkside, beginning with a strong refusal
from teachers to refer to them as such. They would be called, depending on the type of
event, a “fair” or “celebration.” They celebrated alternative events, such as the
Indigenous Cultures New Year, Sixties Fair, and Americas Day. Parkside alternative
ceremonies aimed to question limited notions of citizenship, and to defy the
normalization in deciding what to celebrate, highlighting the cultural influences usually
discarded by the national curriculum. The focus was put on valuing Latin American
indigenous art and traditions, as well as on creating awareness of issues, and on
collective enjoyment, rather than on discipline. When describing how this type of
ceremonies was organized at the school, Kurt used a colloquial expression to convey
that they were low-key affairs.
For the Indigenous New Year, students prepared by doing posters that
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celebrated the importance of water, described the indigenous tribes in Chile, and
proposed environmental projects. Each class had also prepared an offering to the earth,
and students had written notes with their bad moments or thoughts that were
symbolically burned. This was the kind of multicultural spirituality promoted at
Parkside, without a Religion subject like most schools in Chile. This ceremony took
place in the central patio, where older students had to stand, with younger students
sitting on mats. An older student, anticipating the suffering this would involve,
complained to a friend, saying: “Motherfucker, we are going to have to be standing the
whole time.” The teachers spoke without using a microphone, allowing for a more
intimate feel than the ceremonies that had the students in lines in the other two schools.
A teacher presented the ceremony, adding that they decided to focus on the water as a
scarce resource this year, which involved a personal responsibility, a need for
conscience of our privilege of having it immediately available, differently from the
indigenous tribes that first lived in Chile. Students started to chatter among them during
the ceremony, with some complaining, “I’m hungry, let’s get this going” (as a tradition,
students ate boiled potatoes, a traditional mapuche meal, to close the ceremony).
During the 60’s Fair, a collective performance took place in the stage in the
back patio, where chairs, benches and mats had been set. Students sat in no particular
order, with no divisions according to sex or grade. The close distance between students
gave the ceremony an intimate and informal feel.
Student Centers and the Simulacrum of Democracy: Everything is politics.
Student Center officers showed a social justice oriented notion of citizenship, and saw
their participation as a platform from where to criticize and change inequality: they
addressed the need to educate the masses; to establish education, including tertiary
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education, as a right in the country; and to change the neoliberal economic model,
increasing the role of the State: “The first thing that we have to change in the country, I
think, for the country to really grow, is the economic model”; “Because of the neoliberal
system that we live in, we have this kind of differences between public, private
subsidized and private education.” Regarding their school, these students saw their
participation in the Student Center as a way to effect change now: they wanted to save
their school; rescue its educational mission; mediate between the different actors;
educate, politicize and empower their classmates; bring a sense of community back to
the school; and have an important role in the current Student Movement through
different forms of organizing and manifesting. While it was possible to see great passion
in students’ discourses, it was also possible to see a potential risk in them wanting to get
involved in all struggles: that the involvement in each of those would not be committed
enough and remain on the level of discourse.
Students also saw their participation in the Student Center as a way to prepare
themselves for a future involvement in politics, a path in which they had numerous
examples in their own families to follow:
What motivated me to be a part of the Student Center was the disinterest

there is in the other; we are very individualistic human beings, so people
are not interested in having a profound relationship with others, or know
about our culture. So in this Student Center we tried to make it different,
bring people together, get them to be more informed, more dynamic,
more motivated. (Ellen)
I wanted to be a part of the Student Center because I like politics and

would like to dedicate myself to politics when I get out of school or
university. And the other thing is that I saw that the school was very
unstable, the school needs an order, especially because there is a
constant fight between the Administration, Teachers and Students, so
we need to mediate. (Frank)
There was an opportunity for students to think about what kind of democratic
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form of organization was best for them, with the format of the Student Center not being
an imposition, but open for discussion. Teachers saw the current Student Center as the
result of a political learning:
Years ago, it was dominated by more horizontal political groups, and

we got to have a Student Assembly that made the decisions, without
visible faces; in fact, they went to marches with their faces covered.
Finally, the people leading that Assembly, where many did not feel
comfortable giving their opinion, left the school. And now this new
Student Center has a more hierarchical structure, and they are learning,
trying to organize themselves and their classmates in a good way. (Lisa)
During the Civics class to prepare students for the plebiscite to decide between
keeping the system of the General Assembly that had functioned during the previous
year, and instating a Student Center system, Joan characterized the “citizen” as a
political definition and explained that whenever decisions are involved, there is politics;
that whenever they said “I do not care about politicians,” they were being political; and
that politics can grow from the organization of the bases, where different persons come
to an agreement, and that turns the person into a citizen. This was different than the
concept students at the other schools had, who felt disconnected from politics,
associating it with untrustworthy politicians.
At the debate between the two candidate lists for the Student Center, List A
presented a “mobilized school” proposal, aiming to “construct a conscious community,
mobilized, that is part of the Student Movement, and thinks about current issues; to
create a collective opinion, with talks where everyone participates and debates instead of
falling asleep; with clarity about the political landscape in terms of education, historical
context, and today’s issues.” Regarding participation strategies, they did not consider
marches the only form of mobilization, although acknowledged them as important; and
aimed to politicize students and teachers, work together in benefit of the community,
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and explore different points of view. They proposed cultural activities including
performances and murals, to create community and politicize younger students. A
student from the list explained their broad understanding of politics:
Everything is politics, not just going out to the streets; if you involve a
young kid in creating art and make him wonder and question, it’s a
method of political involvement; that a kid pays more attention to a
mural than to their phone, that is political work; to promote an interest in
the arts, that is political work.
List B put more of a focus on community than political participation, proposing
“to reestablish a relationship of trust, have extracurricular artistic and sports activities,
engage parents and teachers in participating, having talks so that everyone is aware of
what is happening in the country, so that you know why you are marching, improving
the communication with teachers so they are a part of our projects, improving the
Teachers Lounge and the bathrooms, creating conscience about them being shared
spaces, having biweekly assemblies including teachers, having spaces to receive
feedback about our work as Student Center, and having recycling stations.”
The presidential candidate from list A had a nostalgic view of an imagined
school, showing that they were moved more by ideals in their mind and the oral history
regarding the school, than by what they had experienced in it:
From my heart, I want the school to be what it used to be; I came to the
school very excited to be a part of it, and it wasn’t what I was expecting,
so I don’t want the younger kids to suffer that, I want them to see that
this is an active, engaged school.
The election process at Parkside was similar than in Montrose, with classes
going to vote in order, accompanied by their teachers, a Constitutional Tribunal made up
of students to oversee the process, and a private booth to vote. Only at this school,
students were asked to bring any sort of identification (national identification, bus pass),
otherwise they could not vote, to teach students how the process worked for national and
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municipal elections. This made it less of a simulation than at Montrose, since students
had to exercise the responsibilities linked to their right to vote. But this also meant a
limited number of students voted, making it possible to question how representative the
winning list was of the voting population, and the degree of political interest of students,
which seemed low given the political emphasis of the school.
Some students claimed that they did not feel represented or heard by their
classmates in the Student Center, and viewed their work critically:
The Student Center, since it started, has not accomplished anything that
they said they would do. One of the first things they said they would do
was biweekly assemblies, and since May they should have done ten, but
they have done only two or three. When you ask them about their
projects, they say, “We are on it, we want to do it,” but there is nothing
concrete. I also think that because I was in a list that wasn’t selected, I
know we could have done other things. And when you try to tell them
that they are not doing what they committed to do, they don’t listen.
Sometimes you become hopeless. (Gus)
I feel like I have been able to express myself in the assemblies, I am very
–without losing respect– poignant, I go to the point, where it hurts them.
I don’t want for the Student Center to feel totally comfortable, because
then they will relax. Yes, we are students, so you can’t criticize them that
much, because it’s hard to have that position, and but I think they haven’t
achieved much. (Bart)
Lisa considered that while the Student Center had made some progress in term of
implementing projects, it was not taken seriously by the Principal to provide enough
support for them:
I think they are doing a good job, they are working close with the
advisor teacher, and they have started projects that will progressively
engage the students. But they are not promoted with great fanfare, there
isn’t an institutional decision to validate them, it is allowed but not
promoted, and I think that is a mistake. The ideal student of the school,
according to the educational mission, is a critical one, participating in
their society, critical of reality, both of the educational community and
society, but the school doesn’t provide the facilities for the student to
enact that critical thinking, it limits their spheres of action.
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Homeroom Period: Student Leadership: It’s discouraging. Kate, the
Academic Coordinator, described the use of the Homeroom and Orientation
periods:
In Consejo de Curso, the kids will write their agenda for the day, and
chosen students moderate the debate, and they organize themselves.
They organize tutoring, field trips, deal with class problems. And the
other hour is conducted by the teacher to address a specific topic, such
as sexuality, study habits, interpersonal relationships, career orientation
in Eleventh and Twelfth grade, issues regarding excessive use of
technology, or going over the class agreements.
A Ninth grade homeroom session was held at the park next to the school, and
the teacher encouraged an active role from the students in conducting the session,
whether leading the conversation, or reading the agenda for the day, that they had
decided by writing the topics to address on post-it notes during the week. Students
expressed their emotions and opinions about different topics, with a student talking
about how she felt better now that bullying from previous years had stopped, and all
students commenting on their parents’ reactions after they received their grades in the
last parent meeting, acknowledging self-critically that they had not made enough of an
effort during the first semester.
During this session, the teacher gave the students information about the decision
made by the administration of the school regarding a postponed festival that was finally
cancelled. Since this was a controversial decision among the staff, the teacher presented
the students with both sides of the debate. Students showed their critical stance
regarding the festival, seeming cynical about the importance of the event.
Emotional self-expression was something that students learned early on, with
Circles conducted in Fourth grade each Monday, where students got to talk about what
they did during the weekend, and how they felt about it, receiving suggestions from
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other students when they needed to resolve a problem.
Despite the fact that the Homeroom sessions observed showed great
participation from students, a vice-president from Ninth grade also discussed the lack of
interest he felt from his classmates:
They don’t listen to you when you are in front of the class. I have
thought about how to get through to them. Generally, I am motivated to
do things for the class, I make a commitment with activities and with
the school, so it’s discouraging when no one else does, or five people
out of fifteen.
Participation in Politics and Groups: The school has always been very
politically active. Parkside students manifested interest in political participation, but at
the same time showed a critical stance regarding the political system and politicians, as
Bart put it:
I don’t like the political system at all. I dislike the political parties, and
the fact that they are strategic and leave their principles aside to achieve
their goals, making alliances with people who don’t share their
principles, or who are immoral.
Students called their peers to political participation and being informed, as one
student did in the civic education class to prepare students for the plebiscite:
I am going to present what each of them [General Assembly and

Student Center] is, so you can make a conscious decision (...) I am
calling the students to participate. It is not a matter of your political
colors, but of being aware of what is decided in the school.
For students, political participation could take the form of protests, forums to
discuss the Student Movement and educational reform, or the collective creation of
political art (murals, theater). Students from the Philosophy Conversation Group
described how their mothers were feminists and how they had joined them in some
activities of the movement, and adhered, with some observations, to its principles.
Kate described student participation in groups, characterizing students as mostly
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“apolitical,” even if their discourse and level of organization was more politicized than
the average school:
I think this is a sample of what is happening in Chile, where before we

had clear leaders to follow, and I feel now that has crumbled, and
influenced the students. There is a group that is interested in
participating in organizations such as ACES (Secondary Students
Coordinating Assembly), or political parties, or a more radical left,
some anarchist kids, but the great majority of them are apolitical. This
has made it harder for the kids to organize at the school.
Sara also identified a retreat from formal politics in students and teachers at the
school, assessing student participation in school government poorly:
The history of the school is that it has always been very politically
active. I think the diagnosis on a national level isn’t very positive,
because there is that mistaken notion that politics equals political parties,
which has driven us to a sort of apathy about everything, individualism,
and that is reflected in this community. And teachers are in the same
boat. Some teachers will say, “Organize,” but if we are not organized,
it’s not very consistent. Students have been very unmotivated and
disorganized in the last year, they don’t communicate among the
different classes, so they don’t have a collective position. Last year they
had assemblies where I was the advisor teacher, and the kids had to stay
after classes. The first assembly, of 100, 50 students came; the second
one, 40; and it continued to decline. So we did the assembly during
lunch hour, so they didn’t have an excuse. But the same happened.
Kurt talked about the waning participation of students in the Student Movement:
The tendency has been declining. The year I arrived at the school,
attendance to marches was high. But last year it declined. And the
organization in the school declined too, they weren’t happy with the
form of organization, the fact that external people from extreme
movements had taken over the Assembly, so the essence of the school
was getting lost to be in a movement that did not represent the majority
of the people at the school. There was a moment where all high school
students went to the marches, now it’s only 40 out of 120.
Lisa saw student participation in different groups as limited, and mainly related
to radical political organizations that could represent a risk for them:
There is a faction of Eleventh graders who participate or have

participated in political groups. I’m worried about them, because they
usually go into libertarian, horizontal organizations, and they see the
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path of street armed struggle, and as a responsible adult in charge of
their ideological formation, we are concerned, we talk about it with
teachers, and try to talk with them and their parents, because we don’t
want to lose a kid on the streets, in a revolt or something like that.
Unfortunately, those are the spaces in which the kids participate, not in
religious groups, very few are in Scouts groups, where they also learn a
lot, other political groups, or sports associations. Institutional
participation is very disrespected.
Teachers saw students as losing their motivation and critical conscience, and
having a limited understanding of the political as only radical and oppositional, instead
of constructive. Students agreed with this view of them being uninterested in politics,
and of it being a reflection of society in general: “As citizens we are not informed about
our rights, we aren’t that interested in politics.”
When asked about the Student Movement, greater levels of involvement and
active participation were evident in the students from Parkside, even if they had the
economic means to finance higher education. They organized a talk with a leader of the
Student Movement, who explained the different aspects of the current Education
Reform, and the points of coincidence and dissent with their proposals. A Student
Center member explained their stance on the Student Movement:
Students are marching for a different education. I think it’s very

important that we can cause social disorder, because politicians play
deaf. As a Student Center, we are in complete agreement with the
Student Movement, with the things they want changed. As students, we
need to fight for free education, because education is a right. It’s
unbelievable that in a country there are people that cannot access
education, or cannot pay their studies, and after college they are in debt
forever. Free education for all: that is how it should be. We shouldn’t
have private schools, private-subsidized schools, because they are
segregating us according to those who have and don’t have money. And
the same with universities. (Ellen)
As a more nuanced perspective regarding the Student Movement, Gus explained
that he seldom attended marches, because he liked to be informed about why he was
marching, unlike most people who “go to march just for the sake of marching, without
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even knowing why they are doing it.” Bart highlighted the importance of not just
repeating the truths proclaimed by leaders, but appropriating them by connecting them
with your own reality, and authentically believing in them.
The school had a “Protocol for Student Mobilization,” which was the result of
an assembly with representatives of the different groups of the school community. The
document authorized students with the corresponding note from their parents to attend
marches and be marked as present in class, allowing them to take the tests they missed at
other times. The document stated, “The school, in contrast to other educational
establishments, provides the accommodations for the responsible participation of
students in marches and mobilizations claiming essential rights.”
Sara discussed how different it was having the students organize a takeover,
with a symbolic character and in solidarity with others, more than struggling to express
themselves against institutional constraints:
For September 11, the kids sometimes organize a takeover. But it’s very
peaceful, it’s not really a takeover; actually, we give them the keys to
the school, it’s very symbolic. But they like to do it. And you see how
different it is compared to other schools where the kids fight against the
school to do that.
Parkside’s curriculum provided students early on concepts regarding how to
participate in society, in contrast with the distance students at Treehill seemed to have
with these notions, at least in terms of formal concepts. But while the school promoted
abstract concepts like “revolution” and “struggle,” in terms of concrete approaches,
there did not seem to be an agreement among teachers regarding the best or acceptable
ways to achieve revolutionary goals, with some teachers advocating for more
institutional forms of participation and afraid of the participation of some students in
anarchist and violent groups; other teachers communicating a distrust in all institutions
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and political parties; and some advocating for radical demonstrations. These
disagreements could be having an impact on students not seeing clear ways of enacting
their discourse and will to change the world.
Parkside students had formally participated in some Student Movement
meetings, but class distinctions made them feel out of place in the group, as Joan
explained:
A lot of kids joined ACES, but then they came with the critique of them
being too fundamentalist, and they felt they couldn’t give their opinion,
and that they were being mistreated for being from other social class,
because they attended a private school. So many of them felt excluded,
and others remained in the organization, and tried to recruit more
students, but it didn’t work. Some teachers accepted this participation of
students, but others didn’t, because we felt the group was too extreme,
and its methods were not aligned with the school.
A student leader from ACES was invited by students to give a talk about the
Education Reform, attended by around 30 students from Seventh to Twelfth grade. He
acknowledged how the reform addressed important issues claimed by the Student
Movement, such as equality of opportunity, inclusion, more community participation,
and an integral educational mission, but also criticized how it did not incorporate these
in depth, maintaining high stakes test and a narrow focus to do well in them as the main
goal of schools. Students made questions that reflected some of the debates within the
Student Movement, such as questioning the protagonism of ACES and how that
replicated the very problem of verticality they were trying to address in education; and
presenting the risks that leaving all the control of education to the State entailed, given
that they have historically presented a narrow view of reality to students.
Some teachers at Parkside saw value in what volunteering activities could mean
for the students, when they were not disconnected from a critical reflection and when
they recognized the agency of those helped. While service learning can be an
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opportunity to foster critical conscience, at Parkside it was seen as a too conservative
approach by some teachers and students, which hindered the opportunities to engage
more directly with realities other than theirs and to reflect critically about them,
according to Kurt, who had been in charge of solidary field trips, but had no budget for
it this year, and saw the students as more concerned with participating in protests than in
this type of activity:
We started doing some field trips with the Twelfth grade students, to
share with, and bring coffee and sandwiches to homeless people. Then
we did a fundraiser to get blankets for them, and then the opportunity to
visit a school arose. So we organized activities with the preschoolers. I
saw the students motivated doing this, but I also feel motivation has
been declining, with them participating in political movements and in
marches, but not doing anything else. There is this idea that the only
form of political participation is that, and solidary activities don’t fit
within that political movement. I think there is also a disconnect with
the daily lives of students, who are focused on youth things like going
out or partying, and aren’t that conscious about other realities.
Lisa also saw the lack of a real connection to other socioeconomic realities as a
problem for students:
What I miss is the will to transform and connect with other type of
worlds. Students don’t get out of the little circle in which they move
each day, which is pretty privileged socioeconomically; they have their
basic needs more than covered, their secondary and created needs more
than covered, and they don’t get out of that comfort zone, and I’m very
concerned about that, because there isn’t a link to understand the other,
and this is the time where you should explore other realities to build
your vision of the world, and I don’t see that. They could say “Let’s go
to this shantytown to do an intervention,” “Let’s get together with other
schools or educational realities,” “Let’s go to this talk at the university.”
But they are always in their closed circle of friends, on the web, they are
very enclosed, and it’s hard to move them.
Students declared not participating in many other groups outside the school,
with the exception of English classes, and going to the gym. Students’ sometimes
categorical rejection of institutional politics put them in a position that implied
disengagement from channels of participation that could effect positive changes in the
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community. But even without formal memberships, families and friends were a source
of information for students, with whom they could sustain critical discussions. The
Philosophy Conversation Group at the school was a form of resistance from teachers and
students at the school, to a perceived disengagement.
How the School Relates to the Community. The “Bubble” Metaphor: They
live in a reality without pressures. Students had a notion of public space as a place of
encounter and participation, with them favoring public demonstrations such as protests
and marches, or talking about how politics were present in daily life:
I think you can find politics everywhere, in all the spaces of citizenship,
even if you go to the corner and talk to someone at the bodega or to your
neighbor; in the end, all the spaces where people can get together and
talk about something, can be understood in that way. (Gus)
Yet the disconnection students showed with the neighborhoods surrounding the
school or their homes prevented a sense of belonging linked to place and relationships.
When I asked some Tenth grade students to draw maps of the city with the places that
were significant for them, they included the school, their home, the gym they went to,
and a couple of reference points. They did not highlight other public spaces or places of
encounter or membership other than the gym and the school.
Students had a conflicted relationship with the well-off community that
surrounded the school, since students referred to them as “others,” even when they were
part of the well-off section of the country themselves. This prevented them from
wanting to address problems in their local community, to focus on the struggles “of the
people,” even if they were excluded from that category.
Students did not have a common place-based identity, since they commuted
from places all over the city and did not feel a connection to the school’s neighborhood;
and this was accentuated by the fact that students were originally from all over the
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world, or had lived abroad for some years.
Teachers described the students as being isolated from other realities due to
their privilege, even if they had knowledge about inequality, and having difficulties to
translate theory into practice:
I think students are full of good intentions, but they lack the will,
because they don’t feel apprehensions, they don’t feel moved to do
something because they live in a reality without pressures, if they do
something it’s their monthly act of goodwill. (Kurt)
Intellectually, they have cultural references, but that isn’t linked to

actual participation. For example, if the mom is a social worker in a
shantytown, she doesn’t take the kid to participate painting murals, or
teaching children to read. Students stay at home while parents continue
their politically active lives. There are kids whose grandfather was in
the MIR, whose grandmother was killed in ‘73, but still, they are very
immobilized. (Lisa)
This is a private school that is a bubble. Of national problems, one of

ten affects us directly, and the rest is just solidarity with other peers, and
that is evident, because if you’re not fighting for your own rights and
just fighting for others’, you start to become unmotivated, because it
doesn’t concern you that deeply. I think a conscience is hard to develop
when you are too comfortable, because whether we want it or not, this is
a comfort zone. We call it “the bubble,” when you stay there just
philosophizing. (Sara)
Participation of parents was also seen as lacking by teachers. While different
spaces were open for parent participation (forums, school assemblies, celebrations), they
did not always attend these, as Lisa explained:
Families aren’t committed enough to parenting, to forming these kids.

There is a giant individualism, and they don’t get involved as a family
in other organizations or activities, so we are now trying to form a
Parents Association, but participation is really low; on the other hand,
there is this constant individual complaining from them as clients,
which is how they see the relationship with us: “I’m a client, change
that grade; you are wrong, my kid can’t be held back a year.” (Lisa)
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Summary
It was easy to feel hopeful when listening to Parkside students talk about the
injustices they saw in the world and how they wanted to help solve them. It made me
wish all schools could be a little more like Parkside in terms of fostering a critical and
social-justice oriented notion in students. Therefore, I had to constantly remind myself
that this was a stance that was allowed by students’ socioeconomic privilege; and also,
that while students had an elaborate discourse, this did not necessarily mean that they
displayed transformational citizenship.
I could also observe in teachers an effort to foster students’ agency, transmitting
them that their privileges made them more responsible for trying to change the
conditions of oppression. The difficult working conditions that teachers mentioned,
leaving them with little time and motivation to include a critical CE, made those efforts
more commendable. Table 9 below summarizes the different themes regarding
citizenship and CE at Parkside.
Table 9: Summary of Citizenship and Citizenship Education at Parkside
Critical, informed, involved in activism and social movements to struggle for

Ideal Citizen
equality. Collective and social justice oriented notion of citizenship.
Promotion of multiculturalism and global citizenship at the school instead
National and of a patriotic perspective. Reflection on national identity linked to historical
Global memory of human rights violations. Students showed awareness of global
Citizenship issues, and interest in different causes with a common stance against
neoliberalism, but from a theoretical more than active perspective.
Students showed awareness of privilege and a feeling of responsibility to
Class-
support the oppressed, but sometimes showed disengagement or cynicism.
consciousness
Critical of their own social class. They participated in the Student Movement.
and
Teachers had high expectations of students being in positions of power in the
expectations
future, mainly in the political and artistic fields.
Students frequently expressed criticism about the school and social issues, but
Self-
that was not often accompanied by a constructive and active stance.
expression
The school provided spaces in the classroom and in extracurricular activities
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for students to organize and express themselves.
Sociocritical curriculum with a focus on critical thinking and social justice,
and a Marxist orientation. Inclusion of controversial topics and Human Rights
Education. Specialized Civics subject from Seventh to Tenth grade.
Curriculum
Horizontal relationship between teachers and students. Discussion was
promoted in the classroom. Civic ceremonies did not focus on traditional
holidays, but instead promoted a critical perspective on different issues.
While teachers could modify 30% of the curriculum, they still felt constrained
by the official curriculum, and criticized their working conditions that left
Accountability
little time for activities that required more preparation.
context
While students criticized the PSU test, they eventually engaged in extra
preparation for it in Eleventh and Twelfth grade.
Relaxed climate, with students having no uniform, being able to perform their
personal style at the school, and negotiation of the rules. Both rights and
duties were emphasized. Flexibility when applying punishments for students.
Values of respect and dialogue were the most important, signified as a way of
Discipline and promoting a safe space for expression. Bullying culture was actively fought
Climate by teachers, with a discourse that considered sexism, racism or homophobia
as major faults, but students occasionally used this type of language.
Students sometimes considered a need for more strict discipline and academic
focus. They showed a post-sexual and post-racial approach that prevented
them from reflecting about discrimination.
Low-key celebrations that highlighted topics such as human rights,
indigenous cultures, Latin-American countries, or 60’s social movements,
Civic
instead of traditional holidays and battles as the rest of the schools.
ceremonies
While these ceremonies did not involve that many biopolitical constraints for
students, they engaged in some resistance to them through ironic comments.
The Student Center aimed to politicize their classmates, engage them in social
movements, question the neoliberal model, and recover the social
Student Center commitment of the school. Students had some autonomy in defining the form
and and the role of the Student Center within the school.
Homeroom In Homeroom, an active role from the students was promoted. Used as a safe
space for emotional expression. Some students criticized the little
participation from their classmates.
Students were interested in political participation, but had a critical view of
politicians. Teachers saw students as apolitical, disorganized in their student
Participation
government, and disengaged, seeing a progressive decline in their
in politics and
participation in the Student Movement. Students did not participate in many
groups
groups, with the exception of the Philosophy Conversation Group at the
school, and some students participating in anarchist political groups.
Relationship Students had theoretical notions of the public space and collective
with the participation, but did not have a sense of connection with their neighborhood.
community Teachers saw students as isolated from other realities due to their privilege.
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Comparative Chart of the Three Schools
Table 10 below provides a quick look, from a comparative perspective, at some
of the dimensions of citizenship at the three schools that showed relevant differences.
Table 10: Comparative Chart of the Three Schools
Treehill Montrose Parkside

(Low-Income Public (Low-Middle Class (Private Independent
School) Private-Subsidized School)
School)
Curriculum Nationalist Neoliberal Marxist. Sociocritical
Citizenship Personally responsible Personally responsible Social-justice oriented
and Participatory
Discipline Emphasis on respect of Emphasis on personal Tolerance and dialogue
national symbols and presentation and as main values
good behavior meritocracy
Participation Cultural (folk music Pastoral (volunteering), Social movements,
in Politics and dance), sports, and sports. Academies at the marches. Some students
and Groups community groups school in anarchist groups
Student In charge of event In charge of organizing Politicized, seen as a
Government planning and cultural and sports stepping-stone for a
fundraising. Focused competitions, and the political career. Little
on supporting the annual party. support from the
needs of the Bureaucracy faced for administration
administration other projects
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CHAPTER VI
DISCUSSION
Chile presents a unique perspective on CE because it is one of the most
neoliberal societies in the world, with deep effects of market-based reforms in the
educational system. In this discussion, I will highlight four areas in which my study
either confirms or challenges the literature on citizenship education, specifying how
aspects of the Chilean context mediate this.
First, the study confirmed the presence of the civic opportunity gap in Chilean
schools, with differences according to their socioeconomic level. These differences were
reflected in the classroom, discipline, school climate, curriculum, extracurricular
activities, civic ceremonies, how expectations were communicated to students, and in
the way Student Centers and class government functioned and how students perceived
their role in them, among other aspects of school life. Schools socialized students in
specific ways, transmitting differential expectations of them according to class, but there
was also a dimension of cultural resistance in students, showing forms of being civically
engaged that are not considered in civic engagement questionnaires, but that expressed a
recognition of their rights and civic courage to fight for them.
Second, the study identified the different ways in which students construct their
identity as citizens and develop class-consciousness. Students in the three schools
exerted to some extent a rejection or denial of their social condition —a phenomenon
that was promoted in various ways by their schools—, becoming involved in a form of
“misrecognition” (Bourdieu, in English, 2012) or forgetting of how those roles are
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produced. This made it difficult for them to establish a critical view of the processes of
social reproduction and fully understand their position within the class structure or
exercise solidarity with others to take action to transform the conditions that sustain
inequality.
Together with this misrecognition of social class, was a third finding: the limited
relationship that schools promoted with the surrounding community, preventing students
from understanding local needs and working to solve them, and maintaining schools as
isolated “bubbles” that did not have an active role in society but rather exhorted students
to hypothetically take action in the future, and mostly to adapt to the existing system
without modifying it.
The fourth and final finding, while extensively documented in previous
literature, needs to be emphasized if we wish to improve CE and make schools truly
democratic spaces: the pushing out of CE in schools of all socioeconomic levels, with
teachers feeling highly pressured to cover the mandated curriculum to survive in today’s
accountability context, exacerbated by the many standardized tests applied in Chile and
their high stakes for schools, teachers and students. The limited CE that took place in
schools contrasted with the grand discourses of citizenship present in government-issued
CE guidelines and in the schools’ missions, making it possible to identify a second gap:
one between the discourse and practice of CE.
In the following sections, I will address these four areas in more detail,
establishing a comparison between the schools, and pointing out how the findings relate
to and contribute to the existing CE literature.
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How Socioeconomic and Political Inequality are Linked through Schooling: A
Civic Opportunity Gap and Bridges of Resistance
Social class was linked to a different sense of possibility, civic efficacy, and
opportunities to practice citizenship at each school. Seeing the striking similarities of CE
in these three schools in 2016 with Anyon’s findings from 1980, Santa Cruz’s (2004)
reflection seems fitting, “We should ask ourselves about the possibility of forming –
consciously– first and second class citizens. The question that remains open is if there is
the will in our society to modify this scenario” (p. 41). The finding that 36 years later
things are almost the same in terms of CE is neither encouraging nor original, but it is a
wake up call, especially in a moment where CE is being reformed in Chile, and we
should incorporate to the new programs a lens that addresses this civic inequality.
In general, it was possible to identify a particular type of discourses and
practices of citizenship in each school that contributed to social reproduction, with
socialization being more of a focus in the public and private-subsidized schools than in
the private independent school. Regardless of the fact that CE was not a formal priority
in schools, the kind of CE that took place through the hidden curriculum was not
innocent or disregardable, but actively contributed to students’ perceptions of
themselves as citizens and to their actual practices of citizenship. What schools teach is
not necessarily what students learn, because as Lawy and Biesta (2006) propose, more
powerful than discourses, are the actual conditions experienced by students in their
attempts to practice citizenship. When they are frustrated in their public and democratic
engagement, students do not learn the version of citizenship presented by the
curriculum, telling them that they have voice and vote, but the reality of not having
enough power to make changes, even in the micro-society of their school.
While these schools represent only three instances of CE in high schools, and
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the aim of this study was not to establish generalizations, it is possible to understand the
cases here as suggesting characteristics that are present more broadly in the social
settings to which each schools belongs, revealing the significance of researching the
implementation of CE in Chilean schools in a larger scale, including the description and
analysis of the differential opportunities students have to practice citizenship.
While we cannot claim one form of citizenship is necessarily better than other, it
is important to present students with a range of forms of participation in society, for
them to make informed decisions. Regardless of its small scale and qualitative approach,
this study provided some evidence of the existing civic opportunity gap that allows
students from higher socioeconomic status to have more forms of political participation
available, as well as more opportunities to develop critical thinking and civic efficacy.
Striving for equality in education should also consider the differences in how students
are learning to be citizens because, as this study showed, socioeconomic inequality is
closely tied to political inequality.
Some of the aspects in which this civic opportunity gap manifested in these
schools are presented in the following sections. But beyond the specific comparative
aspects identified by this study, it is important to remember that we need to go back to
the question of what is the purpose of education, and what kind of citizens schools are
helping to form. These answers cannot continue to depend on the socioeconomic class
of the students, which is the current scenario in Chile given the educational policies that
maintain segregation and differential resources for schools.
In Discourses of Citizenship in the Schools. Differences in terms of what
schools saw as the ideal citizen were more pronounced in the discourse in interviews, as
well as in the practices and in the hidden curriculum of CE, than in official documents,
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where schools coincided in a discourse of active and transformative citizenship. In terms
of what citizenship was actually promoted by the schools, it was possible to identify in
Treehill and Montrose a nationalist discourse of citizenship (Gaudelli, 2009), focused on
the sovereignty of the national government and based in the unity among citizens. This
was present in the History curriculum (focused on the Constitution, even if it is currently
highly questioned due to its imposition during the Dictatorship) and in the historical
events celebrated by civic ceremonies, which tend to heroicize male figures with a
prominent role in battles, or authoritarian governments. The aim of this type of contents,
according to Gaudelli (2009), is forming citizens who are conversant with the national
laws, principles and traditions. In contrast with the nationalist approach, Parkside
promoted a cosmopolitan or global perspective where other Latin American countries
and the global south were incorporated into the fostered identity. The school also
adhered to a critical perspective of citizenship, including social-justice oriented
citizenship (with an understanding of the forces that play into inequality) and feminist
approaches. Such views were more evident in the additions to the official curriculum,
such as the Civics subject, the 60’s Fair, or the celebration of the Indigenous New Year.
Regarding the presence of Global CE in school, an approach which aims “to
empower learners to engage and assume active roles both locally and globally to face
and resolve global challenges and ultimately to become proactive contributors to a more
just, peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure, and sustainable world” (UNESCO, 2013:2, in
Spreen & Monaghan, 2015), it was possible to see that Treehill and Montrose were
failing to motivate students to be transformational in such ways. It was Parkside students
who could more clearly see trough the rhetoric of nationalism and meritocracy to the
structural inequality. But while their worldview was critical, this was not enough to
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activate them to change reality, with students intellectually knowing about the difficult
living conditions of others, but “’otherizing’ injustice as vague theoretical concepts that
are divorced from reality because they only exist somewhere else” (Carter, 2001, in
Spreen & Monaghan, 2015, p. 20).
There were stratified themes at the schools linked to students’ social class, with
Treehill dominated by a discourse of political disaffection, disengagement and low
expectations; Montrose, by a discourse of meritocracy, hard work, academic success,
and code-switching; and Parkside, by a discourse of social-justice, political participation
and abajismo.
For Treehill students, formal participation in society through voting or
membership in political groups, as well as knowledge of global or political issues, were
not relevant, but they showed a recognition of community, and values for harmonious
coexistence, such as tolerance, respect and non-discrimination. While Treehill students
resisted the military obedience promoted during civic ceremonies, they did express an
identity linked to national traditions. The notion of improving the world through citizen
participation was not immediately evident when talking to these students, but they did
have a clear idea of youth problems and needs in their neighborhood. Even if they did
not understand inequality from a structural, critical perspective, they revealed feeling
excluded from politics, but had not found the supports for turning their knowledge and
feelings of exclusion into transformative actions.
Montrose students focused on formal ways of participation, such as voting or
being involved in community or youth organized groups. They did not see social
movements as an important form of participation, and emphasized personal
responsibility. They wanted to participate and be informed about issues out of a sense of
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duty, and identified different problems in Chilean and global society, but did not show a
determination to solve these problems through their participation in society, nor showed
a critical perspective about inequality that threatened their meritocratic ideology. These
students had integrated an orderly behavior to their identity; and they exhibited a
commitment to and knowledge about national traditions.
Parkside students considered both formal and informal ways of participation in
society as relevant, including dissident demonstrations. They recognized the notions of
rights and duties, as well as the power of collective action to achieve solutions to
societal problems. They showed a critical view of a system creating inequality, and
understood citizenship as a struggle to transform society and help the oppressed.
Is was possible to identify a relationship between awareness of social,
economic, civil and political rights, and socioeconomic status of the students, with
Treehill students not naming the exclusion they felt, but calling it disengagement from
politics or them being “lazy”; Montrose students seeing voting as the only way to defend
their rights; and Parkside students understanding collective action as a way to exert
pressure over governments for their rights to be respected. With a growing
understanding of rights came one of duties. Treehill students, with some exceptions, did
not expect to have an impact in the problems they identified. Montrose students
acknowledged their obligation to participate but felt, as part of the middle class, that
they were in an unfair position because they did not receive benefits from the
government nor had inherited wealth, which pushed them to an individualistic and
meritocratic perspective; occasionally, they helped others in a more disadvantaged
position through volunteering, but this did not involve a reflection about the social
structure. The discourse of Parkside students showed them as not afraid of challenging
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norms in their path to transform society in radical ways, and felt formal ways of
participation were not enough to achieve this. But this was also a stance that these
students could afford given their privileges that guaranteed them university attendance
and finding a good job after graduation.
As seen at these three sites, ideologies were transmitted early and learned
dogmatically by students. Treehill students, for the most part, learned that the system
excluded them, so they saw no point in trying to engage in political participation or
buying too much into the meritocratic promise, which was reinforced by the fact that
some adults had low expectations of students’ academic success and involvement in
society. Students at Montrose talked about learning the value of hard work early, with a
belief in meritocracy sustained by a broader neoliberal ideology, making them trust that
they could all break the cycle of poverty, which implied a degree of denial of the factors
working against them. It was a position fostered by their parents, holding on to the
chance of their child becoming the first professional in the family; and by the school,
striving for the fulfillment of its mission of success for the students, which also boasted
its prestige within the educational system. Students at Parkside learned that the political
right sustained an ideology based on personal interest, capable of obliterating Human
Rights in their quest to become hegemonic, an experience suffered by their relatives
during the dictatorship.
An adultist perspective where students were seen as not-yet-citizens was
dominant at the schools. From Lawy and Biesta’s (2006) perspective, the ideal form of
citizenship-as-practice was not completely achieved in schools and, sometimes, was
even actively prevented (as evident in the limitations put against student centers’
projects), making it difficult for students to appropriate their citizen role. Treehill and
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Montrose worked towards forming a student that would vote in the future, and maybe be
involved in some community groups, but they were not concerned about connecting
with the community beyond sporadic volunteering activities. They prepared students
with the knowledge and some skills (e.g.: leadership) to have a future participation in
democracy. The school was mostly seen as the place to prepare students for the future,
whether that was university, in the case of Montrose, or the world of work, at Treehill.
This meant mostly an individual focus, where students could engage in helping others in
need, but as the result of a personal decision. While a collective notion of citizenship
and the public sphere was promoted by Parkside and present in students’ discourse, their
involvement in community groups or direct knowledge of local needs was limited. Both
approaches to citizenship, subsequently, ended up being limited in their power to change
conditions of oppression.
In Westheimer and Kahne’s (2004) taxonomy, Montrose epitomized personally
responsible citizenship, with students who believed in discipline, hard work and acting
responsibly, and with this being the ethos transmitted by the school. This was a liberal
approach to citizenship, which in terms of participation was centered on voting. They
also emphasized participatory citizenship, in their volunteering efforts through the
Pastoral group of the school, from a communitarian perspective that involved a limited
conception of the role of the State in guaranteeing citizens’ rights, and promoted private,
individual solutions. Treehill also put a focus on personally responsible citizenship, in
teaching about respect for national symbols and traditions, and how the government
works, with a CE curriculum that maintained the characteristics of how Civics was
defined during the dictatorship. Aspects of participatory citizenship were present in their
fundraisers to help others during emergencies, and in their participation in local cultural
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organizations. Students and teachers identified with traditional customs, which was
intensified by the small town feel of the neighborhood. Parkside fostered a social justice
oriented citizenship through teaching students about injustice, and the interplay of
social, economic and political forces. Students talked not only about improving
education in the country and participating in the Student Movement, but about changing
the entire economic system, as well as about issues like war, the environment, or the
state of indigenous cultures in Chile, with a common stance against neoliberalism.
In School Discipline and Democratic Culture. It is important to consider the
discipline dimension within CE in Chile, since historically, the teaching of citizenship
has been framed by a colonial logic looking to evangelize the barbarian indigenous
people, determining an authoritarian school model to achieve the acculturation of those
groups and their conversion into “good Catholics” (Orellana, 2009). While we can
understand the presence of school norms as necessary, they become problematic when
they transmit students an identity as being permanently at fault or inadequate. Lévy
Strauss (1962, in Orellana, 2009) explains that in all societies a set of values and models
of behavior are represented as culture, ethnocentrically opposing them to the inculture,
vulgarity, and infra-humanity of the others, justifying the superiority of one group over
other. When the authoritarian structure of the school prevents critical participation from
students within the school and outside of it, it communicates to them that they, as youth,
do not have the right to give their opinion and participate in democracy. The infraction-
punishment structure can also teach students that it is more convenient for them not to
question the rules or try to create change at the school, because that could bring negative
consequences, such as being suspended or expelled. Strict disciplinary rulebooks, an
authoritarian climate, and a panopticon device of surveillance aimed to keep Treehill
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and Montrose students obedient, especially during civic ceremonies, which were
performances of bodily suffering. Meanwhile, at Parkside, students had more freedom to
express their opinion and perform their identity.
As an example of how discipline took place in the schools, at Treehill, students
got scolded when they were not paying attention, but were not explained the reasons for
why respect or the topic that they were covering were important, only receiving
behavioral corrections. Behavioral corrections were also common at the other two
schools, but for the most part these were connected to an explanation: for example, at
Montrose, deans explained why students should behave and dress properly, because it
communicated the image of the school; at Parkside, teachers reprimanded students
connecting it to having a good classroom climate, respecting each other and learning.
At Treehill and Montrose, it was not the students who owned their bodies. They
were forbidden from styling themselves as they pleased, wearing anything that was not
part of the uniform, engaging in physical contact with each other, or performing a non-
conforming gender identity, among other behavior. The layout of these two schools
allowed students to be constantly surveilled by the deans, with balconies in upper floors
being a perfect lookout position. The way these schools situated students as surveilled
communicated to them a limited notion of what they could do, promoting in them a
sense of not being trusted by adults. With Parkside being a much smaller school and
having a different layout, there was a circular relationship between the freedom that
students had according to the culture of the school, and the physical space in which they
moved.
The extent to which bodies were regulated and constrained in schools, while not
completely surprising, was revealed as a site of possibility, because it was also where
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students themselves were exercising resistance: through movement, styling, and bending
and breaking the rules. It was how students exercised and experienced freedom. It is
through an emphasis on their incarnated selves that students can demonstrate in the
public space, take ownership of it, establish relationships with others, and build
community, because it is precisely through seemingly innocuous biopolitical constraints
that agency is prevented.
The internalization of the norms through the panopticon principle at Treehill and
Montrose was in service of a CE as socialization, where agency was experienced as
exceptional, rather than students learning that it was part of citizenship. The high level
of behavioral control over the students at these schools worked as a way of preventing
resistance, with students being socialized to be afraid of and to follow orders from those
in power and not question them, with the difference being that Montrose students were
being trained to hold positions of more authority than Treehill students within the
system, with discipline signified as character building for a path that included university.
While Treehill students exhibited resistance through disengagement from academics,
Montrose students saw the rules as part of the necessary acculturation process to achieve
success, so they internalized them following the panopticon principle. This way, norms
were experienced as empowering by Montrose students, as a tool or skill required to
strive in a competitive world; but were experienced as disempowering by Treehill
students, even if they were resisting them. In the case of Parkside students, the
opportunities they had to question the rules empowered them as transformative citizens,
as they experienced they could effect changes in their micro-society, from a
subjectification approach that focused on agency.
Civic ceremonies at the schools, whether they were traditional ones as in
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Treehill and Montrose, or alternative ones, as in Parkside, represented rituals of
embodied boredom for the students, who, for the most part, did not learn about the topic
at hand through the contents delivered through the discourses and performances, but
learned to be obedient and to overcome suffering, no matter how boring, disconnected
from their interests, and long the ceremony. The civic ceremony stood out as a relevant
instance of CE at the schools, which succinctly expressed the notion of ideal citizenship
at each school.
Teachers and students at all schools described them as comparatively better in
terms of low levels of violence and good climate than surrounding schools or other
schools in general. Regardless of this, it was possible to see a degree of naturalized
bullying in all of the schools, even if the discourse from discipline manuals and teachers
was against it. At Treehill and Montrose, there was more leeway in terms of what kind
of behavior was considered bullying when compared to Parkside, with Treehill students
using very offensive language, at times homophobic or racist; and with a value of “thick
skin” promoted at Montrose, sarcastic remarks from teachers, and some accusations of
bullying being disregarded. At both Treehill and Montrose, teachers and students
identified a lack of support for issues such as different sexual orientations. At Parkside,
safe spaces were promoted for students to express their opinion and emotional
vulnerability, and teachers enforced a more strict rejection of bullying, but nonetheless it
was possible to observe some racist, sexist, and homophobic remarks in students’ daily
interactions. This naturalization of verbal abuse also revealed how rare and difficult it
was for students to stand up for their right to being treated well, and how schools
contributed to social reproduction through hierarchies that put male, white, and
heterosexual as superior categories.
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Student Centers and Student Government in each class, while good spaces for
democratic participation on paper, had a limited field of action at the schools, being
mostly concerned with organizing recreational events in Treehill and Montrose, and
being more discourse than action at Parkside. Participation in these spaces at Treehill
and Montrose was excessively guided by adults, with students feeling disregarded and
constrained when implementing their projects, and with student centers reproducing the
institutional hierarchy. Differences were evident in the reasons students provided for
joining these organizations and in the impact they perceived that they could have
through them, ranging from not seeing their participation as political at Treehill and
Montrose, to seeing it as a stepping-stone for a future political career at Parkside.
More than real experiences of democracy, at Treehill and Montrose, students
agreed that the benefits of participating in Student Centers involved developing their
leadership abilities; breaking out of their comfort zones, especially in the case of
students that considered themselves more withdrawn; and having a first approach to the
experience of leadership, regardless of what changes they got to effect in their
communities, since they knew their role was mostly limited to organizing recreational
activities for the student body. This meant being in the Student Center was for the most
part a selfish pursuit. Contrastingly, at Parkside, students had self-aggrandizing and
messianic notions of what they could do, but they did not have a system in place to turn
their ideas into concrete projects. So, for different reasons, students at the three schools
ended up learning that their power to change things was limited, and that democracy did
not mean much in the hierarchical structure of the school, where they did not have a
position of authority as students.
Homeroom period seemed to summarize the goals that each school had for the
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students: at Treehill, moving on to the next grade; at Montrose, getting into University;
at Parkside, organizing and expressing themselves. With the exception of some
Homeroom sessions at Parkside, where it was possible to see how students learned that
their opinion mattered, to respect others’ opinions, to make decisions, and to adopt
leadership positions, in general, Homeroom period seemed to be a missed opportunity
for participation. More pressing concerns such as tests or dealing with the many
activities at the schools, prevented Homeroom from being a space where students could
organize and express their opinion. There was little institutional support and
encouragement for students to give their opinions and present projects to improve the
schools and address their needs as students. Over and over, students would be told that
their ideas were not feasible, or were outside their area of concern. Students would be
communicated through these rejections that they were not important, had no power, or
had to cover up who they were at the school. This way, schools felt more strongly as
places of socialization than of agency when students tried to change the status quo in
any way. Schools should be places of scaffolding of the practice of citizenship. So the
fact that student government was to a degree a simulation of future political involvement
is not necessarily problematic, but it becomes so when the simulacrum is artificial to a
degree that student voices are not really heard at the school, consensus is fabricated and
what really takes place is the imposition of a view from the school administration.
Educational laws and CE guidelines highlight the role of both Student Centers
and class government as spaces for student democratic participation. What my study
showed is that there is not much institutional support for these spaces, but also, that
students do not always see them as political arenas where participation can be
meaningful beyond organizing recreational events. When teachers actively fostered
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student ownership of these spaces, more participation and expression from students were
evident, so providing teachers with more tools to conduct this task could increase
student engagement, even within the institutional constraints of schools. The differences
between the schools in terms of the role of student organizations also revealed a need to
help lower socioeconomic class students as those in Treehill, to recognize their civic
efficacy, in order for Student Centers to more consistently advocate for students’ rights.
At Montrose, the authoritarian climate and institutional bureaucracy made it difficult for
the Student Center to recognize that they were in the best position to be more critical
about both the school and social issues in which they could become engaged, so this is
an aspect that teachers could contribute to, by showing students how dissident
demonstrations throughout history have been necessary to change things. Students could
also organize to have discussions about social issues and social movements, something
that was strikingly absent during the Student Movement at Treehill and Montrose, as
revealed by teachers. At Parkside, given that students already had recognized their
political role, the task was to get them to see beyond the school and engage with the
broader community in ways that could make them more aware of the needs of others.
If we think of the school as part of the “public sphere” (Biesta, 2012) where
there could be political speech, critical discourses and emancipatory acts, we can see
how Treehill and Montrose were actively preventing this through an excessive focus on
discipline, with rules and a school climate that did not encourage students to express
their opinions and participate in the school community beyond the traditional forms of
participation that did not challenge how things were done. While these findings are not
newsworthy in the Chilean context, where the authoritarian and patriotic approach to
schooling is well known, and was reinforced by the dictatorship, without the return to
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democracy bringing significant changes to CE, this study showed how disciplinary
aspects of schools clash with the declared intentions of the Ministry of Education for a
critical CE, and with the discourse of the schools’ missions, placing students in the
midst of this contradiction.
In Student Participation in Politics and Groups. While in general, teachers at
the three schools critically described the low participation of students in different groups
and in formal politics, there was self-reported participation from students in different
types of groups, and an assessment of not having sufficient spaces at the school and
neighborhood for participation, whether recreational or to display a more active political
role.
In general, Treehill students did not want to be involved in institutional nor
subversive politics; Montrose students were mostly interested in formal participation
through voting and volunteering; and Parkside students were mostly interested in
subversive politics right now (by participating in marches and protests), although they
talked of participating in political parties in the future. These different alternatives
resulted in a limited questioning of the status quo, because they implied, respectively,
students not engaging in politics (Treehill), doing the minimum to be considered a good
citizen (Montrose), or remaining in the level of discourse with the occasional
performance of dissent that did not establish a dialogue with other views (Parkside).
Treehill students felt excluded from politics altogether; Montrose students knew
questioning the system would not cement their way to social mobility; and Parkside
students knew that questioning the system in a more concrete way would mean facing
their own privileges.
The existing literature on civic engagement describes students from poor classes
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as being less civically engaged than their peers from upper classes (Weis & Fine, 2004;
Taft & Gordon, 2013). This research gave insight into the reasons for this
disengagement in Treehill students: a diminished sense of civic efficacy, frustration
stemming from rejection of their proposals at the school, a feeling of being disregarded
by politicians, and a sense of alienation from the rest of the country beyond their
neighborhood. They were involved in community-building groups and activities that
kept folk traditions alive, but they did not see their participation in them as political; and
they were knowledgeable about youth problems in the neighborhood, and some students
even attempted to implement projects to change those conditions. They were also aware
of inequality in their neighborhood, but did not find ways to organize to turn their sense
of exclusion and critiques into some kind of dissident action or demonstration.
Meanwhile, Montrose students embraced individualism and meritocracy, so their lack of
political engagement was a more conscious decision, given their chosen focus on
academics. Parkside students talked about collectivism and activism, but in general did
not really practice it, with students themselves distinguishing between the “activist
pose” that predominated among the students, and authentic and informed engagement,
and acknowledging their gap between discourse and action.
We should not, then, see students at Treehill and Montrose as merely
uninterested in politics, without further exploring this. From a quantitative standpoint,
maybe students at both these schools could appear as not being interested in engaging in
future political participation beyond voting. But how they experiment exclusion and
how it determines the way they see themselves participating in society are different. And
the same caution should be taken not to romanticize Parkside students’ level of
participation in society, when they did not always fulfill their political engagement.
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Treehill students participated in their community on a local scale, but did not
have the discourse to talk about it, so it was easy to characterize them as politically
disengaged when that was not really the case. As Nicoll et al. (2013, p.12) explain, “it
appears logical to accept arguments for the need to increase the participation of
marginalized groups in democratic structures and practices, whether or not they are
already participating in their own way, even as disaffected or refusing.” We must
recognize the spaces of resistance, such as the close relationship Treehill students
showed with their neighborhood and neighbors, remarkable in a context of
individualism in Santiago where the relationship with neighbors is usually characterized
by distance. That way, we will avoid falling into the traps identified by Anyon (1981a,
p. 38): “Those who would struggle against ideological hegemony must not confuse
working-class powerlessness with apathy, middle-class ideology with its inevitability, or
ruling-class power and cultural capital with superior strength and intelligence.”
All of these forms of knowledge and engagement present in Treehill students
showed, following Levinson (2010), that we cannot simply diagnose a civic engagement
gap where poor students participate less and are less interested in social problems than
wealthy students, because this would imply on our part valuing more highly a kind of
privileged formal engagement in society.
At all schools, students manifested a distance from formal politics, distrusting
politicians and seeing them as failing the lower classes (Treehill), ignoring the middle-
class (Montrose), or having betrayed their servant principles (Parkside). But this affected
political participation from students in different ways. Treehill students rejected political
knowledge or participation, and did not feel entitled to give their opinion on political
matters, even when they had knowledge of local issues and politics in their
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neighborhood. Montrose students assumed the need to vote and be informed about
politics, but did not consider other forms of political participation, whether getting
involved in political groups or protesting. And Parkside students, while seen as
generally uninterested in politics by teachers, had some participation in student
organizations, social movements marches, and a few students participated in more
radical political groups. In accordance with international reports, teachers at the three
schools saw political participation of students as declining, and this as being a reflection
of a national discredit of politics and the decline of trust in politicians.
It is possible to conjecture that the explicitly declared disinterest in politics in
Treehill students is sustained by their experience of seeing politicians as serving other
social classes from which they are excluded, as they explained when discussing their
Mayor’s actions, and revealing their awareness of the socioeconomic inequality present
in their neighborhood. Beck (2002) states that youth are moved by precisely the aspects
that politics exclude, which leads to youth declaring a denial of politics, which is in
itself highly political. Treehill students, then, could be denying their interest in politics
as a way of stating their feelings of low civic efficacy, since they do not visualize formal
channels of political participation as available to them, and the ones they have
(including their participation in the Student Center) they see as limited in their power to
effect change.
In the Curriculum. Teachers at Parkside focused on critical thinking, from a
structural perspective of society where students were able to identify their privileged
position. At Montrose and Treehill, teachers focused on character aspects and values,
with an emphasis on following the rules and respecting others, especially adults. It was
possible to see how the curriculum was in service of reproducing social classes, by
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fostering a specific kind of citizen and worker: in the case of Treehill, an obedient
employee; in the case of Montrose, an adapted professional content with climbing up in
the social ladder; and in the case of Parkside, a creative artist, politician or leader.
At Montrose, a Catholic orientation was linked to a sense of duty for helping
others, especially those who needed it most, from a charitable perspective; but at the
same time, the school expected the students to strive for excellence or the best version of
themselves, from a meritocratic and competitive perspective. While Montrose students
were interested in being informed, they saw knowledge as originated by experts or
external sources, which according to Anyon (1981b) can create a passive stance,
preventing new ideas. Knowledge there was highly commodified: seen as important for
the purpose of getting to university. Following Anyon (1980), Parkside provided
students the skills to become successful artists or intellectuals, and spaces to put them in
practice, with a relationship to their work that was more creative and autonomous than at
the other schools. The fact that students at Treehill were taught about social classes a
hundred years ago, but did not make the connection with today’s inequality, nor
recognized the interests they shared with the historical working class, could be
promoting, as Anyon (1981b) explains, a social amnesia and passiveness that reproduces
social classes.
Students at Montrose and Parkside were conscious of the tradeoffs involved in
their respective types of school: Montrose students were focused on getting to university
after high school, and that meant for them the academic aspect was central, even if it
was accompanied by the development of values, an integral formation, and a sense of
duty to others. This, inevitably, implied a tacit competition among students for grades.
The academic focus at Montrose was aligned with what Westheimer (2015) sees a
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generalized phenomenon of today’s education, whose goals “have been shifting steadily
away from preparing active and engaged public citizens and toward more narrow goals
of career preparation and individual economic gain” (loc. 339-340). This put their notion
of citizenship, following Gaudelli (2009), in the competitive versus cooperative side of
the spectrum, with a neoliberal curriculum that “champions competition, values
academic learning, and is above all aimed at utility” (p. 71). Parkside students, on the
other hand, looked at competition, individualism, and a narrow focus on academics
critically, and appreciated the cooperative and democratic climate of their school.
Students at these two schools acknowledged that they could not get both:
academic excellence and good school climate, which is why Montrose students
described how some of their classmates had left because they could not adapt to the
academic pressure and the personal responsibility demanded from the school, or because
they did not like the lack of spaces for resistance or critical opinion. At Parkside, some
students would have liked a little less freedom in terms of discipline norms and
academic demands but, on the other hand, they knew that went against the core values of
the school. Treehill students were also aware of tradeoffs, in their case, of being in a
Technical-Vocational school instead of a Scientific-Humanistic one, which meant the
possibility of having a better job opportunity right out of school, thanks to a Technical-
Vocational degree, but also giving up the chance of better test preparation for getting to
university and having better job opportunities in the long term.
While there have been changes to the official CE curriculum, what
predominated at Treehill and Montrose (and probably at the majority of Chilean
schools) was a CE from the dictatorship period, with a focus on order, respect and
patriotism. Schools resorted to a discourse of “values,” which were mostly linked to
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discipline and conformity. Similar to what Spreen and Monaghan (2015) found in
classrooms in the United States, citizenship in Chile was mostly addressed through
content definitions, notions about democratic “values” and norms expressed in discipline
manuals, or discussed as part of State law, linking it with the responsibility to vote. It
was not lived as a celebration of different experiences, languages, cultures and identities,
and while Parkside had this focus as its mission, students seemed to speak of this
diversity from a post-racial perspective that did not fully recognize the discrimination
present in Chilean society.
Whether they had a nationalist (Treehill), neoliberal (Montrose) or Marxist
(Parkside) citizenship curriculum (Gaudelli, 2009), all schools seemed to be keeping
students from engaging in democratic citizenship in ways that could disrupt the status
quo of the school or society. While the findings of this study could be presented in a
simplistic way as a continuous growth of civic opportunities according to social class,
the reality of CE implementation was more complex than that. The sociocritical
curriculum at Parkside, while offering some advantages over the patriotic old-school
civics perspective present in civic ceremonies at Treehill, or the entrepreneurial and
individualistic approach at Montrose, was nonetheless limited by a traditional classroom
structure and the pressures of accountability. And when Parkside students experienced
that their voice was not heard, that discourse did not evolve into action, that the school
functioned as a business, and that the democratic experience of organizing did not
consider different perspectives and did not effectively result in change, they also
experimented frustration and learned they were limited in their efficacy as citizens.
If we only consider the finding of the many differences in civic opportunities in
the curriculum and the culture of schools according to socioeconomic class, it is possible
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to adopt a more deterministic view of the process of social reproduction following the
correspondence principle, seeing how schools teach students to be either obedient
workers or creative leaders (Anyon, 1981a). But resistance complicates this and shows
how nonconformity and oppositional behavior express the agency of students, against
the tendency of schools to adopt a socialization approach that maintains the status quo.
This resistance will be described in the following section.
Bridges of Resistance. While all the areas previously described present a
deterministic view of civic opportunities according to class if we take these three
schools as representative of their socioeconomic level, it was possible to observe
different forms of resistance to exclusion and political disengagement at Treehill. These
examples provide hope and a point of departure for working against the limited
opportunities for expression and political knowledge and organization these students had
at their school, when compared with students in private schools. They can act, therefore,
as bridges to overcome the citizenship opportunity gap, even if they are not enough, by
themselves, to eliminate those gaps.
As previously mentioned, most examples of organized resistance at Treehill
ended up with students giving up on their struggles due to threats of punishment from
the school administrators. This was the case when Mario wrote a letter to the Principal
and tried to collect signatures from students to get the school to offer healthy food
choices and put back the fountains with drinking water, to address the obesity problem
he had identified; or when he tried to form an LGBTQ study group, to provide support
for these students and address the discrimination and bullying he saw them as
experiencing at the school. The same happened when Matilda inquired about the criteria
used to decide which students would participate in a school trip, and then complained
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when she found out students had been lied to about academic criteria being used, when
in reality it had been decided according to parents’ ability to pay for the trip. These
examples, which spontaneously came up during interviews and informal conversations
with students, showed that they did not passively accept the conditions that they felt as
oppressive or unfair, but that the institutional power structure and its discipline
enforcement ended up silencing these efforts.
With more success, the Student Center complained to the Principal about a
program that the school had recently implemented, which involved students conducting
research in the computer lab for most of the classes. The Student Center transmitted the
complaints of their peers about the system not favoring learning, with students just
copying from the Internet without doing real research. As a result of these efforts, the
school reduced the hours of computer time for some subjects and eliminated it for
others, and will completely retire the program next year. This was an example of how
the Student Center could fulfill its role as representing the voice of the students and
fighting for their rights, showing that their capabilities were not used to the fullest
limiting the role of the Student Center to organizing celebrations, and that even if they
declared themselves apolitical and did not see their participation in school government
as political, there were moments when they exercised civic courage and democratic
participation. Other claims students made during interviews, but which they had not, to
my knowledge, communicated to administrators in a formal way, included the need for
more entertaining workshops at the school, for sex education talks, and more democracy
in the practices of class government and the Student Center. There were many personal,
embodied forms of resistance in modifications to the uniform or the use of hairstyles or
accessories that were not permitted according to the discipline manual, through which
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students expressed opposition and risked punishment, but that did not become part of a
broader student conversation about school rules or attempts to modify them.
Considering these examples altogether, it was paradoxical to hear Treehill’s
Principal say that they did not have student leadership at the school, or a teacher say that
they only had negative leaders, when it was obvious that there were students actively
trying to expand the limits of what was sayable and doable at the school. There is a
common held assumption that we need to civically engage poor students, as if they were
disengaged. While these cases of resistance may be exceptional, they nonetheless show
that we cannot just erase and silence the voices and actions of the students who are
already trying to change things. We need, instead, to create more favorable conditions
for them to have a space at the school so that they can be heard and engage other
students, and a stance from the administration that values dissent and sees it as input to
improve the school rather than as infractions that need to be punished.
Another paradox was evident in the self-description and teachers’ perception of
students as lazy, when they showed sustained commitment and effort in extra-curricular
activities such as the Music Workshop at the school, folk and dance groups in the
neighborhood (with students from the school having won cueca competitions), a student
having won the entrepreneurial competition with a project of a laugh therapy workshop
to address mental health issues in youth, the students that routinely exercised in the
uneven bars, the students who liked to play soccer and organized leagues with teams
from other schools, or the girls that I invited to trekking outings and actively participated
in a number of sessions of physical preparation and learning about safety precautions in
outdoor sports. While these were recreational spaces, they held great potential as spaces
for learning citizenship in different ways: identifying youth needs in the neighborhood,
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organizing events in a cooperative fashion, appreciating traditional customs in a
balanced way, having a healthy relationship with the natural and social environment,
recognizing their bodies and their possibilities for movement and expression, and using
the public spaces of the neighborhood, among others. While Treehill was trying to teach
students about patriotism and obedience as the main tenets of citizenship, some students
were resisting this approach, despite the threats of reprisals, understanding citizenship as
exercising participation in their local community and claiming their rights as students.
Considering the many students that were involved in these activities, even if
they did not represent the entire student body, the picture of Treehill students as
disengaged starts to crumble even more. Another form of work that we can start from
here is to think of the political dimension of these spaces, and how students can see their
participation in them as part of exercising citizenship, learning their potential to extend
this practice to other areas of their lives, including how they can have a more critical and
active role in their schools.
With no intent of over-politicizing or romanticizing the apolitical stance of
Treehill students, it was possible to see that it involved possibilities to construct
alternative forms of citizenship in their absence of a fix notion, in contrast to Montrose
students, who showed a restricted notion of citizenship linked to formal politics and a
conservative approach to improving conditions of injustice. As Biesta (2011) puts it, in
this case, the “ignorant citizen” means the possibility of a citizenship that is not based on
particular knowledge about what the good citizen is, or on a stable identity. Despite the
constant promotion of a patriotic and obedient citizen at the school, this particular view
had not been acritically internalized or learned by the students, therefore being closer to
a subjectification notion of citizenship than Montrose students, even if they did not have
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the awareness of this as Parkside students did when consciously deciding to participate
in politics through social movements. In Biesta’s (2011) words, Treehill students would
be “refusing this knowledge and through this, refusing to be domesticated, refusing to be
pinned down in a pre-determined civic identity” (p. 152). This also means that there was
room for Treehill students to visualize themselves as citizens in the present, because
since Montrose students saw voting as their main possibility of political participation,
they also saw it as a future endeavor for which they must prepare learning about how
government works, but not as something that they could practice today. But it was the
exposure to and engagement in democracy that Treehill students were still lacking, since
the mere rejection of the traditional forms of participation is not enough for a
transformative kind of citizenship.
The apparent lack of resistance at Montrose was also significant, since it showed
the extent to which the school imposed a manufactured consent about academic
priorities and respect of discipline rules, which meant that students who deviated from
the norm in any way ended up being pushed out of the school, as students reported.
Students from the Student Center talked of the opposition they had found from the
administration to implement projects at the school that were different from the kind of
projects that had historically been in charge of the Student Center: sports and cultural
competitions, and the annual party. In general, students described feeling highly
pressured by academic demands at the school, with this limiting their time and energy to
participate in organizations of any kind outside the school. Students self-identified,
following the discourse from teachers, as focused on academics, which meant, in a
dichotomic scheme, that they did not see themselves as having time to engage in deep
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reflections or solving the world’s problems. Too much expression could also go against
the many rules of the school, of which students were for the most part respectful.
While resisting was a common stance from students at Parkside, the moments
that represented a more authentic kind of resistance that went beyond discourse,
involved students actually participating beyond the classroom: attending marches,
organizing a talk with a student leader, forming lists as candidates for the Student Center
presidency, participating in the Municipal councils to discuss the Constitution, in the
solidary activities organized by a teacher at the school, or in the Philosophy
Conversation Group (that while concerning the level of discourse, was the only extra-
curricular workshop at the school, and students attending every week represented a
resistance to what they described as a generalized disengagement present in their
classmates).
Public spheres are supposed to be spaces where people can formulate
oppositional interpretations of their own identities, interests and needs, as well as
perform subversive and emancipatory acts. If we want to think of schools as part of
these public spheres, it is necessary to embrace resistance as the way that students have
of communicating who they are, what they want to learn about, and what they need.
From what I observed, students had a much more clear perspective on these issues than
teachers and administrators gave them credit for, but sometimes did not express them
given the institutional constraints and fear of negative consequences. Teachers can have
a role in fostering this resistance, in subversive but also strategic ways, so that students
can learn that they can change things when they fight for them together.
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Identity as Denial: Abajismo and Arribismo
The extent to which neoliberalism is ingrained in Chilean society is expressed in
and reinforced by the strength that aspirationalism and snobbery are present in the
commonsense discourse. Chile prided itself for years in being called the “jaguar” of
Latin America, always looking to appear as more occidental, without traces of our
indigenous cultures. The social dynamics at schools reveal how this continues to be the
case, and how schools actively perpetuate this type of attitudes in students, which imply
misrecognition of their social class and ethnic makeup, and compliance with a system
perpetuating inequality. According to Bourdieu and Passeron (1977, in Thapar-Björkert,
Samelius, & Sanghera, 2016), this is achieved through the symbolic violence immanent
in the everyday habitus, influencing the perceptions, thoughts, actions, and body
dispositions, which make the dominated see the structure of dominance as natural.
At Treehill and Montrose, the good citizen was understood by teachers and
administrators from a socialization perspective as well behaved and acculturated.
Socialization at these schools worked as a way of denying students’ culture and identity,
instead of practicing a CE that was culturally relevant for students. The way schools
achieved this was by making use of the existing societal discourse of arribismo,
communicated to students through a focus on norms and personal presentation. Treehill
and Montrose students, following the arribismo ideology, engaged in a process of
othering flaites and tried to behave, dress, and talk in ways that rejected that label. A
successful school, for administrators, could be measured by students passing for upper-
class students. Cultural explanations from a deficit perspective prevented building
community between these schools and the parents, with teachers and administrators
seeing them as uneducated and in need of being told how to do things.
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Parkside students, on the other hand, adhered to the abajismo ideology, which
rejected or denied their higher-class status to present themselves as aware of and
supporting of the struggles of the people (in contrast to what they considered a snob
elite), a stance that was actively fostered by the school. The cuicos that they tried to
distinguish themselves from were seen by them, as Contardo (2013) puts it, as the other
youth living in a better neighborhood, studying in more expensive schools, and talking
about cuico topics, which are usually happier and more hopeful. This category, he
explains, is always relative to the observer, but with an absolute cuico as the point of
reference, one with the last name, money, manners and appearance. Parkside students, in
their research projects, showed a discourse of slumming or class tourism (Contardo,
2013), as a way to learn about, and sympathize with the experiences and aesthetics of
the poor, with the assumption that there is something more authentic in that world that
they cannot find in theirs. But, according to their teachers, this was not something that
they actually engaged in.
There was an explicit classism in all the observed schools, with students trying
not to be what they were, but appear as having more or less money and cultural capital.
Students at Treehill and Montrose knew that to succeed they could not be flaites, and
students at Parkside knew that to uphold their social justice ideals, their privilege looked
problematic, so it was better to hide it.
Montrose students, more aware than Treehill students of the benefits of code-
switching, or with more abilities to perform it, developed a kind of snobbery,
discriminating those that they saw as not adequate enough or studious enough. Similar
to the middle-class school of Anyon’s (1981b) study of five schools from different
socioeconomic classes, these students expressed a theme of possibility, with education
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seen as crucial to getting to university, being successful, and becoming a good citizen.
But since these students also were aware of inequality in the country, and how it robbed
some sections of the population of the minimum opportunities to have a chance, there
had to be some internal cognitive dissonance in them. Their contradictions appeared
when talking about the Student Movement, at times supporting it, but disagreeing with
its more radical positions and violent methods of protest.
It was hard for Montrose students to disregard the prevailing social order, which,
as Giroux (2016) describes, is “ruled by an ‘economics of contempt’ that blames the
poor for their condition and wallows in a culture of shaming” (p. 1), especially
considering the fact that their parents had for the most part achieved some upward
mobility in the last years, that allowed them to pay for the school and thus differentiate
themselves from their neighbors. The processes of creaming and cropping of students in
which the school engaged, prevented students from seeing the structural barriers to
social mobility, allowing them to only see the exceptional cases that successfully broke
into the upper classes.
As Contardo (2013) puts it when explaining the arribismo ideology in Chile, it
involves a social climbing strategy by imitation of the codes that are believed to get you
closer to the domain of those you wish to imitate, or in the most ambitious cases, to
allow you to belong to that group you dream of being a part of. The misrecognition in
which Treehill and Montrose students were involved, was linked to the unbacked
promise that they would succeed if they did not look or act in ways that revealed their
origins, but instead became as their upper class peers, following a series of standards
stated in discipline manuals and in the school discourse, without recognizing that
particular class distinctions would make blending in impossible. The process involved a
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denial and shame of self that, without being countered by a critical CE that developed
class-consciousness, was not questioned. These students misrecognized the oppression
that they were subject to in the class system and how they, in their involvement in
discrimination practices, reproduced that oppression against others.
Some of Treehill students had given up on being a part of a system that they
knew actively excluded them, so they conformed by not setting high expectations for
themselves, not participating in any groups, and just working to afford their identity as
consumers and obtain status symbols that could make them appear as better than their
peers, instead of questioning a system that pushed them to consume. Their awareness of
social class was in these cases related to a sense of learned helplessness. Some of these
students also displayed a resistance through a flamboyant or exaggerated personal style,
with the risk of being labeled as flaites, making a decision to not adapt to the system,
and to the school rules and discourse of socialization. While students realized how this
reduced their possibilities of success, they chose to proudly assert their identity. Other
students fought the dominant conformism they identified in their classmates, and set
unrealistically high expectations for themselves academically and professionally, that
with one or two exceptions per class, generally did not become a reality. These two
paths were similar to what Willis (1977) and MacLeod (1987) found in their respective
studies of the natural groups formed in high school classes in urban public schools that
they followed for a number of years, with one group resisting the meritocratic discourse
and other buying into it, but with the long-term results being similar for those who
engaged in resistance and even criminal behavior, and those who tried to be good
students, with the resisting group being more aware of structural inequality in society.
Montrose students, on the other hand, consciously expressing their belonging to
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the middle-class of the country, excluded themselves from a more active political
approach because they saw it as a distraction from the extra dedication they considered
they had to put into their studies to succeed, and because they did not consider
politicians governed for them. That exclusion, rather than promoting the hopelessness it
did in some Treehill students, “empowered” them to climb the social ladder, but from a
very individualistic perspective. Because the successful cases of students going to
university were more than the failures at the school, the latter went unexamined. But
also unexamined was how the school engaged in a process of creaming and cropping
students (due to disciplinary or academic issues) that allowed them to show these good
results, similarly to charter schools in the United States. The different aspects of school
life actively contributed to promoting the meritocratic ideology in Montrose students
and their families, making it difficult for any resistance to arise. Students bought into the
deficit view of their neighborhood and their family communicated by teachers and
administrators. While the school excellence discourse encouraged a strong identity of
the students as part of the school, and high expectations, it also pushed students to
discriminate others as a way to sustain their identity. The school choice discourse, that
has achieved great strength as the commonsensical approach to education in Chile,
reinforced a naturalization of segregation according to socioeconomic level in these
students, who did not consider free tertiary education should be a right for all.
Both Treehill and Montrose students believed to a certain extent in meritocracy,
but Montrose students had decided to play the game, with a strong belief in the idea that
from hard work and an academic focus, success would come. Meanwhile, students at
Treehill enacted a kind of resistance that was not very defiant, but manifested as
disengagement from political issues and participation, a declared disinterest in being
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informed about what happens in the country, or in becoming involved in groups or
extracurricular activities. In terms of academics, this resistance showed as a lack of
attention in class, and lack of effort in school assignments and evaluations. While these
were students that could use the educational reforms to obtain gratuity in university,
they were disconnected from the Student Movement advocating for these issues. By not
always seeing the structural inequality that affected their progress in life, these students
tended to use a self-blaming language calling themselves “lazy” or “uninterested”.
Parkside students also engaged in a form of misrecognition in their abajismo.
James (2015) describes this phenomenon as present in privileged families that make
against-the-grain educational decisions, who see themselves as part of a more culturally
tolerant and anti-racist privileged class. Nonetheless, these parents exercise a high level
of vigilance of the school as consumers. This was described by teachers as the reality of
parents at Parkside, who made the “risky” choice to put their children in a non-
traditional school, but who engaged in vigilance regarding teacher quality and students’
academic results. Also implied in their school choice, James (2015) claims, is an
underlying belief in the brightness of their children, which will allow them to “rise to
their natural place” regardless of the school being lower-performing when compared
with elite schools. So while these students and families may want to contribute to
dismantling the system by choosing a progressive school, their discourse and practices
still reveal an implicit social hierarchy where they do not see everyone as equals, and
they expect their children to do well on the university selection tests and have good
GPAs to integrate successfully to the system.
What this study adds to the existing literature on social reproduction is showing
how the institutional setting of the school contributed to maintaining this reality, decades
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after the two examples cited, emphasized by the particularities of social segregation in
Chile. Technical-Vocational education, while it can be a profitable alternative for
students, can also be a form of early tracking. When it is not accompanied by enough
information for students regarding how it means less preparation for university selection
tests, and when it is culturally understood as the option for less capable students, and
linked to lower expectations and a lax approach to academics, a possible outcome is
students believing that they are less capable, or actively denying how their school is
setting them at a disadvantage for their academic purposes. My research showed how
discussions of vocational and academic matters seldom took place in Treehill’s
classrooms, even if teachers were aware of how the ambiguous expectations of students
negatively affected them.
My study also showed how we need to look at both structure and culture to
understand the process of social reproduction, because there is human agency both in the
compliance with and resistance to the meritocratic promise. I included the dimension of
aspirations, that previous studies such as Willis’ (1977) and MacLeod’s (1987) had
explored, and discovered that the particular strength of the abajismo and arribismo
discourses in Chile mediated both expectations and identity, including what students
thought of their role as citizens. Students, while to a point misrecognized how their
position in the social structure was constructed, also made choices when othering and
discriminating as a way to reinforce their identity.
This finding adds another dimension to the distinction made by Biesta between
socialization and subjectification, because in the cases explored, socialization implied
denial of self, while authentic subjectification would imply a recognition of self and the
development of class-consciousness, a positioning that allows an understanding of the
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social structure, from where students can begin to criticize and change it. It also adds to
the existing theory on social reproduction, revealing that it is not only through the
formal and hidden curriculum that schools contribute to social reproduction, but that
there is also a dimension of agency that has to be considered, where true agency for
students requires, first, pride in their own identity, and an active rejection of societal
discourses that discriminate others based on social class. The notion of subjectification
in Biesta implies the logic of dissensus, remaining independent from the existing orders
by challenging insertion in these orders (Oral, 2016). Treehill and Montrose presented
students with the opposite proposal: doing whatever it took to insert themselves in the
existing order. And by promoting a discourse of arribismo, which pushed students to
look at their social class from a distance, from the perspective of those in power,
socialization was never in danger of being challenged, with students creating faux
distinctions within their own social class as a way to exert dominance and reinforce their
identity. Oral (2016) posits it is precisely education, through pedagogical interventions,
that can provide the condition of possibility for breaking free of the matrix of symbolic
social order that we are caught in. Parkside provided some spaces for this, when it
promoted critical reflection about the socioeconomic system from students, but Treehill
and Montrose conveyed to students that any form of dissent, including those that
questioned the social structure, were not welcomed. Schools, then, not only contribute to
social reproduction through differentiated curricula and segregation of students
according to class, but also through the cultural discourses that keep students aiming to
climb positions in the system, rather than aiming to change it. And the strength of these
discourses in Chile makes this cultural dimension one that needs to be considered and
explicitly discussed in CE in schools.
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Schools as Isolated Bubbles
The connections that schools establish with their surrounding community are an
important aspect for citizenship, which takes place with others and in spaces that define
that participation and interaction. The identity that students form as citizens, then, is
defined by how they understand their community and who belongs to it, and how they
relate to the space that they live and study in. As Helfenbein puts it:
Place is a particular location imbued with social meanings ascribed by

those who live within the space, who traverse it, and who make sense of
it from beyond. Identity, then, emerges from the intersection of space
and place, a contestation over who I am/we are in reference to this
place. (in Gaudelli, 2009, p. 112)
For the most part, at Montrose and Treehill, students and teachers referred to
students’ families and the neighborhood from a deficit perspective, rather than focusing
on their strengths and assets. They emphasized the ways in which their schools were
different from the surrounding neighborhood or schools: for example, students said
about Montrose that it was a shame that with the school being so good, the immediately
surrounding neighborhood was so unsafe; in the case of Treehill, students and teachers
said that there was no violence in the school, which differentiated them from other
schools in the neighborhood. At Parkside, the school was also described as better than
other schools in terms of an open and tolerant school climate, with students feeling able
to express their opinion and critiques.
The more abstract approach to the notions of citizenship, nationality, rights and
duties at Parkside contrasted with the local-territorial approach from students at Treehill
and Montrose, with the difference being that Treehill students wanted to remain in and
improve their neighborhood, while Montrose students dreamed of getting out of theirs.
Montrose students explicitly rejected their place-based identity, and Parkside students
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identified with a global citizenship identity that at times confounded itself with
detachment and cynicism. In both cases, this promoted a disconnection with their
immediate community.
Recent educational policy in Chile has adopted a “territory” approach that
recognizes the particularities of each social and cultural reality where actors of the
educational process are located, incorporating local history, resources and preexistent
forms of relationship in the community, so programs answer to the actual needs of those
communities and establish a more horizontal relationship of those communities with the
State, instead of imposing an standard solution (Ministerio de Educación, 2015b). It was
possible to see how this was not accomplished at any of the schools, with the knowledge
of Treehill administrators of recreational activities for students in the neighborhood
being the greatest relationship established between the schools and the surrounding
community. Montrose annual volunteering field trips also connected students with the
community, but the sporadic nature of the activity made it difficult for students to
incorporate it into their citizen identity, and adopt a critical view of the problems in the
community.
The Transparency Council of the Government organized a CE Conference,
where a self-criticism was made about curricular contents that are still focused on
traditional civics; programs that speak of participation in political parties and NGOs, but
which leave youth out because of their age; spaces of daily participation (Student
Centers, School Councils, Sports Clubs, Neighborhood Associations) not considered
relevant; and schools being bubbles in terms of not addressing Human Rights and
discrimination, in a context of growing diversity of Chile. A need to develop a global
and sustainable perspective of citizenship was identified, as well as a closer connection
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with the territory and local communities. After being in these three schools, it was
possible to agree with the Council’s diagnosis. Once again, the bubble metaphor was
present, signaling that schools in Chile are not fully integrated into their communities.
A school that is disconnected from the community communicates to students an
adultist perspective, where students are not seen as fit to have real participation in
society. This way, there cannot be a citizenship-as-practice where students are actually
engaged in democratic politics rather than only in simulations; and citizenship cannot be
understood collectively. If we understand all of society as contributing to students’
learning of citizenship, we can see how an approach where the school is thought of as a
bubble, limits students’ citizenship, especially when the only scenario where they could
practice it, the school, also constrains them in their power to change the conditions they
experiment as oppressing.
All three schools were coincidentally described by teachers, administrators and
students as islands or bubbles, disconnected from their context –whether for highlighting
positive aspects, such as the lack of delinquency or violence of the school, making it a
safe haven within the neighborhood (Montrose, Treehill), or negative aspects, such as
students not knowing about the reality of the country (Parkside, Montrose, Treehill)–. It
is, then, possible to propose that schools are functioning as isolated and isolating
institutions, as different form of bubbles, and that involving the community and
connecting with the needs of the neighborhood were seen as complicated, possibly
raising dangerous thoughts in students leading to questioning the system, or as too
effort-demanding and time-consuming. Schools can stay within their comfort level if the
connection they establish with the problems remains on an abstract, philosophical level
(Parkside), if they adopt an assistentialist strategy (Montrose), or if they deny the social
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injustices right outside their door (Treehill). The school functioning as an encapsulated
space prevented students from learning about local problems and from developing a
sense of belonging that could emotionally connect the students with those problems.
Keeping this distance from reality required a sort of simulation of action from
students, which perpetuated the notion that only adults can be real citizens, with high
school students only performing exercises that could not have effects in society. At
Montrose, students simulated that they had a role in their micro-society, even if they
knew they had very limited power and say in an authoritative context. They also
participated in charitable acts simulating that they were significantly helping others. At
Treehill, students simulated that they did not need to know or belong to the broader
society beyond their neighborhood; some of them said to themselves and to others that
they would go to university to become professionals, even if in some level they knew
their chances were slim. At Parkside, students simulated that they were radical activists,
doing things to change conditions of injustice and oppression in society, but while they
were aware of injustices, they were not shaken enough to engage in more active ways of
addressing these problems. The simulation was performed more strategically at
Montrose –where students believed an individualistic approach would lead them to
professional and economic success– and Parkside –where students knew that
transforming reality would mean losing their privileges–, and out of a self-imposed
ignorance at Treehill, with students having an underlying awareness of marginality that
would have made a more conscious position painful.
The Student Movement was present in students’ discourse at Parkside, but
educational inequality did not personally affect them, having the opportunity to afford
private universities or study abroad. Treehill and Montrose students did not become
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involved in the Student Movement, with Treehill students not having strong opinions
about it, and Montrose students condemning its violent methods. In different ways,
students at these three schools were positioned at a distance from the struggles of the
Student Movement and other social movements, which was surprising given my
expectations of finding a more active interest and participation in these movements after
the massive protests of 2011. Even if these schools were not part of the Liceos
Emblemáticos that had a more active role in those protests, the degree to which teachers
described never having reflected about these issues in class (Montrose), and students as
not being aware of them (Treehill), showed that schools were not working toward
students recognizing the power involved in social movements.
Montrose and Parkside teachers described how the relationship of the parents to
the school, instead of being a cooperative one, had become a transactional one, with
parents adopting a client or consumer standpoint, the school seen as providing a service
for which they were paying, and seeing themselves as having the right to complain if the
expected results of good academic performance from their children were not achieved.
This reinforced a notion of a school closed to the community, unconcerned with social
issues, to focus on the promise of students getting good scores on university selection
tests, or a good job after school. As Montecinos et al. (2015) propose, parents’
empowerment is a result of the logic of accountability, and while holding teachers more
accountable could benefit children, it also implies a logic of distrust that erodes
teachers’ autonomy. This particularly affects CE, which is not seen as a priority by
parents, students or teachers when there is so much pressure to focus on academic
results.
If ideally we can think of schools as part of the democratic public sphere
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(Biesta, 2012), we can see how a market logic, a focus on standardized tests, and
individualism, keep students from being engaged in their communities and achieving an
encounter with others –even in Parkside, a school that supposedly had a collective and
social justice orientation–. If we add to this the fact that discourses of citizenship at
schools such as Treehill and Montrose prevented political action and speech, which was
evident in aspects such as the limited role of student government, the chances of schools
functioning as public spheres are reduced even more.
No time for Citizenship Education. The Discourse to Practice Gap
The finding that there is no time for CE is documented in the literature, both in
analysis of the official curriculum and of the perception of teachers; nationally and
internationally; and not just for CE, but for all areas other than STEM. What this study
contributes is having identified moments in class where critical discussions could have
taken place, but were stopped by teachers to continue addressing the contents planned
for the class; and having heard from students that they had asked for more democratic
ways of making decisions at the school, more participation, and the consideration of
their ideas and projects, but felt frustrated about not having been heard. So even without
considering grand reforms to the CE curriculum, there were glimpses of hope at all
schools, spaces where students could benefit from greater ownership and participation,
both in the classroom and in the democratic culture of the school, including student
organizations, Homeroom period, and school councils.
This study also revealed how teachers were acutely aware of this, feeling
internal dissonance about devoting all of their time to the mandated curriculum, when
they wished that they had time and freedom to prepare and implement activities that
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would allow students to learn about and practice citizenship, to generate debates and
simulations in the classroom, and connect with the world beyond the school.
Regardless of how successful they were in their goal, all schools aimed for
students doing well on their university selection test, getting to university or technical
vocational institutes, and doing well in their professions. This meant classes were mostly
dedicated to preparing students for their internships (at Treehill) or for PSU (at
Montrose and Parkside), and covering the contents of the curriculum. Anything other
was considered unnecessary or not as a priority, sometimes even by the students. That
included artistic and sports workshops, which are a recognized way of transmitting
attitudes and skills related to citizenship, but which were for the most part absent at
Treehill and Parkside, and were approached from a very academic perspective at
Montrose. Academic pressures and the extended school day did not leave time or energy
for students to organize outside the school, and institutional constraints did not allow
them to organize in resistant or critical ways inside the school. So, on one hand, there
was little actual time that could be devoted to CE, but on top of that, there was a
commonsensical discourse that prioritized academics from a narrow approach, and this
discourse sometimes overrode the integral approach to education that schools claimed to
have.
The little focus on CE at the schools implied that they had two parallel
discourses: one present in the school’s mission and declared values, speaking of an
empowered and active student, and the one that students encountered when trying to
implement changes in the micro-society of the school and practice citizenship, that told
them that they should not overstep their role as students, and should focus on studying.
The language of government-issued citizenship guidelines also promoted an active
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political role from students within what is assumed to be, as Dewey (2008) proposed,
the democracy in microcosm of the school. But for teachers, these stated goals of
participation and critical thinking were too abstract and demanding for the reality of the
school, with an extensive curriculum to cover, and what they saw as limitations to
engage in critical thinking on the part of the students. Students, from their perspective,
did not consider having enough spaces for expression in the classroom and schools, but
also acknowledged a lack of interest from most students in engaging in political or
critical action in the school.
Language and History teachers at all three schools agreed upon the fact that the
curriculum could allow them to introduce important and controversial topics to develop
students’ critical thinking and argumentation skills, but they found that there was usually
not enough time to go beyond the basics of the mandatory curriculum, which prevented
in-depth reflection from students. This focus on the mandatory contents of the
curriculum can be understood, as Westheimer (2015) proposes, as a result of the
overemphasis on standards, which has “led to an unprecedented level of regimentation
in classroom practice, which has too often resulted in school professionals mistaking
predictability and order for learning” (loc. 1673-1675). Wade (1997) describes how this
focus ends up creating a very individualistic and passive kind of citizen:
In addition to the message of obeying authority without question,

students are also taught that individual success is what matters (...)
Many of the structures of traditional schooling –individual seat work,
competitive grading, discouragement of collaboration, training in
docility– foster an ethic of individual success over collective learning
and of obedience over empowerment. (p. 5)
Teachers saw CE as necessary, but also as a burden or impossibility when it
conflicted with the time needed for subjects assessed by standardized tests, especially
the admission tests for universities, and when their performance as teachers was being
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assessed by the progress students made on these tests. Tension between the Cross-
sectional Learning Goals linked to CE and standardized testing and traditional subjects
was clear in all schools, and recognized by both teachers and students. In a context of
deep inequality of civic opportunities, there was something that public and private
schools shared: being subjected to a larger system of accountability, where they were
ultimately judged by parents of graduating students, and by families looking for new
schools, by the scores students obtained in the PSU test, and the careers and universities
that they got into.
The extended school day implemented in Chile in 1997 aimed to contribute to
an integral education for democratic citizenship, providing time for students to
participate in recreation activities of their choosing, that would help in developing
values, attitudes, and skills; and also to achieve more equality in education, providing
students in public schools learning opportunities until then limited to students in private
schools (García-Huidobro & Concha, 2009). But with the pressures of competition and
accountability, these extra hours started to be used mostly for preparation for
standardized tests, increasing the number of hours of Language, Math, Social Sciences
and Natural Sciences, focusing on answering multiple choice questions in those fields;
or understood as time where students were to be kept safe within the school grounds –or
keep society safe from them-, with activities having no connection to the educational
mission of the school. Research shows that teachers consider the extended day has not
brought changes, with longer hours that are not effectively used, and with students
claiming that they are exhausted (Educar Chile, 2015). This was evidently the case in
the three schools studied here, with teachers acknowledging students had no energy or
time to engage in groups or activities after school, and that teachers themselves did not
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have time or incentives to conduct those activities. Teachers proposed solutions to the
lack of time for CE at all three schools included reducing the hours dedicated to
traditional subjects, and a better use of the extended school day, with implementation of
elective workshops that allowed students to develop abilities and values.
While there were significant differences among the schools in terms of
providing opportunities for students to practice citizenship and teaching a critical notion
of citizenship, the fact that all the schools of this study –even the most privileged one–
were so affected by the pressure to cover the mandatory curriculum assessed by
standardized tests, and so closed to establishing relationships with the surrounding
community, reveal that there is a strong push, in a neoliberal system, to promote a kind
of citizenship as socialization, where students are prepared to adapt to the system, with a
special focus on the first big rite of passage: the PSU test to enter university. In this
scenario for CE, Parkside students had some advantage, because the school allowed the
spaces for students to critically reflect on the segregation of the educational system, how
schools should not follow a banking model of education, and how the PSU test helped
perpetuate inequality, even if they were nonetheless submitted to them.
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CHAPTER VII
RECOMMENDATIONS
The Role of Leadership in Schools
The notion of citizenship that principals and administrators have has a powerful
effect in how citizenship is taught in schools. At Treehill, the Principal and Head Dean,
which were strong figures at the school, having been there for over 20 years and
developed its educational project, actively promoted a patriotic, formal version of
citizenship, highly tied to discipline and order, together with a focus on preparing
students for work. At Montrose, the Principal and Head Dean had a discourse of cultural
deficit of students that promoted a citizenship as socialization into correct ways of
speaking and acting, together with a meritocratic perspective that focused on personal
responsibility and hard work. At Parkside, the Principal promoted a social justice
orientation and political engagement from students, as well as the acknowledgement of
their privilege. Leaders’ personal ideologies were the base from which CE initiatives at
schools got developed, but a more systematic and critical approach to Curriculum
Leadership would be beneficial for students, emphasizing, as Ylimaki (2012) proposes,
the ethical dimension of curriculum informing the obligation to care for others, and
enabling courage in the public and private spheres.
As evident in the transmitted need in Treehill and Montrose from principals to
students and families of doing good publicity for the school, or joining the struggle
against the educational reform in order to keep the school subsidy, the role of the
principal has become one of strategic branding and advocator for a neoliberal
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commonsense in education, rather than focusing on instructional and servant leadership,
and promoting a notion of education as a social right. Principals and deans can be
crucial actors in bringing the discourse of the school missions of forming caring, critical,
active, and transformative human beings, to reality, through a renewed focus on CE.
In terms of risk-taking in the curriculum, the openness in Parkside to try
different approaches, as was the case with the special Civics curriculum for Seventh and
Eighth grade developed by the Philosophy teacher, created a positive climate for a CE
that went beyond students learning about formal politics and the government. While this
special curriculum was different from the mandatory national programs issued by the
Ministry of Education, this specific risk-taking paid off, since the Ministry granted them
with official approval, which meant being able to teach the class as a separate and
assessed subject, thus validating risk-taking behavior, and teachers’ knowledge. This
process was encouraged by the Academic Coordinator at the school who emphasized the
importance of a sociocritical curriculum, which suggests that this role (known as
Technical-Pedagogical Unit Coordinator, in most schools) is of the utmost importance to
develop CE initiatives and programs, and can steer them toward a critical and social-
justice orientation, or toward a more individualistic view centered around developing
civic knowledge and skills. This role can provide what Ylimaki (2005) calls “Leadership
Support” (p. 12), meaning leaders should support the educators willing to take risks in a
context of intensified accountability, and a mostly traditional understanding of
curriculum.
The important role that teachers had in what kind of citizenship was taught in
schools revealed the importance of leadership as a collaborative work, instead of
teachers being merely transmitters of a vision of citizenship imposed by administrators.
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While schools had clear stances on their mission’s orientations, and there was a shared
style of teaching at each school, it was possible to observe that teachers made
autonomous decisions based on their personal influences and views, regarding CE.
These decisions involved whether to disclose their political position or include
controversial topics in their classes; how they communicated expectations of students;
what forms of participation in the community they advocated for, or how they assessed
different forms of collective demonstrations. It was from that personal initiative of
teachers that some students were exposed to a more critical notion of citizenship. But if
spaces were provided for it, these teachers could share their work with their colleagues
and develop school-wide CE initiatives that connect the students with the community, or
allow them to organize in more democratic ways.
Teachers for the most part did not know about the Cross-sectional Learning
Goals that supposedly articulate the CE curriculum, so official tools and training in CE
(both in terms of initial formation and life-long learning) are aspects that need to be
addressed, and where Principals could have a significant role, making CE a focus. Even
if no formal spaces are created for CE at the schools, if teachers have more training in
this subject, they can be more aware of all that they communicate through the hidden
curriculum, and this way help promote in students a stronger view of themselves as
citizens. As Biesta (2006) puts it, the responsibility of the teacher “is to make sure that
there are at least opportunities within education to meet and encounter what is different,
strange, and other” (p. 69). This means that they should have a stance to help students
establish encounters with others, with different realities, and different social classes, and
to question what they see as obvious and natural, including the classed distinctions in
their abajismo and arribismo discourses.
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At the three schools, teachers revealed poor working conditions that did not
allow them to have enough time to adequately prepare and assess their lessons, with
schools not respecting the planning time mandated by law. This scenario does not only
negatively affect CE, but any kind of teaching, and calls for collective action to improve
these conditions for teachers, a struggle in which school leaders need to participate.
Only then can we have a baseline from where to discuss matters such as CE training for
teachers.
Enactment of Citizenship Education Policies
Beyond the issue of having Civics as a separate subject in the curriculum or not,
Principals and teachers did not closely follow the latest developments in terms of CE
guidelines provided by the Ministry of Education. With CE distributed in the different
subjects and supposedly transmitted through the cross-sectional goals, there was no
single person assessing the fulfillment of these goals, or spaces in the school devoted to
discussing CE in particular, although it was in part addressed through the planning of
extracurricular activities and civic ceremonies. Likewise, there was no supervision or
support from the Ministry of Education in any form to address the subject, beyond
sporadic talks that had no continuity. While there were different national guidelines and
policies regarding CE, the reality of implementation tells the story of these being mostly
ignored by schools to focus on standardized tests, as in Montrose, or to implement a
notion of CE more aligned with the school mission, as in Parkside. This reveals that
there are efforts being wasted in this approach to foster CE at schools.
A recently developed CE policy (Law 20.911) requires schools to develop their
own CE plan, that the Principal has to share with the School Council at the beginning of
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each year, modifying it according to their suggestions. The CE plan involves six areas:
curriculum, extracurricular activities, teacher and leadership training, relationship with
the community, promotion of good school climate, student representation and
participation, and others that are considered relevant by the principal and the school
community. This is expected to be linked, in the future, with initial teacher training in
CE, support for schools through the delivery of CE resources and examples, and the
implementation of a mandatory subject of Citizenship Formation for Eleventh and
Twelfth grade.
How these plans are assessed by external actors to the school (which has not yet
been defined), and the continuity the law finds in what is currently a very unstable
scenario for educational policy, will be crucial in determining if these CE plans become
a useful tool or an obstacle to CE for schools. Leaders at schools need to have sufficient
autonomy to integrate official policies and guidelines regarding CE with the local needs
of the school and community, that is, to appropriate those policies in ways that make
sense for both teachers and students. CE plans at schools need to be built
collaboratively, integrating teachers and students, and the broader community, because
if the school is going to promote the practice of citizenship, it needs to happen in the
public space. But if this becomes one more item that schools see as an unnecessary
burden imposed from above in a system of accountability, CE runs the risk of being
addressed through unidimensional actions that are easy to implement, but that are not
part of a larger goal, and that do not address citizenship in critical and active ways.
The CE plans can be a form of breaching the distance between theory and
practice in schools, giving schools the opportunity to look at the resources offered by the
Ministry of Education, while at the same time incorporating what they have been doing
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and has been working in terms of CE. The key element for this to work, as stated by
representatives from the three schools of this study, is time: guaranteeing the spaces for
constructing these CE plans and, most importantly, for implementing them. Integrating
the different already existing spaces at the school into the CE plan that the government
is asking from schools could be an opportunity for them to visualize and take advantage
of spaces that they were not seeing as potentially critical, political or transformative,
such as workshops, field trips, civic ceremonies, or service-learning programs. Even if
having a CE plan ends up being dismissed as a national program, schools could benefit
from discussing how each of their activities is contributing to the broader mission of the
school and to achieving the Cross-sectional goals that see the students as integral human
beings, instead of just focusing on the scores on standardized tests. But accomplishing
this when the context of accountability pushes out CE and anything that is not assessed
externally is not an easy feat. This is why advocating for CE can only take the form of a
defiant struggle, because citizenship currently does not have the space it deserves in
schools, and that students deserve as citizens.
CE official approaches promoted by the Ministry of Education present internal
contradictions, with a discourse that emphasizes active and transformational citizenship,
and student-led organizations as democratic spaces, but within a broader system of
competition and individualism, including an emphasis on citizenship as personal
responsibility and development of skills to participate in the global economy, such as
entrepreneurship. This leaves CE as an area open to the interpretation of school leaders,
where it can reinforce a neoliberal notion of citizenship that does not challenge
conditions of injustice, or promote student participation in ways that question and
improve these conditions. Citizenship can be a tool for social control or for social
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change, and being open with students about these contradictions and fostering
discussions about the different perspectives on citizenship is necessary for them to make
choices that enable them to practice a citizenship as subjectification.
Recommendations for Schools
Thinking of ways to bring back citizenship to the more concrete notions of
territory and community would help make CE more meaningful and real for students.
For example, engaging students in service-learning opportunities that are accompanied
by a reflection on the structural causes of inequality, and spaces to imagine and
implement possible solutions; or schools supporting the students to participate in
national and local competitions with projects to address problems, or with different
forms of creative expression that reflect on important issues.
As the schools promoted a mostly deterriorialized version of citizenship,
disconnected from the community, they also promoted a disembodied version of
citizenship, disconnecting students from their own bodies to subject them to a
disciplinary regime that reached its peak during civic ceremonies, where students had to
engage in a performance of order and silence. While some important issues could be
addressed at these ceremonies, they were mostly functioning to teach students
obedience. So, students were learning to disconnect from their bodies and their needs (to
adhere to the norms of the school regarding personal presentation, restriction of
movement, and order), and from their territory and community. The identity that can
emerge from this scenario is one that has at its root internal conflict, even if students are
not able to recognize it. We can, therefore, propose a CE as a reconnecting effort: with
oneself, with others, and with the territory and environment. What can arise from this
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reconnection effort is a more authentic identity as a person and as a citizen, where youth
can empathize with others and engage in efforts to improve society. The school has to
function, in this scenario, as a space for unlearning some of the dictates of society that
push students to fall into an individualistic and competitive mindset and behavior. And
this is definitely not easy when the national system of selection for university pits
students in the same class against each other to obtain the best position in the ranking.
Small actions could be taken by schools to promote this three-fold reconnection.
For example, to reconnect with the body and nature, recovering a Physical Education
that is not all about performance and discipline, but incorporated to students’ daily lives,
engaging them in the use of public spaces, especially natural ones. To reconnect with the
community, the school can establish networks that allow students to recognize their
local neighborhood and its inhabitants’ needs, as well as service-learning projects that
are accompanied by a critical reflection, and that do not approach service from an
assistentialist perspective, but contribute to the empowerment of the communities.
Relaxing the biopolitical constraints that schools put on students is another way of
helping them to recognize their bodies and their needs, usually disregarded in a world
where modern rationalism has become the norm, and we think of ourselves as
disembodied beings. Connecting with the body is a way of connecting with our
emotions, and as Nussbaum (2013) explains, politics are emotional, so we cannot expect
students to have a political participation in society if they disregard the personal and
embodied aspects as political arenas.
Acknowledging students’ feelings of disengagement, frustration, exclusion, and
their sense of being overwhelmed, is necessary to start from their needs and involve
them in a critique of a system that often disregards them, with this also being a starting
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point for them to think of creative ways to address these problems as citizens that can
collectively effect change. This could be done by having spaces in the classroom and the
school where students can express their emotions and ideas, discuss how the school can
connect with the community and be a change agent, and how the school itself can be
transformed to be more democratic.
Without a specific CE curriculum beyond the cross-sectional learning goals,
what students learn in Chile regarding what kind of citizen they should be is mostly
transmitted through the culture of the school, which reveals itself in the relationships
among students, and between adults and students, in the discipline, in student
organization, and in the voice students have within the school and freedom to make their
own decisions. Through a naturalized culture of bullying at the schools and an
authoritarian approach to discipline, students were for the most part learning that
citizenship meant obedience, and that standing out in any way was quickly punished.
This is why, before any grand CE plan, schools have to look at the relationships and
climate that they have, and foster safe spaces for students to express their voice, both in
the classroom, with co-constructed classes, and in student government and other spaces
for participation. As Lawy and Biesta (2006) claim, it will not matter that we tell
students that they should be active, critical citizens, if when they try to enact that at the
school, they face rejection and frustration.
There were spaces and acts of resistance at all three schools, but their effect was
limited, and this worked to communicate students that they did not have enough power
to change things. While a conservative approach from schools as bureaucratic
institutions is understandable, we can still ask them to better receive and value forms of
resistance from students, instead of dismissing them as culturally deficient (e.g.:
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informal language used by the students, humor employed during civic ceremonies) or
inappropriate (e.g.: LGBTQ study group, long hair for men). The knowledge students
showed of youth needs in the neighborhood could be integrated into school projects at
Treehill. Student projects at Montrose could be better supported by the administration,
with fewer rules to implement them. While students at Montrose seemed used to giving
a positive speech about the school, its values, the academic focus and how they adhered
to it, when further probing, you could see how other lines of thought coexisted with
those, with students resenting their lack of free time, the excessive pressure to perform,
and the lack of support from administrators for their ideas and projects. Having spaces
for those dissenting views to appear is necessary for the school to be a democratic space.
At Parkside, a more unequivocal support could be provided to students so they could put
their transformative ideas into action, helping them to connect with their community and
identify its needs, to work on addressing them.
Students at Parkside experienced a school climate that allowed and encouraged
them to give their opinion, to discuss controversial topics, and explore their interests.
They also had role models in school and family members that were or had been involved
in politics. All of these aspects have been related to higher levels of civic engagement,
and this was evident in students’ intentions to participate in politics in the future, as well
as in their current engagement in protests and in their political discourse, even if they
did not participate in many formal groups, and their participation in the Student
Movement had declined in recent years. Students also exhibited a broader notion of
political participation, which included dissident manifestations. Contrastingly, if
Montrose students expressed their opinion it was in spite of the way the class was
structured, more seen as a distraction by the teachers, rather than a contribution to
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creating knowledge. Student participation in the classroom was much more present than
at Treehill, but limited to students answering factual questions. So working on fostering
an open climate for discussion in the classroom could help address the differences in
civic and political capital that students have, and it would communicate to students that
their opinion, knowledge and reflection are important in the school and outside of it.
Student Centers were present at the three schools, but were limited in their role
and power. As spaces for experimenting with democracy and organizing, a real
connection to others beyond the school or the possibility to implement creative projects
at the school would make the experience much more meaningful for students, showing
them their potential as citizens. When it is all make believe, it is hard to tell if students
are learning about their power to change things, or just, from a socialization perspective,
to adapt to the status quo.
Since students at the different schools had been exposed to different ideologies,
experiences, and cultural ethos, and were engaged in different types of resistance, these
have to be taken into consideration when crafting a CE that allows embracing and
politicizing their strengths and generating more opportunities for them to be
meaningfully engaged in their communities, and question systemic inequality in
transformative and collective ways. Anyon (1981a, p. 129) proposes to “transform the
students’ opposition language and other cultural expressions of resistance into politically
aware activity,” showing students in working-class schools examples of working-class
groups that have effectively resisted and encouraging self-love, and getting students in
more affluent schools to critique the power they will some day have and engender in
them sensitivity to the needs of the poor. This is certainly something that could help
Treehill students develop a class-consciousness that engages them in action instead of
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hopelessness, and in Parkside students a more sustained critique of their privileges, as
well as answers to the question, “What will you do about it?”
While CE needs to have a critical stance toward socialization and the crystalized
bureaucracy of institutions, we should not aim for CE to flourish only as resistance.
Schools need to respect the democratic spaces that they are, by law, supposed to grant
students, such as participation in Homeroom Period, Student Centers and School
Councils. And students need to take ownership of those spaces too. Direct participation
is a meaningful way in which students learn citizenship, so we should invest in these
existing spaces.
Teachers and administrators complained about not having enough time to
engage in CE. But maybe it is time to revise what is being done and we could do with
getting rid of, to make room for a CE that allows students to actually practice
citizenship, experience and fight for their rights. Civic ceremonies that promote respect
for traditions and patriotism use up many hours during the school year and their
effectiveness in their stated purpose is questionable, as seen in the resistance manifested
by students during these events. When students are asking for spaces to address different
concerns, and for their projects to be implemented, CE could start from students
themselves, with schools supporting student organization and expression.
Controversial issues made their appearance in classes at all schools, but there
was not enough time provided by teachers to discuss the topics when they arose. So we
should not only think of grand CE curriculum and programs, but of transforming the
classroom so that the discussions that are fighting to take place can do so. This may
mean doing less (tests, mandatory contents, civic ceremonies) so that students can learn
more, and for citizenship-as-practice to take place.
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While clearly having the privilege of cultural capital and economic resources,
the political and critical approach present in Parkside students, which constitutes an
exception in the landscape of schools in Chile, shows some of what can be possible
when more spaces are open in the classroom and in the culture of the school for students
to express themselves and develop critical thinking. But, as mentioned before, that needs
to be related to opportunities for students to enact their intentions of changing the world
for them be more than armchair activists.
Whether CE is included in a new “Citizenship Formation” subject, as it has been
proposed, or it remains as a Cross-sectional Learning Goal, it will not really matter
when the (not so) hidden curriculum is teaching the students a competitive and
individualistic approach, as in Montrose; if students do not have the support to raise
their expectations of themselves and their civic efficacy, as in Treehill; or if students do
not become engaged in actions beyond an abstract critique of the system, as in Parkside.
This means there cannot be one general approach to CE, but it has to consider students’
particular strengths and local context, and be linked to developing a class-consciousness
from where students can recognize inequality and fight to solve it.
There are profound ideological implications involved in CE. What is understood
by it can go from promoting blind obedience to societal rules, to empowering youth to
question those rules and collectively fight to change them. So why go into schools to
prove these differences? Among the reasons, to find out how teachers are struggling to
form students as citizens within an educational system aimed at competition and test
scores, and with educational missions that look great on paper but fail to be
implemented in practice. I also wanted to understand how students experienced their
school system beyond the basic curriculum, in which I discovered that there was a deep
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contradiction where schools invited students to actively participate as citizens, but then
limited them when they attempted to do so, regardless of the ideological stance of the
educational mission of their schools. I wanted, in this process, to find the spaces of
resistance and hope for a CE that respects students’ rights and can foster a kind of
participation in society that is critical and committed to social justice, especially in a
moment where Chile is reflecting on this topic and developing new educational policies
that will shape the future of CE.
García Canclini (1995) proposes creating an alternative sociopolitical public
space, where State and market, public and private, are rearticulated, adding that, “Maybe
it is time to emancipate ourselves from disenchantment” (p. 198). This emancipation
would look different at the three schools: Treehill students could gain civic efficacy,
fight exclusion and demand to participate in the system; Montrose students could dare to
question a system that puts their parents in debt to afford school choice, as well as the
meritocratic ideology, acknowledging hard effort does not always equate success in an
unequal system; and Parkside students could find a way to balance their dissent with
forms of constructive participation in the community, where they could put their
discourse into action. This can only be achieved if schools embrace their political and
public dimension, without being scared of students as political actors. Effacing those
dimensions in education creates a very limited version of education as schooling that we
cannot accept and that, as critical scholars, we have a responsibility to change.
296

Recommendations for Future Research
Seeing that the civic opportunity and civic engagement gaps are extensive in
high schools in Chile, it is important that forthcoming research can take a stance against
them by documenting them in a larger scale, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and
looking at both the official and hidden curriculum of schools. Looking at the whole span
of educational levels, from preschool to university, is something that this dissertation
could not do, but that is needed if we want to address civic inequality early on so that it
can have an impact, as well as help transform universities into democratic spaces for
critical participation.
My study also showed how we need to be careful when interpreting the civic
engagement gap, since there are forms of participation in lower class students that are
not acknowledged by quantitative measures, such as the informal relationships they
establish with their communities, how they participate in cultural groups, or how they
attempt to exert critical resistance in their schools but retreat from it when faced with
possible negative consequences (resistance that is not, consequently, documented). More
studies that look into these forms of participation are needed, including quantitative
studies to identify the percentages of students at schools that are actually involved in
these practices, as well as qualitative studies to look more specifically into how the
voice and agency of students are silenced in schools.
In a context of new CE policies, it is also crucial that new research looks at the
interaction between policy and practice, that is, the implementation or enactment of
those policies, how teachers and students appropriate CE in the classroom, and the role
administrators have in this process. Especially, it will be necessary to assess how the
new Citizenship Formation Plans work in schools, if they turn out to be a useful tool to
297

promote the focus on citizenship and, most importantly, critically assessing what notion
of citizenship is promoted through them.
The area of teacher training in CE is in need of reform, and subsequent studies
will be necessary to assess that this training translates into teachers helping students to
practice citizenship in critical and transformative ways. This study showed the central
role that teachers have, in their autonomy in the classroom, to teach CE regardless of the
official curriculum or orientation of the school. So both the training and influences of
teachers, as well as how they make decisions regarding the teaching of citizenship, are
areas that could benefit from further research.
Finally, in a context of accountability that adds new standardized tests and
teacher assessments each year, it is important that critical scholarship continues to
denounce how these policies negatively affect education and push CE out of the schools.
298

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APPENDICES
Appendix A: Teachers Interview Guide
DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
- Sex
- Age
- Level of education
- Educational institutions attended
- Professional experience, years of teaching
HISTORY OF CITIZENSHIP PARTICIPATION

- Describe how and why you got into teaching at the high school level
- What do you hope to accomplish with your students? What values do you strive to
foster in them?
- How would you describe your social and political views and what influences in your
life have impacted them? Is there any person, organization, movement or experience that
you consider influential in this regard? Tell me about them.
- Have you ever been or are you currently involved in any type of community
organization? Tell me about them.
- Have you ever been or are you currently involved in activism or in a social movement?
Tell me about them.
- What college did you attend and did it have any influence in your social and political
ideas? Did it help you develop a particular pedagogical orientation? How?
- Have you received specific training in terms of fostering a sense of citizenship or civic
engagement in your students?
TEACHING PRACTICES
- Do your values and your social and political ideals influence your teaching? If so,
how? Do you disclose your political preferences in the classroom? What impact do you
think that has on your students?
- Do you believe that teachers should instill notions of citizenship in students? Describe
what that would look like in your classroom.
- Are there any teaching practices that you would like to implement but haven’t? What
are some of the obstacles you have encountered to do so? What would you need in order
to do so?
- What kind of social issues do you consider important for students to learn about? How
do your students discuss these issues? What opportunities do they have to do so?
- What opportunities do students have to express their opinion in your classroom? Can
you give me an example?
- What opportunities does the school provide for students to participate in their
community? Are your students involved in their communities in any way? Why do you
think they choose this type of participation?
- What are some of the obstacles and opportunities that you see in your students’ lives
for them to become civically engaged? Could you describe them?
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- Do you see any differences according to class and gender in students’ civic
participation? Can you give me an example?
PERSPECTIVES
- How do you think students should be prepared to be citizens of a democracy? How do
you think they should be civically engaged? Can you give me some examples?
- What do you think should be the goals of education? Do you think these are
accomplished? How so?
- How involved in society’s and community problems do you see your students? How
would you describe their involvement?
- What did you think of the 2011 Student Movement? In what ways was it effective/not
effective? How would you envision something more effective?
- Who do you think should be responsible for teaching citizenship? Within the school?
Outside the school?
- How do you think schools and teachers should teach citizenship? Can you give me
some examples?
- When one talks about being involved in the community, ¿who do you understand is
that community?, ¿what characterizes it?
CURRICULUM AND SCHOOL CONTEXT

- The new guidelines of the Ministry of Education for Citizenship Education include a
global perspective of citizenship focused on sustainable development, Human Rights
and competencies to solve conflicts. What do you think about these?
- What would you say are the goals of the Fundamental Learning Goals? What do you
associate them with? How would you say they help you in your pedagogical practice?
- How are your values represented in the school/program mission and in the curriculum?
Can you give me some examples?
- What pedagogical/curricular tools do you have available to promote civic engagement
and a more critical perspective in your students?
- How does your schools foster a critical perspective and civic engagement? Are there
any programs or activities specifically targeted to these goals? What are they?
- How would you describe the discipline rules and practices at your school? What do
you think they communicate to the students? Can you give me an example?
Additional Questions for Deans of Students: What types of disciplinary practices are
used in this school? What harmonious co-existence programs or practices does the
school have? Do you think they are effective? Why? What else would you do to address
discipline in the school? How do you think the students evaluate the norms and
disciplinary practices of the school? How do you see the mission of the school in the
norms and disciplinary practices?
Additional Questions for Principals: What is the vision of citizenship education of the
school? How is this vision translated into the school and the curriculum? What supports
and spaces do teachers have to implement this vision? What opportunities to practice
citizenship are present in the school? How do students organize? What connections with
the community (parents, organizations, other schools, etc.) are present in the school?
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Appendix B: Students Interview Guide
DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION
- Sex
- Age
- Years in the school
- Schools attended previously
- Level of education of parents
PERSPECTIVES
- What does being involved civically mean to you?
- What are your aspirations as a citizen? What types of practices and groups do you
think the ideal citizen should be engaged in?
- When one talks about being involved in the community, ¿who do you understand is
that community?, ¿what characterizes it?
- Are there any issues you would like to change in society? Which?
- What goals do you think schools should have? Do you think they are accomplishing
this? How about your school?
- Do you feel you can express your opinion at school? How do you think your school
does in terms of allowing students’ participation? What would you change about it?
Examples?
- Is civics/citizenship taught at your school? What do you think of how civics/citizenship
is taught at your school? How would you like it to change? Examples?
- What do you think of the disciplinary norms and practices at your school? Examples?
- What is not provided in your school that you would like to change?
- What do you think of politicians in Chile?
- What do you think is required to achieve greater social justice? Examples?
- How do you evaluate the potential of social media to create change? Examples?
- What rights do you think are not being respected in Chile?
- How do you think adults perceive youth today?
- What do you think when you read the paper or watch the news? When you read the
news on social media?
- What types of news interest you? Why?
- How do you think the media portrays youth today?
- What issues are important for you? How would you talk to others about them? What
do you do in relationship to them?
- Do you feel you can make a change in the world? What would need to change for you
to be able to create those changes?
- What differences do you think high school students face in terms of opportunities to
create change? Do you see any differences according to class? To gender? Race? Sexual
orientation?
- Have the Student Movements influenced or changed your perspective on how to
influence change? On educational issues?
- What would you say are youths’ proposals for the betterment of society?
PARTICIPATION
- How do you put your political ideas into practice? Where? With whom?
- What types of participation in your community are available? Do you take part in
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them? Why/why not?
- How would you compare your level of participation in community and society in
relationship to your classmates?
- Are you currently engaged in any civic or political issues? If not, have you been
engaged in the past? Tell me about your experience.
- Are you or have you been involved in any community organization? Can you tell me
about it?
- Have you ever participated in activism, protests or advocated for a specific cause?
Examples?
- Do you participate or have participated in a political party or political campaign?
Examples?
- Do you participate in a religious community or organization? Examples?
- Do you belong to any youth groups (sports, arts, scouts, other)?
- Have you or do you currently participate as a volunteer?
- Do you belong to any urban tribe, sub-culture, or take part in alternative lifestyle
choices?
- Do you participate in any student group or council in your school?
- Do you identify yourself with any ethnic group? What cultural elements of this group
are important for you?
- How do you use social media?
- Have you ever contacted a public official, newspaper or other media? What for?
- Are there any types of membership or participation that you engage in that I have not
asked about?
- What are some of the obstacles you have faced or face to become engaged?
- What other forms of participation would you like to engage in that you have not been
able to?
- What would motivate youths to become engaged?
INFLUENCES
- How would you describe your personal values?
- What are your political beliefs?
- Who has influenced your political beliefs?
- What people, experiences, groups or movements have been influential in your
community and political involvement?
- How has your school experience influenced your social and political ideas and
participation in the community? Elementary school? Middle school? High school? Can
you give me an example?
- How have your teachers influenced your political ideas and involvement? Can you
give me an example?
- Do your teachers reveal their political preferences in the classroom? How do you think
that impacts students?
- How are your parents socially and politically engaged? How has your family
influenced your political and community ideas and involvement?
- What print or electronic media do you consume regularly? What sources of
information have been important for your community and political involvement?
Examples?
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Appendix C: Class Dimensions to Observe
Classroom observations will provide triangulation for other data sources, but will also
seek to identify practices associated with citizenship education. The follow are some
common practices associated with teaching citizenship that I will use as an initial guide,
but will seek additional forms of citizenship education practices.
- Teacher conducts group discussions (withholds own opinions and conclusions,

stimulates students to participate, ask questions that require interpretation, students
discuss among themselves)
- Teacher uses different strategies, including activities that require an active approach
from the students
- Teacher stimulates critical thinking and use of different sources of information
(incorporates an analysis of inequality, power structures in society, a social-justice
oriented approach, analysis of privilege)
- Teacher presents different perspectives on a topic
- Students listen to each other
- Interruptions of the class (by the teacher or by the students)
- Presence or absence of bullying among students
- Students feel comfortable expressing their opinions
- Students manage conflict in respectful and tolerant fashion/Teacher intervenes to
promote this approach
- Students can make decisions about their learning and resolution of conflicts
- Teacher establishes connections with students’ daily life
- Teacher establishes connections with forms of participation beyond the classroom
(school, community)
- Teacher and students bring up current or controversial issues to discuss.
- Analysis of media
- Students seem interested in political issues
- Forms of administering discipline in the classroom
- Rules of the classroom
- Goals of the class
- Attitudes related to gender equality and immigration
- Evaluations and other written documents or visual aids used for the class
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Appendix D: Schools’ Mission Statements
Treehill:
Vision: To build a quality school where our students can develop their life plan,
experiencing the educational mission of the school, and aspiring to form upright
professionals that access secondary education or the best occupational quality.
Mission: As an educational community, we strive to educate our students,
especially those in vulnerable conditions, following a mission of integral promotion of
the human being.
We aim to provide an integral formation, emphasizing the development of
diverse competencies that allow students to insert themselves in society in a progressive,
active and transformative way.
Montrose:
Vision: In a socioeconomic environment lacking in material resources, but very

rich in perspective, enthusiasm, spirituality and effort, the school considers education as
an opportunity and a means to fulfill the dreams and expectations of development of the
families that choose our educational program. The integral human being that we strive
for is a person that, with a foundation of firm universal values and linked to
transcendence, is also responsible for the society in which they exist.
Mission: The school bases its educational action in the complete development of
an integral person, putting emphasis on:
- The development of habits and the capacity for constant and systematic effort and
work. A vision of the human being as a fully human person, free and responsible for
their actions, and at the same time open to the transcendent being.
- The achievement of academic success that allows each student access to the university
world and the development of a calling and the chosen profession.
Principles:
1. The man and woman of the school acknowledges and develops themselves as a
person, and a unique, free being, with conscience of being and dignity,
perfectible, capable of love, and responsible for themselves and their
environment.
2. Assumes and develops their life project as a transcendent, ethical being, that
expresses themselves with faith and life in congruence.
3. Acknowledges themselves as a person in relation with the world in an attitude of
creativity and critical capacity.
4. Is solidary and committed to others, especially those of their family.
5. Bases their life project in the richness of their inner life, projected in their
actions and in a spirit of bettering themselves.
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Parkside:
Our school was born in a socio-historical context (end of the 60’s and beginning
of the 70’s) characterized by the search for new structures and ways of understanding
society and, therefore, education. We see education as a process of integral formation, in
the cognitive, emotional and social dimensions of the individual and the collective, with
the aim to foster the development of a Human Being with reflective capacity,
autonomous action, critical and self-critical, loving of knowledge and the arts, and at the
same time a transformative agent of their reality.
The process of change initiated in those decades was interrupted by the military
intervention, which involved considering new academic and value elements. The
orientation of our educational process aims to know, share and preserve knowledge,
attitudes, values and cultural expressions of our nationality and Latin America.
We also assume as a main task of the institution to provide a formation that
allows to know, analyze and transform the students and members of the community
around the construction of a democratic, free, participating and pluralist society.
The school, in its double role as an educational and forming institution, aspires
to allow for the development of an active student who values and searches knowledge as
a form of personal and collective growth; understands learning as a means to self-
development; integrates what they learn to their vital experience; is an original,
authentic and creative person; can constructively criticize its world and the self for
improvement; assumes their responsibilities and defend their rights, both personal and
social, within the margins of respect and justice, understand dialogue and tolerance as
optimal forms of human coexistence; knows and values the national and Latin American
identity; knows and values the principles that defend dignity of the individual and the
respect of human rights in Chile, Latin America and the world; practices their role as
citizen in a responsible, pluralist and democratic way; and recognizes in the other an
individual with an inalienable right to life, freedom, and expression.
An active student participates in their own learning and formation, beyond the
formal or academic, through participation and self-management, and generates, takes
care and enriches the different opportunities available to them. This type of student is
created through a collective conscience and the need to act and react to an environment
that presents difficulties such as individualism, lack of motivation, lack of trust,
misinformation, consumerism, and competitiveness.
319

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Sponsoring Committee: Professor Gary Anderson, Chairperson

Professor Carol Anne Spreen

STUDENTS AND TEACHERS’ DISCOURSES AND PRACTICES

OF CITIZENSHIP AND CITIZENSHIP EDUCATION

IN THREE CHILEAN HIGH SCHOOLS

Program in Educational Leadership

Submitted in partial fulfillment

Henry David Thoreau

You have to work for large classes instead of individuals;

Ralph Waldo Emerson

En fase de entrenamiento, destinados a ser engranajes de

A labyrinth is an ancient device that compresses a journey into

(Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby, p. 188)

it will never be enough to fully express that learning process).

Conducting a dissertation is an iterative process, and until I embarked on this

journey thanks to the kind help of many.

obstacles and possibilities for citizenship education in schools.

communicate the most relevant findings of my dissertation. To my external readers, Dr.

different stages of this process.

Thanks to my professors and classmates in Educational Leadership, for sharing the

journey, and for providing their encouragement, comprehension, and suggestions.

privileged I was to be conducting educational research that can contribute to impactful

What is Citizenship? How is it Taught? Models of

IV SOCIOECONOMIC AND EDUCATIONAL

V CASE STUDIES OF THE THREE SCHOOLS 74

Treehill (Low-Income Public School) 76

How Socioeconomic and Political Inequality are

VII RECOMMENDATIONS 283

The Role of Leadership in Schools 283

A: Teachers Interview Guide 313

1 Continua of Types of Citizenship and Citizenship Education 21

2 Characterization of School Sites 45

4 Teachers and Administrators Interviews 49

6 Curricular Organization of Citizenship Education 64

7 Summary of Citizenship and Citizenship Education at Treehill 127

8 Summary of Citizenship and Citizenship Education at Montrose 181

9 Summary of Citizenship and Citizenship Education at Parkside 233

10 Comparative Chart of the Three Schools 235

1 Educational Reforms in Chile since 1973 59

“But, what is citizenship education? Because

As this Eleventh grader summarized in his question, the notion of citizenship

citizenship in their students.

This multiple case study using an ethnographic approach explored citizenship

the 2011 Student Movement. Through different demonstrations, students demanded

reforms to the educational system, communicated a sense of social crisis caused by

appropriating and enacting CE official guidelines.

“Citizenship,” as Giroux (2006) explains, is a problematic concept, that “even

of 'citizenship' or 'citizenship education'” (p. 3).

powerfully defined by liberal discourses that see citizenship as a political status,

dominant notions, from critical perspectives such as the feminist, cosmopolitan/global,

and environmental discourses of citizenship (Knight & Harnish, 2006). “Citizenship as

citizenship from a critical perspective, as transformative of the inequities in society.

further explored by this dissertation. Levinson (2011) describes Citizenship as

“constituted by the meanings, rights, and obligations of membership in publics, as well

as the forms of agency and modalities of participation implicated by such membership”

exercise their participation as democratic citizens” (Levinson, 2011, p. 284). Broadly

school programs, informal interactions with members of their communities, and

influences from the broader society (Hahn, 2008).

Citizenship practices of students can include: Community Service Activities

community in the interest of the greater good” (Karakos, 2015, p.2).

Studies of CE in Chile have focused on quantitative measures of civic

knowledge of high school students in the context of international comparative studies

looking at both teachers and students’ representations of citizenship, and how CE is