Neoliberal Education and Student Movements in Chile: Inequalities and Malaise

Abstract

This article examines the major consequences of the neoliberal education system implemented in Chile during the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and how two important student movements contested this structure. In 2006 and 2011, thousands of students filled the streets to demand better public education, more social justice and equal opportunities. They rejected the free-market fundamentalism in education that has generated segregation, stratification and inequalities. Students have become important political actors who re-evaluated the discussion on education in Chile. By doing so, they are rejecting the competitive and privatized nature of the current system, which is lacking in quality and equity, and they are demonstrating that new ‘social imaginary’ in Chilean education is possible.