Percepciones acerca de la educación escolar en Chile de estudiantes egresados de enseñanza media y que participaron en un programa de talento académico

Abstract

This study explores the perceptions that a group of students, graduated from 12th grade and who participated in an extracurricular academic talent program, have about Chilean education through a discourse analysis that recognizes their critical and compliant language and their languages of possibility. This is in the context of the growing influence of the neoliberal economic model on the Chilean educational system, criticized by mass student movements in 2006 and 2011 that demanded greater equality. The particular interest in academically talented students’ perceptions responds to the fact that their high analytical and critical abilities allow us to expect a certain richness of their perceptions and educational proposals, which adds to the fact that they participated in the 2011 student movement. This study consisted in applying an online written survey to students of the 2013 Class, the responses for which were addressed using the critical discourse analysis method. The results show that students have a critical vision of education, its model, and its inequality; that they demand more integral education that considers them as participating citizens, which creates tension with the need shown by the students to adjust to the test-driven accountability system; and that they have a modest understanding of their active role in creating social change.