Rethinking educational strategies through Bourdieu´s “trialectic” of space: insights from the Chilean case

Abstract

ABSTRACT While educational decisions are considered a key mediator between residential and educational segregation, the role of spatial dimensions in the construction of educational strategies has been only recently studied. This article contributes to linking urban and educational research to examine decisions about schooling, using the case of Santiago, Chile. Empirical research included focus groups with parents and students at public and semi-public schools in four neighbourhoods of Santiago. We take a particular policy conjuncture, a progressive reform of the education system called the Inclusion Law, as a window to observe how educational decisions are anchored to spatial dimensions, and how a change in the “rules of the game” challenges families’ educational strategies. Using Bourdieu´s “trialectic” of space we show that the interplay and dynamic transposition of social, physical and symbolic dimensions of space contributes to the development of three educational strategies spanning across different neighbourhoods. The article contributes to showing the differential role and value of each spatial dimension according to social class in all educational strategies. The resources that agents mobilise in the educational field are influenced by their particular positions in social space, the material conditions of the neighbourhoods they inhabit, as well as the symbolic significance they attribute to both schools and neighbourhoods. Finally, we suggest that the change in the rules of the educational game elicits resistances because the positions that agents occupy in all three spaces remain unaltered by the new regulatory framework.