The multiple uses of expert knowledge: The case of the Inclusion Law and the argument of school segregation in Chile

Abstract

The argument of school segregation not only allowed for a shift in the educational policy debate in Chile, but also helped to support the School Inclusion Law, promoted by President Bachelet in 2015. Research on educational policy in Chile since the 2000s has suggested that academic evidence on school segregation played an important role in the design and development of the law. This article investigates how political actors used scientific evidence to support their positions in the legislative debate, which served to promote or hinder change in the regulation of school education in Chile. Using content analysis and semantic networks techniques, the article provides evidence on how actors used the segregation argument, which, among other things, allowed the proposed law to be justified by addressing the system's efficiency problems, as well as providing a conceptual and symbolic justification for the reform proposal. The results reveal a limited and unequal use of findings from educational research in the Congress in Chile, and that the space for political argumentation is a valuable research site for understanding the dynamics of expert knowledge use in public policies.