Meritocratic exceptionality and affirmative action policy in higher education in Chile

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.28.5262

Keywords:

Higher education, discourse, regime of subjectification, responsibilization, affirmative action policy

Abstract

Based on Foucauldian notions such as discourse, regime of subjectification, and governmentality, the article analyzes one of the dominant discourses constituting the affirmative action policy in higher education in Chile. Our analysis is based principally on main documents associated to the discursive formation of the Support and Effective Access into Higher Education Program (PACE by its acronyms in Spanish), the main affirmative action program in that country. We argue that this program deploys a meritocratic exceptionality subjectification regime that governs inclusion and right to HE through a discursive chain that articulates notions of selectivity, excellence, quality, talent, sacrifice, responsibilization and critique against the dominant admission policy. This articulation is inscribed and mobilized in the discourses about working-class students, their families and schools, and the university. This makes possible, on the one hand, the legitimacy of the program as well as of their students as new constituencies with the right to HE, and on the other hand, the strategic foreclosure and invisibilisation of the structures of inequality that sustain the majority of working-class students and their knowledges excluded from HE.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biographies

Jocelyn Briones, Universidad Diego Portales/Universidad Alberto Hurtado

Jocelyn Briones-Barahona Psicóloga educacional y Magíster en Política Educativa en la Universidad Alberto Hurtado. Actualmente se desempeña como profesional en la Dirección de Apoyo al Aprendizaje e Inclusión Educativa en la Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile

Daniel Leyton, Universidad Alberto Hurtado

Daniel Leyton es Sociólogo y Doctor por la Universidad de Sussex, Reino Unido. Actualmente es académico del Departamento de Política Educativa en la Facultad de Educación de la Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Santiago, Chile. Sus líneas de investigación son políticas educativas, subjetividades y desigualdades.

Published

2020-09-14

How to Cite

Briones, J., & Leyton, D. (2020). Meritocratic exceptionality and affirmative action policy in higher education in Chile. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 28, 136. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.28.5262

Issue

Section

Articles