Political subject and public life: privatization of education in Chile and its impact on the subjects being educated

Abstract

The paper assumes that the complex privatization and decentralization process experienced by the Chilean education system since 1981 has had an impact on the individual who is educated, through issues that focus on those involved in education, specifically the students. These problems have been identified as the “psychologization” of the problems of the educational system, the supposed “customerizing” of students and the place that corresponds to the family as dominant figure in the privatization process. The consequences of this are related to the consolidation of the privatized system in the way of dealing with subjectivity, and especially, in the breakdown of the public role of school and education.