This paper aims to recognise the transformations in the concept of quality as formulated by Chilean educational policies between 1985 and 1990, at the beginning of the educational privatisation process. Using a conceptual history approach allowed us to analyse the meanings attributed to the concept of quality in the design and implementation of…

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between quality assurance, the traditional "a priori" approach, and a more recently developed empirical classification of universities, as a means of assessing whether the different classification systems fulfill their original purpose. The study analyzes Chilean…

Accountability policies through standardized testing are widespread in diverse educational systems. Based on an ethnographic research study, we sought to understand how a learning assessment policy, used for over three decades in primary and lower secondary education, is lived and interpreted in daily school life in Chile. This article analyzes…

The key to sustained and equitable development in Latin America is high quality education for all. However, coalitions favoring quality reforms in education are usually weak because parents are dispersed, business is not interested, and much of the middle class has exited public education. In "Routes to Reform," Ben Ross Schneider…

A great deal of knowledge has been accumulated on how educational effectiveness and improvement come to be. However, the issue of how these processes behave once they have been achieved has remained relatively unexplored. In this paper, we report on the findings of a multiple case study that delved into the factors and processes explaining…

In this paper we analyse what standardization is and what it, with special reference to its application in education. For this we also show that standardization is a device of prevailing neoliberal policies. Such policies, contrary to established rhetoric, do not diminish the role of the state and administrations, but rather increase it, by…

This study analyzes the effect of spatial competition on public schools' efficiency in Chile, an extreme case of market-oriented reforms in the educational sector. To address this issue, we use a measure of competition that captures three major characteristics of market competition in a spatial context: the number of competitors, based on distance…

This study reviews the performance of the Improvement of Quality and Equity in Higher Education programme (MECESUP). MECESUP was executed in three stages between 1999 and 2016 by Chile's Ministry of Education and its directly state-subsidised university sector, with World Bank financing and advisory. The account explores achievements and failures…

In the last six years, Chile has carried out major reforms in school climate policy. However, these reforms are tied to two different realities that conflict with each other: a formative reality, which promotes a school climate of local decision-making and the improvement of school performance; and a punitive reality, which prioritizes improvement…

Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), we explored how educational leaders and policymakers in Mexico, Peru, Chile, and Argentina address complex issues while responding to -- and in fact, developing -- broader understandings (discourses) on the role of higher education in Latin America. Fairclough's (1993) theory of discourse underscores that…

The idea of a "hyper-surveillance" state that devolves school management to the private sector and local governments, but, at the same time, evaluates, inspects, and sanctions schools in the name of "educational quality and equality," has been advocated by diverse sectors, right and center-left, conservative and liberal,…

We investigate the effect of attending selective secondary schools belonging to the "Bicentenario" schools program in Chile, a free education option that is intended to give vulnerable students everywhere in Chile a unique educational opportunity, in the period from 2011 to 2014. By using propensity score methods, we find that attending…

This article uses critical discourse analysis (CDA) to interrogate the discursive construction of Chilean university teacher educators' professionalism in government initial teacher education policy and institutional policy enactment documents. The study examines the network of discourses--new managerialist, quality assurance, performance,…

Latin American educational policy has relied on the assumption that better preparation can help school leaders improve their professional performance, thus improving quality of schools. Training programs for present or future school leaders have proliferated in the region, often publicly financed, but without enough evidence of their impact. Using…

Human development and rights-based approaches to education have been gaining support among international organisations and development agencies as alternative frameworks to human capital orthodoxy. While these global trends have been well-documented in the international development literature, there is little empirical evidence into what extent,…