Denying systemic inequality in segregated Chilean schools: race-neutral discourses among administrative and teaching staff

This article addresses the educational context in which ethnically segregated high poverty schools operate in Chile, and the ways that inequalities within these establishments are understood by members of their administrative and teaching staff. In particular we draw attention to the unwillingness o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Race, ethnicity and education ethnicity and education, 2018-09, Vol.21 (5), p.701-719
Main Authors: Webb, Andrew, Canales, Andrea, Becerra, Rukmini
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic achievement
Administrator Attitudes
Chile
color-blind racism
Critical theory
Density
Discourse Analysis
Discourses
Educational inequality
Educational systems
Equal Education
Ethnic groups
Ethnicity
Foreign Countries
Indigenous peoples
Indigenous Populations
Inequality
Interviews
Mapuche
Observation
Poverty
Poverty Areas
Qualitative Research
Race
Racial Bias
Racism
School Choice
School Segregation
Schools
Scores
Secondary schools
Segregation
silencing
Socioeconomic Status
Teacher Attitudes
Teachers
Teaching
Whites
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Summary:This article addresses the educational context in which ethnically segregated high poverty schools operate in Chile, and the ways that inequalities within these establishments are understood by members of their administrative and teaching staff. In particular we draw attention to the unwillingness of the majority of these employees to name or recognize specific forms of institutional inequality. Following critical pedagogy literature we argue that the Chilean education system reproduces a fear of talk among teachers working in areas with high density indigenous populations, which obscures unequal social structures and opportunities for specific (class, gender, ethnic) groups in school contexts. Based on data from 12 interviews with school staff and observations from four schools in southern Chile, we analyze how intersecting inequality is discursively reduced by predominantly white teachers to individual deficit, de-politicized geographical problems of access to schooling, and the normalizing of low achievement across schools with students from similar backgrounds.
ISSN:1361-3324
1470-109X
DOI:10.1080/13613324.2017.1417254