ABSTRACT

Despite increasing consensus around strengthening school choice regulations to reduce its segregating effects, policy changes and research in this direction are scarce. In that context, this article tackles the recent equity-oriented reform introduced in the highly marketised Chilean school system. Based on in-depth interviews, we explore the responses of middle-class parents to the implementation of a new centralised admission system that modified the school choice rules. Our findings differentiate five types of responses. Alongside uncovering a significant opposition from parents for whom the reform is experienced as a threat to their middle-classness, we found a variety of stances consistent with heterogeneity within the broader middle class, and we reveal a high ambivalence in their policy interpretations. From these findings, we discuss the sociocultural complexities of reforms aimed at balancing choice and equity, and we contribute to prior literature by unravelling the nuances in the middle-class attitudes towards desegregation policies.

摘要

尽管关于加强择校规定以减少其隔离效应的共识越来越多，但在这方面的政策变化和研究却很少。在这种情况下，本文探讨了最近在高度市场化的智利学校系统中引入的以公平为导向的改革。在深入访谈的基础上，我们探讨了中产阶级家长对修改学校选择规则的新集中招生制度实施的反应。我们的研究结果区分了五种类型的反应。除了发现父母的强烈反对，他们认为改革对他们的中产阶级构成威胁，我们还发现了与更广泛的中产阶级内部的异质性一致的各种立场，我们揭示了他们对政策解释的高度矛盾心理。从这些发现中，