Streamlining the Students

In the past week our readings were more concentrated on elite schools in Chile, and our group completed the interview/transcribing phase of our research.  (Side note: transcribing sucks.)  Through all of the conversations with the Kostas, the homogeneity (as many have noticed) was extremely apparent in a few ways.  Kostas, a few times, referred to the general opinion of the school in regard to current events.  He spoke his opinion on behalf of the school as a whole.  Additionally, he articulated a favoritism by the teachers for students who mirror their opinions and values on various topics discussed in and out of class.  In this way, I would imagine that students are subtly encouraged to express their similarities to the teachers/administration, and discouraged from dissenting, in attempt to receive certain benefits from teachers and the school.

Eduardo Cavieres Fernandez’s article, Rethinking the Role of Elite Private Schools in a Neoliberal Era: an example from Chile explains the way in which the neoliberalism has lead to an increase in the privatization of schools across Chile, consequently causing public schools to fall behind.  While this is all going on, he also discusses the recent increase in income per capita in Chile.  However, this point is only relevant if you also look at the fact that wealth has become increasingly more concentrated, meaning that while there may an increase income per capita overall, there is a greater divide between the elite social class and the lower working classes.  Then, when you take into consideration that some of the private schools, including the Croft School we are studying, do not grant financial aid to students, attending the increasing number of private schools in Chile becomes a privilege that not many can afford.

So there is this massive gap in the availability of these elite schools, which was also articulated by Kostas we interviewed who essentially told us that, in connection with the lack of financial aid at his school, most families in Chile send their children to the best school that they can afford.  This concept turns the educational system into a stratification of wealth in and of itself.

Kostas acknowledged this homogeneity of the socioeconomic status of the students attending his school and extended ideas of homogeneity to the broader sense of ideals and opinions across the faculty and student body.  Through conversations with him, it became clear that disagreeing with opinions of faculty are discouraged, resulting in discomfort, or resistance, in voicing disagreeing opinions in conversation.  Further, there appeared to be some sort of favoritism by the faculty in regard to students who share their same ideals, and voice this in class or through outside conversations with teachers.  In general, there was a strong sense of the school encouraging its students to think and value the same things.

Obviously brain washing is extreme, but the idea behind it is that these schools are creating and reproducing the elite class through the luring of students to their school with high entrance fees and elite status, and then spitting them out with all the same values and ideals.  They have streamlined their students to follow the same path, get the same jobs, and reproduce the same thing that they have embodied – Elite.