Is there a way out of neoliberalism? The contentious and uncertain Chilean process to transform a market oriented educational system

About the lecture: Chilean students started a social movement 15 years ago to replace a highly privatized market oriented educational system with a more egalitarian system based on good free public education. In 2019, the student movement became a national movement that ultimately triggered a Constitutional change; in addition, the current Chilean President and his most relevant ministers are previous student leaders. In this presentation I will analyze this process from an educational policy perspective as an ongoing example of the extreme difficulties of reversing the effects of radical market reforms in education.

Cristián Bellei Carvacho is Associate Researcher at the Center for Advanced Research in Education and Professor in the Sociology Department, both at the University of Chile, and coordinator of the research in education initiative at the Austral University of Chile. He is Doctor of Education from Harvard University. He also has a Sociology degree from the University of Chile and a Master in Education Policy from Harvard University. His lastestbooks are “The Great Experiment: Market and Privatization of Chilean Education” (2015, LOM) and “Understanding School Segregation. Patterns, Causes and Consequences of Spatial Inequalities in Education” (edited with Xavier Bonal, 2018, Bloomsbury). He haspublished extensively about Chilean education, mainly on education policy, markets in education, school choice, school segregation, school improvement and school change. He previously worked at the Chilean Ministry of Education designing and evaluating school improvement programs; and at the UNICEF Office in Chile as the responsible for the Right to Education Area. He has also served as an expert in two Presidential Advisory Commissions in Chile: he was a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission for Quality in Education, appointed by President Michelle Bachelet (2006), and he is currently a member of the Presidential Advisory Board for the Evaluation of the Public Education System, appointed by President Sebastián Piñera (2018-2025).