This paper analyses the provision of education in Argentina in systemic terms. Using the concept of quasi-monopoly and the notions of exit, voice and loyalty, we study the logic of organization and distribution of students within the educational system. We support the idea that the provision of private and public education makes a coherent whole, where the State plays an active role. We then evaluate the implications of this configuration on the Argentine system in terms of: (a) freedom of choice; (b) productive efficiency; (c) equity; and (d) social cohesion following Levin's framework. We describe how the Argentine quasi-State monopoly system works as an important device of scarcity administration, increasing socioeconomic segregation through its tendency to push the middle and upper-middle classes into private schooling while granting public schooling for the lowest income sectors. Finally, this article lays the foundation for the use of the quasi-State monopoly notion for the study of other educational systems.
Durante los últimos 30 años se observa en Argentina un importante crecimiento de la matrícula en escuelas privadas; sin embargo, muchas familias de clase media que poseen recursos para pagar escuela privada se resisten a la tendencia mayoritaria y permanecen en escuelas públicas. El estudio es de tipo descriptivo-correlacional y se realizó a partir de la información recabada mediante 30 entrevistas semi-estructuradas abiertas a 21 madres y 9 padres de clase media/alta con hijos en escuelas secundarias públicas de Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires. Este trabajo se propone describir las motivaciones, expectativas y percepciones por parte de familias de clase media/alta con hijos en edad escolar que, contrariamente a la práctica mayoritaria para ese sector social, eligen escuelas públicas para sus hijos. Intenta, además, comprender la elección de escuela pública y el relato que se construye como parte de un proceso de construcción de identidades.
RESUMEN:En 1999, se aprobó en la Provincia de San Luis (Argentina) la creación de las denominadas 'Escuelas Experimentales Autogestionadas', inspiradas en el modelo charter norteamericano aunque con importantes diferencias. Este artículo describe la experiencia y explora las circunstancias por las que el proyecto fue desarticulado y abandonado prematuramente. El estudio incluyó un profundo análisis documental y entrevistas con referentes del proyecto, ex-funcionarios del Ministerio de Educación e integrantes de las asociaciones adjudicatarias. Se encontraron profundas incompatibilidades entre los principios rectores del proyecto -democratización, cooperativismo, autonomía y pluralidad -, las prácticas del sistema político provincial, y las estructuras y lógicas de poder tradicionales organizadas a nivel nacional.Palabras clave: Charter schools. Privatización. Autonomía escolar. Argentina.
From the Rockies to the Andes: the charter school experiment in the Argentinian political contextABSTRACT: In 1999, the Province of San Luis (Argentina) approved the creation of the so-called 'Escuelas Experimentales Autogestionadas' inspired by the North-American charter schools but with important differences. This article explores the circumstances under which the project was dismantled and abandoned prematurely. The study included a thorough documental analysis and interviews with leaders of the project, former officials of the Ministry of Education and members of the associations that ran these schools. We found strong incompatibilities between the guiding principles of the project, i.e. democratization, cooperativeness, autonomy and plurality, the practices of the provincial rentier political system, and the structures and traditional logics of power bureaucratically organized at the national level.
This chapter seeks to analyze the reasons why binational schools house foreign native speakers’ teachers as part of their staff and the reasons that make foreign residents work in binational schools in Argentina. We developed a multiple case design to predict similarities or contrasts based on arguments that explain these differences (Yin, Case study research: design and methods. Sage, Thousand Oaks, 2003) and conducted 15 in-depth interviews with educational agents – teachers and authorities – from binational schools, between 2017 and 2020.Our findings show that divergences in ‘career paths’ are marked by different contracting mechanisms: while foreign teachers are recruited through specific networks and enjoy economic privileges similar to diplomatic corps, Argentine teachers receive their salary in the local currency and according to national parameters. From these material advantages other symbolic ones will land. By creating a sense of belonging to an endogroup, some foreign teachers have the power to set the values and identities that create meaning within the school. This ‘minority though elite’ group of teachers finds a fertile soil in the school ethos of binational schools, closely in line with cultural diplomacy. We conclude that binational schools tend to legitimate their added value through the hiring of foreign teachers, and foreign teachers find solid ground for a successful career path, granted by their place of birth, and by the credentials derived from educational paths that have proved to be advantageous for specific institutional projects.
The educational system of Argentina has undergone a process of decentralization along with a steady growth in private schools enrolment. This complex process is usually subsumed under the general concept of ‘privatization’. We have considered it necessary to provide a deeper understanding of the multiple dimensions this process of privatization encompasses. In this article we intend to analyze and reflect upon the transformations of the Argentine educational system and to understand the specific levels and aspects where privatization has taken place. We note that the public and the private sectors seem to have experienced divergent trajectories with compromising effects in terms of equity and social cohesion. We argue that the uneasy coexistence of a deregulated independent private sector and a hyperregulated public sector is the result of a partial and inadequate implementation of a public-private partnership scheme.
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