Australian Journal of Adult Learning - Volume 55 - Number 3 - November 2015 - Remaking education from below - the Chilean student movement as public pedagogy

Oct 15, 2026

Remaking education from below examines the Chilean student movement and its decade-long struggle for public education as a model of public pedagogy. It highlights sustained activism by secondary and university students, supported by parents, teachers, workers, and communities, which forced nationwide debate on education. The article links this struggle to how the concept of “public” is reshaped under neoliberal inequality, using Giroux’s framework and field research from 2014 alongside existing literature and media sources.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages19

Reading Time48 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Neoliberal schooling and the crisis of democracy

Public pedagogy: hope, struggle, and politicisation

Resistance beyond the classroom

Critical educators and social movements

Australian Journal of Adult Learning Volume 55, Number 3, November 2015 Remaking education from below: the Chilean student movement as public pedagogy Jo Williams Victoria University This article considers the Chilean student movement and its ten-year struggle for public education as an example ofpublic pedagogy. Secondary and university students, along with the parents, teachers, workers and community members who have supported them, have engaged in the most sustained political activism seen in Chile since the democratic movement against the Pinochet military dictatorship between 1983 and 1989. The students have successfully forced a nationwide discussion on education, resulting not only insignificant educational reform, but also a community rethinking of the relationship between education and social and economic inequality in a neoliberal context. Framed through Giroux’s conceptual definition ofpublic pedagogies and drawing on field research conducted throughout 2014 as well as existing literature and media sources, this article considers the role of the student movement in Chile in redefining the concept of‘public’and the implications for radical perspectives on learning and teaching. Keywords: students, activism, Chile, public pedagogy. Remaking education from below: the Chilean student movement as public pedagogy 497 Introduction More than ever the crisis of schooling represents, at large, the crisis of democracy itself and any attempt to understand the attack on public schooling and higher education cannot be separated from the wider assault on all forms ofpublic life not driven by the logic of the market (Giroux, 2003:7) “Fin al lucro en educación, nuestros sueños no les pertenecen” (end profit making in education, nobody owns our dreams 1) (slogan of the Chilean student movement, inspired by the French student uprisings of May-June 1968) Over the past four decades, as the economic and ideological depravity of neoliberal policy and its market-driven logic (D. W. Hursh & Henderson, 2011) has been brought to bear on every aspect of education, the very concept of‘public’ has been negated. Characteristics such as user-pays, competition, assaults on teachers, and mass standardised-testing and rankings, are among the features of a schooling, which is now very much seen as a private rather than public good (Giroux, 2003). The question of public education as a democratic force for the radical transformation of a violently unjust society seems rarely if ever asked, and a dangerous co-option and weakening of the language and practice of progressive pedagogy has occurred to the extent that notions of inclusion and success are increasingly limited to narrowly conceived individualist and competitive measures of market advantage. As Giroux notes “the forces of neo-liberalism dissolve public issues into utterly privatised and individualistic concerns (2004:62), and despite ongoing official rhetoric“the only form of citizenship increasingly being offered to young people is consumerism”(2003:7). Neoliberal education sees students and young people as passive consumers, the emphasis of schooling on learning how to be governed rather than how to govern (Giroux, 2003:7) . In such a context the space for a public pedagogy, based on challenging the hegemony of neoliberal ideology and aligned with collective resistance, appears limited at best. And yet, every day people, teachers, students and communities do engage in political struggle, enacting pedagogies that seek to unveil rather than continue to mask the political 498 Jo Williams structures and organisation that ensures power remains in the hands of the few, and at the service of the few, at the expense of the rest ofus. Giroux characterises public pedagogies as defined by hope, struggle and a politicisation of the education process. He argues for …a politics of resistance that extends beyond the classroom as part of a broader struggle to challenge those

FAQs

What is the article’s main focus?

It focuses on the Chilean student movement and its decade-long struggle for public education as an example of public pedagogy.

How did the student movement affect education discourse in Chile?

It forced a nationwide discussion on education and encouraged communities to rethink links between education and social or economic inequality in a neoliberal context.

Which framework does the article use to interpret the movement?

It frames the discussion through Giroux’s conceptual definition of public pedagogies and draws on field research conducted throughout 2014, plus existing literature and media sources.

Oct 15, 2026

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