Restrictions to Educational Reform in Chile: Neoinstitutional Perspective and Future Scenarios

This paper examines Latin American´s policies in education, looking particularly at the case of Chile. It is used neoinstitutional analysis as well as complex systems theory to explore the impact of political, ideological, labor union relations and institutional variables in education.

In Chile, the evolution of educational policies and the political phenomena -of both the military and democratic governments- have resulted in a “perfect storm” that has created inequity and stagnant levels of poor quality in education, which are particularly inadequate for Chile's development path. This analysis culminates with the description of future scenarios for Chilean education, and its implications for the rest of Latin America.

Key words (*): Educational Administration; Educational Policy; Educational Reforms; Institutional Analysis; Prospects; Latin America; Chile

(*) From CLAD’s “Thesaurus on Public Administration”.