Stressing the free tuition policy: discourse about the free tuition policy in higher education of a group of Chilean university students.
Higher Education (ESUP) is considered one of the most influential factors in the economic, political and social development of nations (Donoso, Donoso, & Arias, 2010; Guzmán-Valenzuela, 2016a). Globally, enrollment in higher education reaches a third of the age-appropriate cohort for tertiary st...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Estado: | Versión publicada |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2021 |
| País: | Chile |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:repositorio.anid.cl:10533/253119 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/10533/253119 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Ciencias Sociales Psicología Otras Especialidades de la Psicología |
| Sumario: | Higher Education (ESUP) is considered one of the most influential factors in the economic, political and social development of nations (Donoso, Donoso, & Arias, 2010; Guzmán-Valenzuela, 2016a). Globally, enrollment in higher education reaches a third of the age-appropriate cohort for tertiary study. This exponential growth trend extends across most low- and middle-income countries, being primarily driven by families' expectations and ambitions to move up in society or maintain their social position (Marginson, 2016). In the Latin American and Caribbean region, enrollment in higher education expanded from 21% to 43% between 2000 and 2013, fueled especially by the entry of "non-traditional" students, that is, those with lower socioeconomic backgrounds and who are the first generation of their families to attend the higher education system. Indeed, according to estimates, this increase in enrollment was promoted by the poorest 50% of young people in the region (Ferreyra, Avitabile, Botero, Haimovich, & Urzúa, 2017). In Chile, the increase in enrollment in the university system has been associated with the privatization and stratification of the system, together with the creation of a segmented and segregated educational market (Assaél, Cornejo, González, Redondo, Sánchez & Sobarzo, 2011; Bellei & Cabalin, 2013; Guzmán-Valenzuela, 2016a, 2016b, 2017), where a high enrollment share coexists, but with socially stratified access to higher education institutions of different quality, prestige, and status (Marginson, 2017). In this scenario, students with low cultural, economic and social capital have little chance of accessing those institutions of higher quality and prestige, a place that seems to be assured for students from higher income sectors (García de Fanelli & Adrogué, 2019). As a consequence, the hegemonic image of the existence of equal opportunities in the country, linked to the meritocratic ideology where individuals acquire social rewards according to the talents of each one (Cívico, 2007), began to be questioned (Orellana, Guzmán, Bellei, Gareca & Torres, 2017). Since the student movement of 2011, the community in general has requested changes at the level of post-secondary education, demanding free and quality education for all (Bellei, Cabalin & Orellana, 2014; Guzmán-Concha, 2017; Guzmán-Valenzuela, 2016a). In this context, the higher education reform undertaken by the second government of Michelle Bachelet has proposed changes in the institutional framework and in the way of financing this educational level (González & Espinoza, 2016). One of the measures promoted in said government is the free tuition policy, which benefits families corresponding to the 60% with the lowest income of the population, whose members study in universities attached to this benefit, who will not have to pay the fee or tuition. in your institution during the formal duration of the degree. Considering the recent implementation of this funding policy, the scarcity of research that explores the discourse of students in Latin America, the preponderance in Chile of functionalist and quantitative studies in educational research, this study has as a research question: What are the discourses produced by Chilean university students about the free tuition policy measure in the framework of the educational reform in higher education in Chile? Its general objective is to explore and understand the speeches of Chilean university students about the free tuition policy measure in the framework of the educational reform of the higher education system in Chile. The proposed methodology is of a qualitative type and considers the in-depth interview as information production techniques. Regarding the analysis, the current of critical discourse analysis is proposed. The selection of participants was based on the principle of structural variation. The results of this research show that the students' discourse about free tuition policy, their own social and educational condition and that of their reference peers, differs in key elements, such as the reproduction of the meritocratic discourse, but that there is also a broad consensus on the positive aspects of free tuition as a public policy that allows a unique opportunity to study in higher education. |
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