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Teacher Education for High Poverty Schools pp 171–191Cite as

Preparing Teachers for Social Justice in the Context of Education Policies that Deepen Class Segregation in Schools: The Case of Chile

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Part of the Education, Equity, Economy book series (EEEC,volume 2)

Abstract

This chapter asks what it means to prepare teachers for social justice in a highly class-segregated education system, with Chile as an example. We begin with a discussion of the context of Chile, where social-class segregation of schools has increased because of the market-driven model that has been implemented over the last 40 years. We critique education policies that both create and attempt to address the segregation of schools and teacher-education programs. Then, we develop a conceptual framework for educating teachers about social justice that connects multiple forms of diversity and oppression. Using our conceptual framework, we analyze in detail the current state of research about preparing teachers in Chile for social justice, particularly research focused on relationships between teachers and parents in vulnerable communities. Based on this analysis, we make recommendations for preparing teachers to work productively with children in poverty and to work collaboratively with their parents.

Keywords

  • Preservice Teacher
  • Social Justice
  • Prospective Teacher
  • Inservice Teacher
  • Initial Teacher Education

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Educational policy calculates the social vulnerability index (IVE) based on a student’s family income, level of education attained by parents or guardian, and the neighborhood in which the school is located. For each municipal and private-subsidized school, through a census of first graders and ninth graders, the IVE is calculated based on the number of pupils eligible for the free school-meal program (Julio Maturana 2009).

  2. 2.

    Accreditation is run by private for-profit agencies.

  3. 3.

    We decided to restrict the search to Spanish-language journals in these databases for two reasons: these are where most Chilean researchers publish and these entail an open-journal system. In Chile, access to literature in English is highly restricted and few universities offer faculty access to paid databases.

  4. 4.

    In these databases, for the same period, we could identify over 100 publications related to multicultural education, inclusion, intercultural education, and diversity that did not address issues related to teachers’ work with families or their work in high-poverty schools.

  5. 5.

    This program has been implemented by the Chilean Ministry of Education since 2011 in over 1000 schools. Teachers are provided with lesson plans, learning and teaching resources, and assessment tasks centrally developed and PD activities to use these resources accordingly. These materials cannot be changed or adapted by the teachers. The Ministry of Education claims that the program has drawn on successful experiences in other part of the world: England, Brazil, India, South Africa, and New Orleans in the United States are cited as examples of places that have, through this program, increased students’ performance on national standardized testing programs. The program is purported to strengthen school capacity in five areas: effective curriculum implementation, school climate conducive to learning, effective use of instructional time, monitoring of students’ achievement, and professional development for teachers. Within this program, the parental component consists of tips for helping their child to complete homework and develop academic skills valued by the school.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. California State University, Long Beach, CA, USA

    Christine Sleeter

  2. Pontifica Universidad de Valparaiso, Valparaíso, Chile

    Carmen Montecinos & Felipe Jiménez

Authors
  1. Christine Sleeter
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  2. Carmen Montecinos
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  3. Felipe Jiménez
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Correspondence to Christine Sleeter .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Jo Lampert

  2. Faculty of Education, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

    Bruce Burnett

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Sleeter, C., Montecinos, C., Jiménez, F. (2016). Preparing Teachers for Social Justice in the Context of Education Policies that Deepen Class Segregation in Schools: The Case of Chile. In: Lampert, J., Burnett, B. (eds) Teacher Education for High Poverty Schools. Education, Equity, Economy, vol 2. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22059-8_10

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