Higher Education Ideology, Class and Family: The Intimate Origins of the Chilean Student Movement

Focusing on Chile's Transition to Democracy period, this paper examines the 2011 student movement, which frames the crisis in higher education and the rise of the student movement as “a family matter.” High-interest private loans, introduced under the guise of social mobility through professional education, have placed a significant financial burden on families. These pressures are part of a broader system where higher education serves as a modern mechanism to undermine the knowledge and cultural values of Chilean society, particularly the role of the family. In Latin America, this dynamic has been especially pronounced, with the promise of social mobility through education exacerbating existing inequalities.

We conduct a class-based comparison to understand how class issues influence the complex process of forming critical consciousness within activist students' families impacted by the so-called 'neoliberal higher education' (NHE) ideology. The results of this research suggest that the Chilean student movement may be reclaiming not only the emancipatory potential of education but also the often-overlooked emancipatory potential of the family. This movement reflects a broader struggle in Latin American societies to resist forces that have long imposed external values at the expense of local knowledge and social justice.