Conference Program

In recent years, the Chilean educational system has suffered massive reforms and policies implementations. Ley de Inclusión, Desmunicipalización, LEGE, among others, have sought to transform the system towards an idea of democratization and participation; however, their implementation has been inadequate. After more than thirty years of apparent left-wing leaning transformation attempts, the educational landscape has not changed in its structure, but strong discourses of merit, authority, and freedom of education have re-emerged to undermine all of them (Arzola, 2024; Cubillos et al., 2021). This mix is a crucial site for understanding how new right-wing assemblages are reconfiguring the very meaning of democracy, social justice and education, not only in Chile, but across the entire hemisphere.

Against a backdrop of neoliberal modernization and moral conservatism, contemporary right-wing actors in Chile mobilize a discourse working towards the dismantling of public education, the moral panic around gender and diversity, and the managerial language of “quality assurance” (Reyes & Cabaluz, 2025), creating an ideal public terrain where social justice is reframed as ideological threat rather than democratic horizon.

This presentation in particular examines these dynamics through the lens of popular education, revisiting their emancipatory contributions to Chile’s democratic struggles, from the resistance to the Pinochet dictatorship to the 2019 social uprising. Using documentary analysis, interviews with educators, and institutional discourse review, we explore how the educational policies, far from their left-wing appearance, articulate neoliberal and neoconservative rationalities, disciplining dissent while promoting an illusion of participation. These “post-political” configurations (Apple, 2013) coexist with renewed attempts by grassroots educational experiences, popular education spaces, to restore a sense of collective agency and public purpose in education (Fernández, Acuña & Albornoz, 2024; Ojeda et al., 2024; Cabezas, 2023).

By tracing this authoritarian technocracy advancement, we argue that the New Right’s project in education is not a return to tradition but actually a reconfiguration of pedagogical-political power, one that combines managerial depoliticization with moral regulation. Yet, within this context of reaction and control, popular education persists, unseen and unrevisited by the academic world, as a counter-hegemonic force that produces spaces of hope and radical dialogue (Freire, 1970). The Chilean case thus reveals both the dangers of democratic erosion and the vitality of pedagogical resistance, offering insight into how, from popular education, we can reimagine democracy from below amid global authoritarian currents.

Ultimately, we conclude that defending democracy in education today demands both resisting right-wing policies and, at the same time, reaffirming education as a collective ethical praxis, a terrain where solidarity and critical consciousness can still transform the social order. From popular education, we can envision pedagogical practices that do not simply defend democracy but actively reinvent it in times of crisis.