Geographies of childhoods and youth: Manufacturing “Technologies of the Self” for educational inequality?

Spatial experiences of young people in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago, Chile

Abstract

Educational inequality in Chile is a multidimensional topic that is expressed in a similar way to other social aspects. Traditionally, solutions to this complex problem are addressed mainly with predisposed elements within a classical educational repertoire based on the measurement of realities through standardized tests. These strategies guide the search for improvements while hiding other types of relationships, and the consequent possibilities of making visible other forms of inequality related to school, beyond the scores obtained by students from different socio-economic origins.

The “technologies of the Self” (Foucault, 1990) developed by a selection of students in their last years of secondary education in the Metropolitan Region of Santiago de Chile are analyzed. Using qualitative methods and intentional sampling, we work with 14 young people from different educational settings, maximizing differences between settings and subjects. Topological interviews are applied for the production of data, later coded, and analyzed using Grounded Theory. A model of topos and landscapes is applied to analyze the production of technologies of the Self, with a focus on understanding typologies developed by the group under study, both in and out of school. Finally, the results allow the understanding of everyday spatial experiences of the subjects, as well as the distinction of altruism technologies as the main developed technologies of the Self.