Admission to early childhood education in elite Chilean schools: An exploratory qualitative study

Abstract

In Chile, the educational system is characterized by a high level of socioeconomic segregation of the educational offer. Admissions to private schools are mainly at the preschool level, so applications are made at an early age. This exploratory qualitative research investigates the perspectives of mothers and fathers and their experiences during the admission process to the lower transition level (NT1) and higher transition level (NT2) in elite schools of the Metropolitan Region (Chile), called prekindergarten and kindergarten. Through semi-structured interviews with nine parents of children who applied to elite educational establishments, the narratives show that the schools where their children applied presented high barriers to entry, based on economic and religious criteria and inadequate academic expectations for young children, thus contributing to class reproduction through the search for social homogeneity. Given the exploratory nature of this study, these results should be considered as a first empirical approximation.