Policies, processes, and paths of educational privatization in Latin America

Abstract

Pro-privatization policies are an increasingly important component in educational reform processes in many parts of the world. Latin America is the region in which educational privatization has advanced more sharply in recent decades. However, the academic literature on the subject is still scarce and there are few works that adopt a regional perspective. The objective of this article is to disassemble the nature, conditions and variants of the political economy of educational privatization in Latin America, and establish a typology of ‘paths’ through which educational privatization has advanced in the continent. Drawing on the triangulation of three methods of data collection (review and systematization of 169 studies on the processes of educational privatization in Latin America, analysis of statistical sources, and interviews with key informants), we have identified the following paths: 1) privatization as part of the structural reform of the State; 2) privatization as an incremental reform; 3) ‘default’ privatization and the emergence of low-cost private schools; 4) historical public-private partnerships; 5) privatization via disaster; and 6) latent privatization. In some countries there is a sedimentation of different pro-privatization policies and processes where elements of different paths tend to converge.