Invisible Segregation: Punitive Practices and Ability Grouping in Chilean Schools

Abstract

Even though educational policies and research in education have addressed between-school segregation, less visible forms of within-school segregation and exclusion have been scarcely studied. The purpose of this study was to characterize and analyze the occurrence and concurrence of two types of practices: academic ability grouping, and punitive disciplinary. The databases of the Chilean General Student Information System from 2003 to 2018 were used to identify ability grouping, and the questionnaires that accompany the 2018 SIMCE test was used to analyze punitive practices reported by students of 6th (N = 224,274) and 10th grade (N = 202,282), and parents of 4th grade students (N = 214,211), 6th grade (N = 204,894) and 10th grade (N = 171,596). Results show that male and poor students receive more punitive practices, and that ability grouping is widely used in Chilean schools, more frequently in schools that only provide secondary education. The use of punitive practices is more frequent in those schools that organize their classrooms according to academic ability. The challenges of over-representation in some students of these less visible practices of school segregation and exclusion in a school.