Middle school, youth work, and hegemony in neo-developmentist Argentina: A structural approach

Abstract

The following article presents a series of findings that arise from statistical analysis of enrollment data originated in Argentina's Secondary Education system, which is then linked to youth employment indicators for the same period. Those are interpreted making use of theoretical approaches provided by critical currents of Sociology of Education. By recovering the analysis of the Argentinian State as a neo-developmental government in the post-2001 period, and considering its characteristics from a Gramscian perspective, we try to interpret the educational system as a tool in the configuration of hegemony processes. For some authors those processes develop a weak hegemony, due to a government that adapts pragmatically to juncture demands, and ends up reproducing the management of contradictions which are also expressed, as stated in the conclusions, in Education. Therefore, the reader is invited to deepen the analysis of the educational system from a critical perspective given by the Sociology of Education, specifically in its contributions on educational inequality. This perspective allows us to establish the relationship between the hegemony of State, hegemony and education, which seems disconnected from the education system according to several analysis. This will be achieved by observing the structural behavior of population in age to formally attend secondary school: the youth.