«We are not mice»: renegotiating the school coexistence in the Chilean students movement

Abstract

In Santiago a high school, well known by its pugnacity in the students movement and for the amazing success in its educational project, is renegotiating its school coexistence. By means of an ethnographical research developed in the classrooms and the playgrounds of the high school, the present research analyzes the interaction of adults and young ones of the high school concerning the facto of not wearing uniform, tardiness, and horizonta­lity in the classroom. The field work reveals that the school regulations are closer to the justifications based on the frameworks of democracy and the Human Rights instead of discipline, even though some elements of the disciplinary school are still the basis of the teacher–student relationship. Thus, the students generally do not feel like «mice» contro­lled by the teachers and the social order, but protagonists of the transformation of their school and their society.