Inherited and Acquired Assets in the Chilean Higher Education Admission Process
Sammanfattning: The present study examines from a Bourdieusian perspective the relationship between the university admission process and the social structure in Chile by analysing the extent to which inherited and acquired assets relates to the educational performance and pathways of talented students. Geometric Data Analysis in the form of Specific Multiple Correspondence Analysis is used to map out the social space of the First-application Enrolees in higher education via the University Selection Test between 2005 and 2017. Special attention is given to the sub-space of the students who achieve a perfect score in the test known as ‘Puntajes Nacionales’. Thus, 16 interviews were conducted with such students so as to deepen the interpretation of the sub-space they constitute. Evidence show an extremely high importance of inherited assets in the test performance of the First-application Enrolees, resulting in an overrepresentation of male, upper-middle class students which is not only mirrored but also sharpened within the sub-space of the Puntajes Nacionales. Such findings at once confirm and expand what previous research on the determinant conditions for the performance on the University Selection Test have argued, that is, that the function that the selection process in Chile fulfils is closer to fostering the misrecognition of the tight relationship existing between the institutionalized educational system and the social structure than to the actual measurement of competence on the national curriculum for secondary education achieved by the students. Finally, the emergence of an economy of symbolic exchange surrounding the figure of the Puntajes Nacionales in which agents other than the students benefits the most is discussed.
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