Education evaluation policy in Chile: experience at a multigrade rural school as a contribution to social justice

This article presents the perspective of rural teaching that shows the invisibility and undermining within the prevailing evaluative policy regime in Chile, a country that controls education and its actors based on the structural foundation of accountability. We focus this study on rural territory to answer this research question: What experiences lived by a teacher working in a multigrade rural school represent realms of social justice and injustice given the scope of Chile's evaluative policy? Thus, from the perspective of the dialogical-kishu kimkelay ta che research approach, we conducted this study for 2 years with a primary teacher who assumes all pedagogical and managerial functions in her school. For the analysis, we used the spheres of mutual recognition proposed by Axel Honneth as categories. The findings indicate that, firstly, based on the treatment the teacher receives from the educational political system, experiences related to the principles of social justice understood as mutual recognition are not observed. Secondly, experiences of social injustice stand out, classified as lack of affection (oppression), unequal treatment (deprivation of rights), and devaluation of the context (social disregard). In the discussion, we present certain elements of current policies and their (dis)articulation with the rural teaching experience. Moreover, the violation of universal rights in rural schools becomes evident. Finally, we propose some recommendations to value the territorial and cultural diversity of the country, aiming to contribute to the transformation of public policy.