Cinta de Moebio: Revista de Epistemología de Ciencias Sociales

Ramos, C. (2018) Dispositivo de evaluación y gubernamentalidad del sistema educacional: entretejimiento de ciencia social y poder. Cinta moebio 61: 41-55. doi: 10.4067/S0717-554X2018000100041

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Evaluation device and governmentality of the educational system: intertwining of social science and power

Claudio Ramos-Zincke (cramos@uc.cl) Departamento de Sociología, Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Santiago, Chile) ORCID: 0000-0003-0362-9667

Abstract

Associated with the increasing complexity of the educational system, procedures that seek its regulation take form and, at the same time, shape the goals to be achieved. In the case of Chile, in the last 50 years, a powerful evaluation device for the educational system has been established, which includes national tests such as SIMCE and PSU, the Teacher Evaluation System, the System of University Accreditation, the evaluation of the academic productivity, international tests such as PISA and TIMSS, and the elaboration of rankings of educational institutions. This device is a key technology of governmentality that makes possible to regulate the behavior of the population. In its constitution are interwoven theoretical and technical knowledge from the social sciences and concerns and strategies for the government of the population. Social science and power are combined. The device constitutes a moral and political technology with powerful performative effects that shape what we assume, for all practical purposes, as the educational quality of the different entities of the system -students, schools, programs, professors, universities, etc.-, which are valued in terms of such quality. The paper seeks to articulate theoretically the operations of this device and its derivations.

Key words: governmentality, performativity, science in use, evaluation device, educational testing