Paper short abstract:

The ways in which people in underfunded state schools create networks of support reveal how ideologies of kinship further relocate responsibility from the state to - mostly female - students, teachers and parents about the possible futures of state schools under austerity.

Paper long abstract:

The Chilean neoliberal educational reform works as a paradigmatic example of how policies of structural adjustment, privatisation and deregulation of the formal educational system have produced serious structural financial limitations for state schools, in Chile and elsewhere. In 2018, the response of the right-wing Chilean Minister of Education triggered public outrage when he encouraged families and school communities to take the crisis of public education into their own hands - and organise bingo to repair the schools' failing infrastructure. This approach has been coupled with a growing call for more active participation of parents in the school community under a particular 'principle of responsibility': parents are expected to foster a more intimate relationship between the home and the school through their 'family support', and to engage in the practices of solidarity to cope with the increasing material precariousness of state schools. These family-school practices of solidarity, therefore, occupy the in-between space left by the retrenchment of the state and the struggles of households and neighbourhoods, within the same state institution of the school. This puts further pressure on impoverished families who do not have the resources or time to fully participate, which creates hierarchies of deservedness for the recipients of solidary help. I argue that the case of underfunded state schools reveals how ideologies of kinship further relocate the responsibility for economic security and welfare from the state to - mostly female - students, teachers and parents about the possible futures of state schools under austerity.