The article addresses violence due to skin color in elementary schools in Chile from the anthropological perspective of violence. The methodology applied was qualitative through 9 discussion groups of school actors (parents, students, and teachers) from 25 schools in 10 urban local governments of the Metropolitan Region in 2014. The issue of violence based on skin color emerges, spontaneously, in students and teachers at private schools. In municipal schools and private school parents, the issue is absent. Common sense is a cultural boundary for violent acts based on skin color ("annoying" and "discriminating by color") that produce and reproduce hierarchies and sufferings among students. These acts are delegitimized and their recognition in everyday school life is not possible. There is no change projected within the school, nor a protection or help nor a demand for transformation. The change of this situation of violence is oriented according to the individual decisions in the private education market, with the possible new risks or the repetition of violence due to the color of the skin.
Keywords:
school violence, elementary School, private school, skin color, violence
Guajardo , G. (2022). Violence due to skin color in basic education in Chile: ¿the problem of the meaning of action?. Revista Chilena De Antropología, (45), 25–46. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-1472.2022.67728
