Autores/as: Verónica López, Paula Ascorra & Macarena Morales.
Descripción: In Chile, as well as in all Latin American and Iberoamerican countries, there is a term that is both commonly and scientifically used to study school life beyond academic achievement: convivencia escolar. Its direct translation is school coexistence, and the closest term used in the anglosaxon literature is school climate. However, for many Iberoamerican researchers, the terms are not synonyms. Although the concept of «school coexistence» is a sociohistorically situated construction in Latin America, it is also deeply connected with the changes and transformations in global educational research and intervention, especially those related to the guidelines of UNESCO for the development of a democratic, participatory and inclusive education. Nevertheless, this formative perspective towards school climate/coexistence is tensioned by accountability and high-stakes testing prioritized by many Latin American educational policies during the last decade. This seems to be a global political scenario. As Cohen and Thapa (2017) have found in the U.S., there is probably a need from educational leaders in the Latin American Region to clarify what is meant by school climate reform policies, and to why and how they should make school climate a priority.
Palabras clave: school climate, convivencia escolar, educational policies.
Cómo citar: López, V., Ascorra, P., & Morales, M. (2017). School climate and convivencia escolar: tensions and issues in Latin America. International Journal on School Climate and Violence Prevention, 117-124.