Public policy discourses on childhood during Chilean post-authoritarian democracy: A case of discursive colonization by the language of the free market

Abstract

Based on the approach to language of Critical Discourse Analysis, this article explores the discursive construction of childhood in public policies during post-authoritarian Chilean democracy. Focusing on a key goal-setting policy document, the study notes how past and present discourses, including elements of the classical evolutionist view of childhood, the more historically recent children’s rights perspective, and that of the social investment in children, are combined. The social investment perspective tends to predominate, as part of the ‘colonization’ of discourses regarding childhood by the language of the free market.

Keywords

Children’s rights Chile critical discourse analysis public policies social investment

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