Games of truth in Chile´s university entrance exam involving the controversy around the occupation of the Palestine territory by Israel¹

Abstract

Interested in acquiring an in-depth understanding of the standardized tests for higher-education admission and with the purpose of discussing the relations between the entrance exams and the Chilean curriculum, my intent in this article is to analyze the controversy arising from a question in the history, geography and social science test which went around throughout the country´s digital media in 2015. With such goal, based on Maingueneau, Grillo, and Possenti´s discursive analysis, I will sustain a theoretical dialogue among Bakhtin, Bourdieu, and Foucault. Thus, I will focus on the comments posted by internet users about the truthfulness or falsehood of a question in this entrance exam, which concerns Israel´s occupation of the Palestine´s territory. In addition, in order clarify my analytical perspective, I will take from the same subject matter in the 2012 exams, the comments by teachers about a question that mentioned the indigenous resistance of the Mapuche people to the Spanish colonization. Upon gathering this corpus, I will describe and compare the rule of discursive formation developed in what I will consider a field of strategical possibilities which allows for irreconcilable interests. After all, I will not only discuss the relations of pressure and legitimacy between the questions appearing in this entrance exam and the Chilean curriculum by competences, but I will also address the constitution of candidates as effects of power and knowledge, that is, the constitution of candidates seen then as fit or unfit to access the university.

Chilean university entrance exam; Curriculum; Discourse