From urban to rural schools: A case study of Chilean students

Chilean rural schools currently receive students from urban schools, where they have experienced dynamics and practices of exclusion. In this context, we developed a qualitative case study research with elementary school students who moved from an urban to a rural school. The objective was to understand and analyze the subjective experience regarding their own school trajectory, considering the change of school. We worked with semi-structured interviews, collage technique with images provided by the researchers and content analysis. The results show a school experience marked by the absence of adults and violent relationships with peers in the urban school, as opposed to the school experience in the rural school with significant and close ties. It is concluded that the role of rural schools in the continuity of school trajectories is related to the development of highly valued inclusive cultures as opposed to the exclusionary dynamics in urban schools.