n the fi eld of higher education research, one of the most fascinating observations is the consistent and permanent expansion of higher education systems worldwide since theI end of the Second World War. Undoubtedly, the predominant approach to address Jesús Humberto Pineda Olivieri these developments has been through quantitative analysis, as well as international comparisons. The following work examines the particularities of the Venezuelan context with the aim of identifying specifi c features of this worldwide phenomenon in this South The Transformational Potential American case. Through a combination of qualitative methods, the author proposes a of Higher Education Inclusion biographical approach for the study of higher education inclusion processes, which takes into account the perspectives and experiences of those who have been targeted by an ambitious higher education expansion process. The most distinctive feature of this work Biographical Trajectories of Students would be its methodological contribution to the fi eld of higher education research. One from Disadvantaged Environments could also argue that the ethnographic account of the Bolivarian Missions of education in Venezuela in Chavez’s Venezuela is both original and unprecedented. Furthermore, the writing approach bridges the interests of both academics, practitioners of the fi eld and members of the general public. Jesús Humberto Pineda Olivieri The Transformational Potential of Higher Education Inclusion ISBN: 978-3-86395-310-2 Universitätsverlag Göttingen Universitätsverlag Göttingen Jesús Humberto Pineda Olivieri The Transformational Potential of Higher Education Inclusion This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Published by Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2017 Jesús Humberto Pineda Olivieri The Transformational Potential of Higher Education Inclusion Biographical Trajectories of Students from Disadvantaged Environments in Venezuela Universitätsverlag Göttingen 2017 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de Address of the Author Jesús Humberto Pineda Olivieri Email: [email protected] This work is protected by German Intellectual Property Right Law. It is also available as an Open Access version through the publisher’s homepage and the Göttingen University Catalogue (GUK) at the Göttingen State and University Library (http://www.sub.uni-goettingen.de). The license terms of the online version apply. Set and layout: Jesús Humberto Pineda Olivieri Cover design: Petra Lepschy Cover picture: Graphical representation of the difference between equality and equity by Barbara Mendez Mendez (Okadosa) © 2017 Universitätsverlag Göttingen http://univerlag.uni-goettingen.de ISBN: 978-3-86395-310-2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17875/gup2017-1027 Contents Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................. 11 Chapter 1. Introduction ..................................................................................................... 15 1.1 The genesis of the research project .................................................................... 15 1.2 Research questions and methodology ................................................................ 19 1.3 Structure of the dissertation ................................................................................. 21 Chapter 2. Inclusion to (higher) education ..................................................................... 25 2.1 Locating my research within the field of sociology of education .................. 26 2.1.1 Sociology of education and the study of inequality .................................. 28 2.1.2 Inequality is not just a class issue: Other categories and current debates ......................................................................................................... 30 2.2 The debate of educational inequality in Latin America ................................... 31 2.3 The Inclusion Era .................................................................................................. 34 2.3.1 The inclusion paradigm in education .......................................................... 36 6 The Transformational Potential of Higher Education Inclusion 2.3.2 How did the inclusion paradigm reach the higher education arena? ..... 38 2.4 The debate on higher education inclusion in Latin America .......................... 44 2.4.1 Funding schemes ............................................................................................ 45 2.4.2 Affirmative action (also known as reserved admission or quotas) ......... 45 2.4.3 Compensatory courses ................................................................................... 47 2.4.4 Creation of new universities ......................................................................... 48 2.4.5 Creation of parallel systems .......................................................................... 49 2.5 Summary of the chapter ....................................................................................... 50 Chapter 3. Theoretical Embedding .................................................................................. 51 3.1 Education and social inequality: The premises of Pierre Bourdieu ............... 51 3.1.1 Forms of capital .............................................................................................. 53 3.1.2 Habitus ............................................................................................................. 64 3.2 Us vs. them: Norbert Elias and the relation between established and outsiders ................................................................................................... 67 3.2.1 Elias approach: Figurational sociology ....................................................... 67 3.2.2 The theory of established-outsiders’ relations (Elias and Scotson, 1994) 68 3.2.3 Why do I use Elias to analyze higher education inclusion reforms? ...... 71 Chapter 4. Methodological framework ............................................................................ 75 4.1 Biographical research ............................................................................................ 76 4.2 Data collection ....................................................................................................... 78 4.2.1 Biographical Narrative Interviews following Rosenthal (1995; 2011) ... 78 4.2.2 Sampling strategies ......................................................................................... 83 4.3 Data analysis: Biographical case reconstruction ............................................... 86 4.3.1 Analysis of biographical data (data of events) ........................................... 86 4.3.2 Text and thematic field analysis (sequential analysis of textual segments from the self-presentation in the interview) ......................... 87 4.3.3 Reconstruction of the case history (life as lived) ....................................... 87 4.3.4 Detailed analysis of individual textual locations ........................................ 88 4.3.5 Contrast of the life story (narrated life) and life history (lived life) ........ 88 4.3.6 Formation of types (typology) ...................................................................... 88 4.4 Further methods .................................................................................................... 89 4.4.1 Short-Term Multi-Sited Participant Observations in Venezuela ............ 89 4.4.2 Ethnographic interviews ............................................................................... 90 Contents 7 4.4.3 Social networks and other unofficial information sources ...................... 91 Chapter 5. (Higher) education expansion as a sociopolitical issue ............................. 93 5.1 Background ............................................................................................................. 94 5.2 The Fifth Republic: 1999–2013: Venezuelan’s Participatory Democracy .. 100 5.2.1 Understanding the Bolivarian revolution ................................................. 100 5.2.2 The beginning of a new paradigm of social policy in Venezuela ......... 102 5.2.3 Venezuela’s radical turn and its consequences ........................................ 106 5.3 The Bolivarian Missions ..................................................................................... 111 Chapter 6. Municipalization of higher education through Mission Sucre ............... 123 6.1 Mission Sucre ....................................................................................................... 127 6.2 An ethnographic approach to Mission Sucre .................................................. 132 6.2.1 Access to a polarized field........................................................................... 132 6.2.2 A new argot ................................................................................................... 132 6.3 Summary of the chapter ..................................................................................... 149 Chapter 7. Case reconstructions and typology ............................................................. 151 7.1 Type A: Chance seekers/Opportunity driven ................................................. 152 7.1.1 Case reconstruction: Luis Jiménez............................................................