4 The Schoolification of Classrooms for 4- and 5-Year-Olds in Chile as a Consequence of Deregulation: The Countervailing Role of School Principals’ Pedagogical Leadership
Marcela Pardo and María-José Opazo
Institute for Advanced Studies on Education-Centre for Advanced Research on Education, University of Chile, Chile
Abstract
This chapter analyses the schoolification of classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds in Chile, a phenomenon rooted in decades of educational deregulation and the incorporation of early childhood education (ECE) into primary school structures. While Chile has a long tradition of ECE and high enrolment rates, ECE has been increasingly subordinated to the logic of primary pedagogies, emphasising early literacy and numeracy at the expense of holistic, play-based pedagogies. Drawing on national and international evidence, we examine the limited pedagogical expertise of school principals in leading classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds and the tensions this generates in their leadership practices. We argue that, although recent policy frameworks aim to strengthen principals’ pedagogical leadership in ECE, these measures remain insufficient to counteract entrenched schoolification processes. Bolstering principals’ specialised leadership capacities is therefore presented as a politically viable and pedagogically necessary strategy to uphold ECE principles and ensure meaningful, child-centred learning experiences.
Keywords
schoolification, early childhood education, leadership, educational deregulation, pedagogy
Classrooms for 4- and 5-Year-Olds Are Puzzlingly Schoolified in Chile
How can we explain that, with such a long and honourable tradition of early childhood education (from now on, ECE), classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds are so highly schoolified in Chile today?
Indeed, Chile, a developing country, has a history of ECE that stands out internationally for its early development and numerous achievements. Regarding the training of ECE teachers, the first kindergarten teachers began to be prepared in 1906 under the influence of Friedrich Fröbel (Peralta, 2015); in 1944, the preparation of ECE teachers began at the university level, following the work of Maria Montessori (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 1988). Concerning the institutionality, ECE in Chile has been the first level of the education system since 1965 (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 1998), it has been part of the National Education Quality Assurance System since 2011 (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2011), and it has had its own Undersecretariat within the Ministry of Education since 2015 (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2015). In terms of provision, the country opened its first public kindergarten in 1906 (Peralta, 2006) and, since 2008, has allocated universal free funding for 4- and 5-year-old classrooms (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2008); so today 91.6% of 4- and 5-year-olds attend ECE (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2024).
The schoolification of ECE is not a trend exclusive to Chile (Ring, O’Sullivan & Wall, 2020); it has also been reported by several studies conducted in several European countries (Van Laere, 2017), Australia (Barblett, 2016), and the United States (Brown, Barry & Ku, 2021). Furthermore, this is not a recent problem. Nearly two decades ago, the OECD, in its report Starting Strong II (2006), reported on it within its member countries. Opening a discussion that had not been raised until then, this publication interpreted this trend as the result of the colonisation that primary education had carried out on ECE: “Schoolification” has connotations of taking over early childhood institutions in a colonising manner […] early education was absorbed early on in other countries by a knowledge transfer, primary education model, and was conceived chiefly as a “junior school” (OECD, 2006, p. 61). The idea that primary education has colonised ECE suggests that the ECE schoolification reflects the subordination of the field to preparation for school (OECD, 2006, p. 62).
The roots of ECE schoolification have been explored at various levels. The OECD (2006, p. 62), on the one hand, has argued that ECE enrolment is an unintended result of a narrow and instrumental understanding of this level of education as preparation for school. Moss (2012, p. 3), in turn, has linked ECE to the government’s concern to ensure that children enter primary school having acquired the basic skills and competencies. Bingham and Whitebread, meanwhile, have pointed to the accountability agenda for ECE that has led to early formal instruction in literacy and mathematics, under the mistaken assumption that early formal instruction for children promotes better learning in the short and long-term (2018, pp. 321, 368).
State Deregulation at the Root of the Schoolification of Classrooms for 4- and 5-Year-Olds in Chile
The colonisation of ECE by primary education, although it is an interpretation proposed to understand developed countries, offers a perspective that sheds light on the case of schoolification of the classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds in Chile, given the singular features of the institutional framework at this level in Chile: 97.2% of this population attends ECE in classrooms housed in schools that provide primary and, in many cases, secondary education (that is, these children do not attend ECE centres) (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2025). An often overlooked fact that has major implications for the ECE schoolification of classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds is that these classrooms were housed in schools for almost 25 years without any regulation concerning the ECE pedagogy and other specificities of this educational level, in the context of the military dictatorship (from 1973 to 1990) which, following the neoliberal approach that guided all its public policies, assigned the s tate a subsidiary role that displaced it as duty bearer of the right to education. Specifically, classrooms for 5-year-olds began to be housed in schools in 1981, when the Ministry of Education established a specific permanent funding allocation for this purpose (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2023). About two decades later, in 2004, classrooms for 4-year-olds also began to receive this funding (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2004a).
Seeking to mitigate the extensive deregulation of the school system imposed by the dictatorship, it was not until 2001 that the Ministry of Education approved the first national curriculum for the sector (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2001), and, in 2005, began to require ‒ although without retroactive effect ‒ that schools with 4- and 5-year-old classrooms base their educational project on the ECE national curriculum, among other aspects (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2005). Ever since, the Ministry of Education has been making slow progress in further regulating classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds in schools, through several measures that reaffirm the ECE pedagogical principles. For example, in 2012, it established the Guiding Standards for undergraduate preparation of ECE teachers; and in 2018, the Framework for Good Teaching in Early Childhood Education, seeking to ensure that the practices of ECE teachers safeguarded the pedagogical principles of ECE. Then, in 2020, it launched the Indicative Performance Standards (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2020) to guide the evaluation of schools’ educational management processes in the areas of leadership, pedagogical management, family and community relations, children’s overall well-being, and resource management.
At the same time, and in direct relation to the schoolification of classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds, the Ministry of Education has sought to preserve the ECE pedagogy through timid regulations of minor legal scope, such as those that provided criteria on the curricular articulation between ECE and primary education (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2004b), and the establishment of principles to guide the development of an educational transition strategy between ECE and the 1st grade of primary education (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2017).
Despite these regulations, classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds in schools are subject to or influenced by all the regulations of the school system as a whole. A notorious example of this is SIMCE (National Student Achievement Testing System), a standardised test administered nationwide to all students in 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th grades. In particular, the 2nd-grade SIMCE assesses reading and mathematics skills (Chile – Education Quality Agency, 2025). Since 2011, schools that obtain low SIMCE scores may be severely sanctioned, including their closure (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2011). Several authors (Campos-Martinez et al., 2015; Meckes & Mena, 2021) have discussed the negative impacts of SIMCE as an accountability device based on the logic of performance-based management. With regard to ECE, Falabella (2013) has suggested that, in seeking high SIMCE scores, schools are formally teaching literacy and mathematics to 4- and 5-year-olds as early preparation for SIMCE. Complementarily, Pardo, Opazo and Rupin (2021) found that ECE teachers, school principals and ECE national authorities have acknowledged that schools prioritise developing classroom skills in 4- and 5-year-olds to enable them to achieve high SIMCE scores in the future. Complementarily, Pardo et al. (forthcoming ) have shown that ECE teachers allocate a disproportionately large amount of time to early literacy and mathematics within the daily schedule, marginalising the other six areas of learning established in the national ECE curriculum (that is, Identity and autonomy, Daily coexistence and citizenship, Corporeality and movement, Artistic languages, Exploration of the natural environment, Understanding of the sociocultural environment) (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2018) in practice, far from the official discourse.
Beyond local factors, it is important to note that the enrolment of 4- and 5-year-olds in Chilean classrooms has emerged amidst a global framework of policies and discourses that have reshaped the meaning of childhood and ECE. In this context, the international PISA for Development study (Pence, 2016) – colloquially known as “baby PISA” – has helped to establish the social validity of large-scale measurement of learning in early childhood. This has reinforced the idea that future school performance depends linearly on early childhood academic achievement (Urban et al., 2022). In this vein, Falabella et al. (2022) found that ECE coordinators in schools have reported that colleagues who are not specialised in ECE tend to dismiss their expertise, seeking their input only on narrowly defined ECE-specific topics, while excluding them from broader educational discussions. Within this sweeping context, the measures adopted by the Ministry of Education to reverse the ECE schoolification have not even mitigated the hegemony of academic knowledge at this educational level.
Not Experts in ECE: School Principals and the Challenges of Leading ECE Classrooms in Chilean Schools
Within this context, we wish to draw attention to an actor whose role has been scarcely problematised in the national debate on the ECE schoolification in Chile: school principals leading schools housing classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds. According to the legislation regulating their role, principals are responsible for directing and leading the institutional educational project. Among other duties, they are tasked with designing, monitoring and evaluating the school’s goals and objectives, its study plans and programs, and the strategies for their implementation; as well as organising and guiding technical-pedagogical work within the school (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2012).
In Chilean schools, the organisational structure includes a leadership team ‒ responsible for coordinating curricular processes, supporting teachers’ work and fostering the continuous improvement of learning (Aravena, 2025) ‒ which is headed by a principal, who oversees both the pedagogical and administrative management of the institution. According to Campos et al. (2019), public policies over the past decades have shaped a dual role for principals, who are expected to perform managerial functions ‒ oriented towards meeting indicators and accountability measures ‒ while simultaneously exercising pedagogical leadership aimed at improving learning outcomes and strengthening teachers’ professional capacities.
Since 2021, school leaders have also had access to the ECE Framework for Good Leadership and Management, developed by the Ministry of Education (2021). This framework provides specific guidelines to strengthen classroom leadership for 4- and 5-year-olds, promoting pedagogical management, professional support, and capacity-building practices aligned with the characteristics and needs of early childhood education. However, the availability of this framework has not, in practice, guaranteed well-informed or specialised leadership regarding classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds in schools.
Similarly, in recent years, principals of schools housing classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds have been included in the Ministry of Education’s Training Plan for School Principals, a professional development program aimed at enhancing principals’ leadership capacities for ECE. This program, created in 2011, was designed to strengthen pedagogical leadership by developing the competencies, knowledge, and skills of those currently holding, or aspiring to hold, positions as principals . In 2024, for the second consecutive year, the plan explicitly incorporated principals from schools housing classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds, recognising the strategic importance of leadership for ECE. According to the Ministry, this inclusion seeks to ensure the presence of leaders capable of fostering sustained educational improvement from the earliest levels (Ministerio de Educación, 2024).
However, ECE teachers in Chile perceive that school principals ‒ most of whom are not prepared as ECE teachers ‒ have only a limited understanding of the ECE pedagogical foundations and curriculum. For instance, ECE teachers have noted that principals often dismiss the ECE pedagogy, as they perceive it as “insufficiently educational”. Consequently, they frequently encourage ECE teachers to implement drill-based activities for 4- and 5-year-olds using predesigned worksheets (Pardo & Opazo, 2019). Evidence also shows that these school leaders tend to over-emphasise early reading and writing skills, expecting children to learn to read by the end of kindergarten. Such expectations are often accompanied by prescriptive instructional methods (for example, pencil-and-paper activities, predesigned templates and rigid timeframes) and formal assessments that include grading systems ‒ all of which reflect a misalignment with ECE pedagogical principles (Pardo, Opazo & Rupin, 2021).
In line with these findings, a recent study by Bañados et al. (2025) revealed that only about one-fifth of principals in schools hosting classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds believe their pedagogical teams are highly familiar with the ECE national curriculum. Similarly, less than 5% of these principals perceive that their teams have a solid understanding of the ECE Framework for Good Teaching. Interpreting these results as concerning, these authors recommend strengthening principals’ knowledge and implementation of the national curriculum to ensure that school leaders understand the ECE purposes and pedagogical approaches.
Complementing this evidence, Opazo et al. (2025) found that school principals’ exercise of leadership, although well-intentioned, is often marked by a limited understanding of the ECE pedagogical specificity. This lack of comprehension translates into decisions that prioritise traditional school culture (such as the pressure for measurable outcomes) over the needs of children under 6 years. As a result, the measures they implement tend to be unsustainable and blur the ECE pedagogical specificity, reinforcing the schoolification processes that do not align with the characteristics and rights of young children.
Taken together, this empirical evidence consistently suggests that principals in Chilean schools housing classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds have not fully met their role as pedagogical leaders for this educational level ‒ either because they lack knowledge of, undervalue or fail to actively promote the pedagogical principles of early childhood education.
School Leaders as Key Actors in Resisting the ECE Schoolification
It does not seem easy to disentangle the set of institutional, legal, cultural and historical factors underlying the schoolification of classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds in Chile. However, this is necessary, as the highly unsatisfactory learning outcomes of students at SIMCE provide compelling evidence that schoolification of classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds is ineffective, even by the narrowest standards of academic achievement. For example, recent national assessments have shown that nearly 60% of second-grade students demonstrate insufficient reading comprehension, struggling to interpret texts and answer basic questions about what they read (Claro et al., 2024). This evidence critically challenges schoolification practices that, from the earliest years, impose a reductionist emphasis on reading and writing, neglecting the construction of comprehensive, meaningful pedagogical experiences aligned with the needs, pace and rights of young children.
This calls for moving beyond the predominantly technical perspective that guides solutions based on what supposedly “works” to achieve certain goals. Specifically, it also requires addressing the political dimension, which seeks to determine what those goals should be ‒ identifying the various available alternatives, their corresponding concepts, values and assumptions, and, therefore, their points of contention (Moss, 2012).
While recognising the importance of early literacy and numeracy, we argue that this should not undermine the holistic, child-centred and play-based nature that ECE must uphold, in light of the strong scientific evidence showing that these principles are indeed the ones that foster learning and development in the early years (Edwards et al., 2019; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2022; Kumpulainen, 2018; Sarlé, 2024).
In Chile, it does not currently appear politically viable ‒ at least in the medium term ‒ to return 4- and 5-year-olds to ECE centres, to eliminate the severe consequences that SIMCE imposes on low-performing schools, or to approve stronger laws in favour of ECE pedagogy. Nor does it seem feasible to move towards the “ECE-isation” of primary education, as several governmental authorities have metaphorically suggested (Chile – Ministerio de Educación de Chile, 2023).
What is politically viable, however, is to strengthen the pedagogical leadership role of school principals ‒ an underutilised resource in the debate on the ECE schoolification. Indeed, principals are entitled to the authority to “exercise professional leadership that enables the construction of a shared vision within the educational community, and to organise and coordinate the pedagogical work of the school” (Chile – Ministerio de Educación, 2012). With these powers, principals can not only shield classrooms for 4-and 5-year-olds from SIMCE-driven preparation. They can also, supported by the current ECE curricular and institutional framework, actively promote the pedagogical principles of this educational level ‒ freeing play and those learning areas marginalised by the ECE schoolification, and thus, at least, mitigating the colonisation of ECE by primary education.
School principals in Chile have been recognised as critical actors for the strengthening and improvement of education; nevertheless, they still have enormous challenges to tackle within the school system (Weinstein & Muñoz, 2025), in accordance with international evidence related to other countries (Hallinger & Kovačević, 2019; Heikkinen et al., 2021; Leithwood et al., 2020). Therefore, strengthening leadership capacities specific to ECE ‒ especially in classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds housed in schools ‒ represents a politically viable and technically promising strategy to resist ECE schoolification, uphold the ECE pedagogical approach and ensure truly meaningful learning experiences for young children. For this reason, school leaders are today called upon to mobilise their leadership to emancipate classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds from the yoke of ECE schoolification.
Author Note
Marcela Pardo 
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5993-7373
María-José Opazo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5386-6612
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Marcela Pardo. Email: marcelapardo@ciae.uchile.cl
Acknowledgments
Both authors gratefully acknowledge funding from ANID CIAE CIA250005. Maria-Jose Opazo gratefully acknowledges funding from ANID Fondecyt Iniciación 11261120, and ANID Subvención a la Instalación en la Academia Convocatoria Año 2025 N° 85250104.
SDG Alignment
Goal 4: Quality education
Target 4.2: By 2030, ensure that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care and pre‑primary education so that they are ready for primary education
Cite This Chapter
Pardo, M., & Opazo, M.-J. (2026). The schoolification of classrooms for 4- and 5-year-olds in Chile as a consequence of deregulation: The countervailing role of school principals’ pedagogical leadership. In L. Naidoo, S. Gannon, C. Woodrow, C. H. Díaz, V. Lopez, & J. F. Salazar (Eds.), Sur-Sur Southern knowledges: Education, sustainability and social transformation. Western Open Books. https://doi.org/10.61588/HGMT4758
Attribution
Except where otherwise noted, this work by Marcela Parto and María-José Opazo is licensed under CC BY 4.0.
Research Integrity Statement
Ethics approval was not required for this publication as it does not report primary research involving human participants, identifiable human data, or animals.
The authors declare no known competing financial or non-financial interests that could have influenced the content of this publication.
References
Agencia de Calidad de la Educación [Chile]. (n.d.). Simce. Retrieved December 17, 2025, from https://www.agenciaeducacion.cl/simce/
Aravena, F. (2025). Jefes de unidad técnico pedagógica: Una pieza clave del liderazgo pedagógico en Chile [Heads of the technical-pedagogical unit: A key piece of pedagogical leadership in Chile]. In J. Weinstein & G. Muñoz (Eds.), ¿Qué sabemos del liderazgo educativo en Chile hoy? [What do we know about educational leadership in Chile today?] (pp. 171–184). Editorial Santillana.
Bañados, J., Cabello, A., Núñez, A., Cheyre, A., Jofré, A., Hurtado, M., & Vargas, Y. (2025). Estudio sobre los procesos de apropiación e implementación de referentes curriculares y herramientas de gestión institucional en el nivel de educación parvularia [Study on the processes of appropriation and implementation of curricular frameworks and institutional management tools in early childhood education] [Unpublished raw data].
Barblett, L., Knaus, M., & Barratt-Pugh, C. (2016). The pushes and pulls of pedagogy in the early years: Competing knowledges and the erosion of play-based learning. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 41(4), 36–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/183693911604100405
Bingham, S., & Whitebread, D. (2018). School readiness in Europe: Issues and evidence. In M. Fleer, B. van Oers, & C. Garcia (Eds.), International handbook of early childhood education (pp. 363–391). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-0927-7_15
Brown, C. P., Barry, D. P., & Ku, D. H. (2021). How education stakeholders made sense of school readiness in and beyond kindergarten. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 35(1), 122–142. https://doi.org/10.1080/02568543.2020.1717688
Campos, F., Valdés, R., & Ascorra, P. (2019). ¿Líder pedagógico o gerente de escuela? Evolución del rol del director de escuela en Chile [Instructional leader or school manager? The evolution of the principal’s role in Chile]. Calidad en la Educación, (51), 53–84. https://doi.org/10.31619/caledu.n51.685
Campos-Martínez, J., Pössel, F. C., & Inzunza, J. (2015). Mapping neoliberal reform in Chile: Following the development and legitimation of the Chilean system of school quality measurement (SIMCE). In W. Au & J. G. Ferrare (Eds.), Mapping corporate education reform: Power and policy networks in the neoliberal state (pp. 106–125). Routledge.
Claro, S., Ramírez, F., Escobar Jerez, E., & Rodríguez, P. (2024). Simce con los que faltan: Propuesta de reporte de puntajes Simce que incluya a la población sin información [Simce with those who are missing: Proposal for a Simce score report that includes the population without information] (Temas de la Agenda Pública, Año 19, No. 178). Centro de Políticas Públicas UC. https://politicaspublicas.uc.cl/web/content/uploads/2024/11/TemasAgenda178.pdf
Edwards, S., Grieshaber, S., Nuttall, J., & Wood, E. (2019). New play: A pedagogical movement for early childhood education. In D. Whitebread, V. Grau, K. Kumpulainen, M. McClelland, N. Perry, & D. Pino-Pasternak (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of developmental psychology and early childhood education (pp. 272–286). SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526470393
Falabella, A. (2013). Accountability policy effects within school markets: A study in three Chilean municipalities [Doctoral dissertation, University of London Institute of Education]. UCL Discovery. https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10020731/
Falabella, A., Barco, B., Fernández, L., Figueroa, D., & Poblete Núñez, X. (2022). Un liderazgo de doble filo: Directoras en establecimientos de educación inicial [A double-edged leadership: Directors in early education establishments]. Calidad en la Educación, (56), 255–291. https://doi.org/10.31619/caledu.n56.1189
Grau, V., Preiss, D., Strasser, K., Jadue Roa, D., López, V., & Whitebread, D. (2018). Rol del juego en la educación parvularia: Creencias y prácticas de educadoras del nivel de transición menor (Proyecto FONIDE FX11615) [The role of play in early childhood education: Beliefs and practices of educators in the lower transition level (FONIDE Project FX11615)]. https://centroestudios.mineduc.cl/wp-content/uploads/sites/100/2018/10/Informe-final-FONIDE-FX21615-Grau_apDU.pdf
Hallinger, P., & Kovačević, J. (2019). A bibliometric review of research on educational administration: Science mapping the literature, 1960 to 2018. Review of Educational Research, 89(3), 335–369. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654319830380
Heikkinen, H. L. T., Wilkinson, J., & Bristol, L. (2021). Three orientations for understanding educational autonomy: School principals’ voices from Australia, Finland, and Jamaica. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 53(3–4), 198–214. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2020.1849060
Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M., Nesbitt, K., Lautenbach, C., Blinkoff, E., & Fifer, G. (2022). Making schools work: Bringing the science of learning to joyful classroom practice. Teachers College Press.
Kumpulainen, K. (2018). A principled, personalised, trusting and child-centric ECEC system in Finland. In S. L. Kagan (Ed.), The early advantage 1: Early childhood systems that lead by example (pp. 72–78). Teachers College Press.
Leithwood, K., Harris, A., & Hopkins, D. (2020). Seven strong claims about successful school leadership revisited. School Leadership & Management, 40(1), 5–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2019.1596077
Meckes, L., & Mena, M. A. (2021). The validity and social legitimacy of the Chilean national assessment of learning outcomes (SIMCE): The role of evidence and deliberation. In J. Manzi, M. R. García, & S. Taut (Eds.), Validity of educational assessments in Chile and Latin America (pp. 145–170). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78390-7_7
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (1997, January 22). Decreto con fuerza de ley N° 1: Fija texto refundido, coordinado y sistematizado de la Ley N° 19.070 que aprobó el estatuto de los profesionales de la educación, y de las leyes que la complementan y modifican [Decree with the force of law No. 1: Establishes the consolidated, coordinated, and systematized text of Law No. 19,070, which approved the statute of education professionals, and of the laws that complement and amend it]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=60439
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (1998). Preschool education in the reform: A contribution to equity.
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (1998, November 28). Decreto con fuerza de ley N° 2: Fija texto refundido, coordinado y sistematizado del Decreto con Fuerza de Ley N° 2, de 1996, sobre subvención del Estado a establecimientos educacionales [DFL 2: Establishes the consolidated, coordinated, and systematized text of Decree with Force of Law No. 2 of 1996, regarding state subsidies for educational institutions]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=127911
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2001). Bases curriculares de la educación parvularia [Curricular foundations of early childhood education]. https://bibliotecadigital.mineduc.cl/bitstream/handle/20.500.12365/240/MONO-40.pdf?sequence=1
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2004, April 24). Decreto N° 63: Otorga subvención a escolares de primer nivel de transición de educación parvularia [Decree 63: Grants subsidy to students in the first transition level of early childhood education]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=224305
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2004). Resolución Exenta N° 11.636: Imparte criterios técnicos sobre articulación curricular entre los niveles de educación parvularia e enseñanza básica [Exempt Resolution 11,636: Provides technical criteria for curricular articulation between early childhood and primary education levels]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=231212
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2009). Ley N° 20.370: Establece la Ley General de Educación [Law 20,370: Establishes the General Education Law]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1006043
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2011). Ley N° 20.529: Sistema Nacional de Aseguramiento de la Calidad de la Educación Parvularia, Básica y Media y su fiscalización [Law 20,529: National system for quality assurance in early childhood, primary, and secondary education and its oversight]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1028635
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2012). Decreto N° 215: Modifica Decreto N° 453, de 1991, que aprueba reglamento de la Ley N° 19.070, estatuto de los profesionales de la educación [Decree 215: Amends Decree No. 453 of 1991, which approves the regulation of Law No. 19,070, the statute of education professionals]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1035866
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2015). Ley N° 20.835: Crea la Subsecretaría de Educación Parvularia, la Intendencia de Educación Parvularia y modifica diversos cuerpos legales [Law 20,835: Creates the Undersecretariat of Early Childhood Education, the Superintendency of Early Childhood Education, and amends various legal bodies]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1077041
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2017, April 25). Decreto N° 373: Establece principios y definiciones técnicas para la elaboración de una estrategia de transición educativa para los niveles de educación parvularia y primer año de educación básica [Decree 373: Establishes principles and technical definitions for the development of an educational transition strategy for early childhood and first grade of primary education]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1102225
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2018). Conversando a fondo con María José Castro, Subsecretaria de Educación Parvularia [In-depth conversation with María José Castro, undersecretary of early childhood education]. Revista de Educación, (384), 10–17. https://bibliotecadigital.mineduc.cl/bitstream/handle/20.500.12365/5060/reveduc%20384.pdf?isAllowed=y&sequence=1
Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. (2020, June 24). Decreto N° 68: Establece estándares indicativos de desempeño para establecimientos de educación parvularia y sus sostenedores [Decree 68: Establishes indicative performance standards for early childhood education institutions and their administrative providers]. Biblioteca del Congreso Nacional de Chile, LeyChile. https://www.bcn.cl/leychile/navegar?idNorma=1146960
Moss, P. (2012). The relationship between early childhood and compulsory education: A properly political question. In P. Moss (Ed.), Early childhood and compulsory education: Reconceptualising the relationship (pp. 2–50). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203080757
OECD. (2006). Starting strong II: Early childhood education and care. OECD Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264035461-en
Opazo, M.-J., Pardo, M., Rupin, P., & Galdames, S. (2025). School leaders’ perceptions, practices and aspirations about schoolification in ECEC. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood. https://doi.org/10.1177/14639491251387763
Pardo, M., Opazo, M. J., & Rupin, P. (2021). Escolarización de la educación parvularia en Chile: Consensos entre actores del campo sobre su definición, causas y proposiciones [Schoolification of early childhood education in Chile: Consensus among stakeholders in the field on its definition, causes, and proposals]. Calidad en la Educación, (54), 143–172. https://doi.org/10.31619/caledu.n54.953
Pardo, M., Opazo, M. J., Barraza, P., & Rupin, P. (in press). The dominance of language and mathematics in Chilean pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms: An empirical research on the narrow ECE curriculum. Journal of Research in Childhood Education.
Pence, A. (2016). Baby PISA: Dangers that can arise when foundations shift. Journal of Childhood Studies, 41(3), 54–58. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs.v41i3.16549
Peralta, M. V. (2006). Cien años de educación parvularia en el sistema público: El primer kindergarten fiscal 1906–2006 [One hundred years of early childhood education in the public system: The first public kindergarten, 1906–2006]. Universidad Central de Chile, Instituto Internacional de Educación Infantil (IIDEI). https://periodicos.ufms.br/index.php/intm/article/download/22312/15245/
Peralta, M. V. (Ed.). (2010). El saber y hacer pedagógico del centenario en educación parvularia: Un análisis desde el bicentenario. Universidad Central de Chile, Facultad de Ciencias de la Educación. https://books.google.com.au/books/about/El_saber_y_hacer_pedag%C3%B3gico_del_Centena.html?id=jh4wzwEACAAJ&redir_esc=y
Peralta, M. V. (2015). Ciento cincuenta años de los inicios de la educación parvularia pública en Chile [One hundred and fifty years since the beginnings of public early childhood education in Chile]. Revista Enfoques Educacionales, 12(1), 127–156.
Poblete, X., & Falabella, A. (2020). Educación parvularia: Entre la pedagogía del juego, el asistencialismo y la escolarización [Early childhood education: Between the pedagogy of play, welfare assistance, and schooling]. In J. E. García-Huidobro & A. Falabella (Eds.), A 100 años de la ley de instrucción primaria obligatoria: La educación chilena en el pasado, presente y futuro (pp. 26–41). Universidad Alberto Hurtado.
Ring, E., O’Sullivan, L., & Wall, E. (2020). Resisting the “schoolification epidemic” in early childhood education: The three propellers for re-conceptualising initial early childhood teacher education. In I. Jones & M. Lin (Eds.), Critical issues in early childhood teacher education: Volume 2—International perspectives (pp. 1–22). Information Age Publishing.
Sarlé, P. (2024). Enseñar en clave de juego: Enlazando juegos y contenidos [Teaching through the lens of play: Connecting games and content]. Novedades Educativas.
Subsecretaría de Educación Parvularia [Chile]. (2018). Bases curriculares de educación parvularia [Curricular foundations of early childhood education]. Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. https://parvularia.mineduc.cl/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Bases-curriculares_Educ-Parv_IMPRENTA-v3-1.pdf
Subsecretaría de Educación Parvularia [Chile]. (2021, December). Marco para la buena dirección y liderazgo de educación parvularia [Framework for effective leadership and management in early childhood education]. Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. https://bibliotecadigital.mineduc.cl/handle/20.500.12365/18606
Subsecretaría de Educación Parvularia [Chile]. (2024). Informe de caracterización de la educación parvularia 2023 [2023 report on the characterization of early childhood education]. https://parvularia.mineduc.cl/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/informe-de-caracterizacion-2023.pdf
Subsecretaría de Educación Parvularia [Chile]. (2025). Informe de caracterización de la educación parvularia 2024 [2024 report on the characterization of early childhood education]. https://parvularia.mineduc.cl/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Informe-de-Caracterizacion-Educacion-Parvularia-2024.pdf
Unidad de Currículum y Evaluación [Chile]. (2020). Estándares indicativos de desempeño para los establecimientos que imparten educación parvularia y sus sostenedores [Indicative performance standards for institutions that offer early childhood education and their administrative providers]. Ministerio de Educación [Chile]. https://did.agenciaeducacion.cl/documentos/Est%C3%A1ndares-Indicativos-EID-EP.pdf
Urban, M., Guevara, J., & Moss, P. (2022). ¿PISA desde la cuna? El estudio internacional de aprendizaje temprano e implicancias para América Latina [PISA from the cradle? The international early learning study and its implications for Latin America]. Educação e Pesquisa, 48, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1590/S1678-4634202248248362esp
Van Laere, K. (2017). Conceptualisations of care and education in early childhood education and care [Doctoral dissertation, Ghent University]. CORE. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/141880572.pdf
Weinstein, J., & Muñoz, G. (Eds.). (2025). ¿Qué sabemos del liderazgo educativo en Chile hoy? [What do we know about educational leadership in Chile today?]. Editorial Santillana.
Whitebread, D., Basilio, M., Kuvalja, M., & Verma, M. (2012). The importance of play: A report on the value of children’s play with a series of policy recommendations. Toy Industries of Europe. https://www.csap.cam.ac.uk/media/uploads/files/1/david-whitebread—importance-of-play-report.pdf