Representaciones Sociales, Inteligencia y Conflicto de la Educación en Chile

The purpose of this qualitative study was to establish the central core and the peripheral system of the social representation of intelligence in the context of the Chilean student movement which emerged as a critique of the educational system. Using non-probabilistic judgment sampling, 3 focus groups made up by high school students were formed: 2 composed of mobilized students (11 and 12 students) and one comprising 15 students without participation in the demonstrations. Through a constructivist approach, content analysis was performed, defining shared and non-shared thematic areas. According to the results, the central core in students consists of the following shared thematic areas: multiple intelligence, innate intelligence and its development, social and emotional intelligence, and differences in opportunities for the development of intelligence. In the peripheral system divergences are present in 3 thematic areas: the ideology of "meritocracy", holistic intelligence, and the hegemonic ideology of intelligence. These results are discussed in terms of a structural approach to social representations of intelligence.