Meanings on solidarity practices in upper class schools of CABA and Argentine Patagonia

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of "solidarity" school practices in research on youth socialization in upper-class British private schools: one located in the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires /CABA) and another in an important city in Argentine Patagonia. From fieldwork, participant observation and interviews, the senses that the institutional coordinators give to these practices in the training of students from privileged sectors are described, showing a contrast between the categories of "solidarity" and "charity", with different orientations: while the CABA school promotes in its students the transformation of social class privilege into merit, contributing to meritocracy discourse; the school of Patagonia promotes learning based on cultural diversity related to a liberal progressive ethos, which doesn’t question the growing social inequality.