Perspectives on irregular childhood in Chile: policies and institutions during the Popular Unity and the civil-military dictatorship

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the representations and policies regarding irregular childhood developed during the Popular Unity government and the civic-military dictatorship in Chile, through a review of newspapers, magazines, and archives from that period. Specifically, we are interested in understanding how the perception of irregular childhood was shaped, what policies were implemented in each context, and which institutions assumed that role; at the same time, we examine the discourses present in the press of the time.

It argues that the coup d’état represented a significant disruption in all spheres of life, including that of working-class children, because it produced a shift from a perspective focused on the comprehensive development of children “in the economic, social, educational, and cultural spheres” to a perspective that criminalized poor children and their families, especially “undocumented” children. During the dictatorship, child policies focused on social control and the promotion of private aid institutions, in line with the concept of a subsidiary state defended by the military and their collaborators.

For this article, we worked with newspapers such as La Nación, La Tercera, and El Mercurio; Amiga magazine, the National Secretariat for Women, Children, and the Homeland; the Child and Homeland Foundation of the Chilean Carabineros; as well as presidential speeches and official documents from the period.