Senses about the obligatory use of the white smocks in schools of Catamarca

Abstract

This paper addresses a public debate through a social network around the government decision to establish the mandatory use of the smocks in public and private primary schools in Catamarca (Argentina). In the Argentine school tradition, the white smock is the public schools outfit, while the colored smock or uniform identifies private education. This governmental decision revived deep social conflicts around the right to choose families have and the role of state policies to regulate the processes of social differentiation. From a qualitative methodological perspective, content analysis was performed on a corpus of analysis consisting of discourses published on the social network Facebook in the months after the enactment of the law. The discursive formations around the fundamentals of their use and the socio-educational senses connoted in the discourse of the social actors is analyzed. The interventions of the users in favor or against the mandatory nature of the uniform show differential processes of assignment of meanings based on forms of discrimination, labeling and stereotypes on other social groups.