Ideological Background of the Concept of Educational Development During the First 6 Years of the Government of Hugo Chávez

Abstract

It is intended to comprehend the perspective of educational development at Venezuelan high schools from two official documents belonging to Chavez’s initial government. For that period, information from the government’s ideological views and the principles of the UN and the UNESCO was reviewed. From a theoretical point of view, we followed the notions of ideology and discourse of Fairclough (2003) and van Dijk (2005), based on the belief that education generates empowering relationships (Althusser, 1988) and that any ideological system possesses a learning model to achieve its purpose (Costa and Mozejko, 2001). This is a qualitative research addressing a social matter founded on linguistic evidences (nominal groups: collocations and modifiers). The results showed a strong relationship between the educational model conveyed by these documents and the ideological views that inspire the government. However, none of those documents express explicit relations between the UN and the UNESCO’s goals. The main conclusion is that education is conceived as a tool for political indoctrination instead of a process for social and personal development.