Functional Differentiation and University Expansion in Chile

Over the last few decades, education has acquired a fairly robust social identity worldwide and participation in higher education has also become increasingly common. Building upon Luhmann’s theory of society, we analyze in this paper the expansion of higher education in Chile, specifically looking at the transformations of this system and the interactions between this system and its social environment. We include statistics to clarify the extent of the changes and the costs of increasing inclusion. We also focus on historical changes in the ways the expansion (or contraction) of higher education in Chile is legitimized. Altogether, our analysis show not just how the Chilean system of higher education adapts to its social environment, but also how both individuals and other function systems currently adapt to this system and how it is organized. We end with a brief reflection on the ways in which education may or may not constitute an important social difference and a discussion of the relevance of our findings for analyses of the evolution of other countries’ education systems.