Abstract

We explore the relationships the Chilean national elementary and secondary education curriculum maintains with international tests and systems of curricular organization by competencies. We reconstruct this relationship by analyzing three key moments of curriculum policies in the post-dictatorship: Curriculum Framework (1996-1998), Progress Maps and Standards (2000-2010), and Curriculum Bases (2011-2020). We resort to intertextuality from Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate the codifications and translations local actors make of the global political field in the prescribed and sustained curriculum. Curriculum policies in this period illustrate a hybrid curriculum architecture, in which a strong tradition of school disciplines coexists with a growing and institutionalized architecture of competencies oriented to the construction of civically cosmopolitan subjects and global workers. We argue that the international testing regime and competency systems for the 21st century have profound normative implications for curriculum deliberation and experiential and value-based pedagogical practice. © 2025 Curriculo sem Fronteiras. All rights reserved.