Abstract

The article explores the role of ideas and discourses that allowed the agenda -setting and enactment of the Inclusion Law in Chile in the year 2015, which can be conceived as a countercultural change in one of the most marketized educational systems worldwide. Based on the framework of discursive institutionalism, the investigation analyses sixteen interviews with key actors (ministers, academics, legislators, advisers) involved in the enactment of such policy, and the analysis of parliamentary acts and other official documents. The findings show that the debate of ideas that allowed the approval of the law included the mobilization of ideas such as the right to education and the end of the educational market, the generation of discursive strategies of persuasion about technical elements of the program and the generation of consensus on its implementation times, highlighting the importance of the processes of construction of common meanings in the implementation of complex educational laws.