Abstract

We propose to study a set of biographical narratives about neighborhoods and schools’ selection in Santiago of Chile. Our argument holds that these family decisions have the capacity to transform institutional logics which are fundamental in the experience of urban integration/exclusion. In the analysis of 25 in-depth interviews, we identify three interpretative keys to explain these decisions: biographical disengagement, social retraction and polarization of representations, which together point at the search for social integration as the main absence in urban institutions. Finally, we discuss the limitations of a socio-territorial policy where integration is a secondary effect and not a declared action or policy outcome.