Keywords: juridification, school principals, professionalism. Abstract: Juridification in education is a field of study that analyzes the impact of the law on different areas of social policies and services (Rosén, Arneback & Bergh 2021). For instance, in educational systems, the popularization of legal discourse to regulate issues that had traditionally been negotiated and resolved in a non-judicial way has negatively impacted the ability of educators to make decisions based on their professional discretion (Murphy 2022). In Chile, the creation of the Superintendence of Education a decade ago has contributed to juridification of the school system. This institution is part of the National Quality Assurance System (SAC), whose main function is to enforce compliance with regulations in schools that have official state recognition, whether of public, subsidized, or private administration (Law 20,529). Superintendence provides parents and tutors with a formal procedure to present complaints about situations that occur within schools. Most of these complaints are related to issues of school violence (e.g., harassment, physical or psychological abuse, aggressions through social networks, discrimination), but there are also others that point towards issues such as financial resources management, technical-pedagogical decisions, and health and safety protocols. This paper analyzes the incidence that the Superintendence of Education has had in the work of school principals, especially in relation to their management of the educational service, through an instrumental case study (Yazan 2015) with 8 principals working in schools with different administrations. Results suggest that there is an increasing feeling of stress and overwhelm due to the complexity of procedures to respond to complaints. Parents and tutors wield a new power that weakens the ability to reach agreements with representatives of the school without escalating the problem and issuing a complaint with the Superintendence. Most management processes become over-bureaucratized, which diverts principals’ focus from pedagogical issues. Based on these findings, we analyze the negative implications of juridification for the exercise of the professional discretion of Chilean principals, by incorporating highly bureaucratized processes into their management practices. More broadly, we discuss the intensification of negative effects for school leaders’ professionalism that quality assurance and accountability policies have had in Chile and could have in other systems with similar governance arrangements.

Murphy, Mark. (2022). Taking Education to Account? The Limits of Law in Institutional and Professional Practice. Journal of Education Policy 37(1), 1–16. Rosén, Maria, Emma Arneback, & Bergh. Andreas (2021). A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Juridification of and in Education. Journal of Education Policy 36(6), 822–842. Yazan, Bedrettin (2015). The Qualitative Report Three Approaches to Case Study Methods in Education: Yin, Merriam, and Stake. The Qualitative Report 20(2), 134–152.