The paper presents the results from a two-phase study about the diversification of secondary education and the segmentation of education in Latin America. The focus of the study, carried out with the support of ECLAC during 2019 and 2021, were the dynamics of education’s segmentation in extended compulsory schooling settings. By analyzing the expansion of secondary education, this paper outlines historic and contemporary mechanisms that the State has used to extend compulsory schooling, albeit in ways that are segmented and which produce differential effects in terms of the schooling experience of adolescents and young people in the region. In its first phase, the study integrated an analysis of quantitative indicators in thirteen of the region’s countries with an analysis of the structures and institutional models of secondary school in six countries: Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico and Uruguay. The second phase examined the schooling experience of adolescents and young people in diversified structures. General and focus group interviews were conducted among a purposive sample of adolescents and young people regarding their access, trajectory and eventual (temporary or permanent) dropout. Overall, the study’s methodology combined a quantitative analysis of the main educational indicators of secondary education’s evolution in the region with a qualitative analysis of interviews to public officials and researchers (four per country) and to students (a purposive sample of 452 adolescents; 70-100 per country). By comparing the information, a matrix was developed to represent the forms of diversification of secondary education and its relation to educational segmentation. Classical categories were used for the analysis, such as educational segmentation (Ringer, 1979) to characterize the dual dynamic of inclusion and progressiveness (Author, 2017) in combination with more recent developments that allow for the analysis of the segmentation dynamics in the context of the extension of mandatory schooling. These developments include the notions of diversification and differentiation (Ojalehto et al., 2017). The main results indicate a particular form of compulsory secondary education expansion in the region under an extension-diversification pairing. This form of expansion creates at least three tensions: 1) between the laws and regulations intended to guarantee this extension and the actual outcomes for the educational trajectories, 2) between recent government efforts to sustain this extension and the persistence and/or creation of new educational segmentation mechanisms, and 3) between the perceived value of secondary education certification in social life and the relevance of the educational experience.

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