Hygiene, degeneration, and security in the Chilean school in the transition to the twentieth century

This article argues that, during Chile’s transition into the twentieth century, schools became central to managing hygiene, racial degeneration, and moral conduct. As key sites of public health and social regulation, schools implemented security mechanisms concerned with disease prevention, bodily discipline, student and family behaviour, and moral formation. Drawing on Michel Foucault’s concept of governmentality, the article analyses how security operated through two interconnected axes: the production of truth and normative regulation. It situates Chile’s “hygienic revolution” within broader transformations occurring in England, France, and Spain, where public health became a central concern of statecraft. The article contributes to sociological debates on education and governmentality by examining an underexplored relationship between schooling and security from a Global South perspective. This connection forged more than a century ago remains operative, in mutated form, in present concerns with student wellbeing, mental health and school safety, opening an agenda for further sociological inquiry.