The Unstable Acceptance of Homosexuality. The Case of Elitist Catholic Schools in Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Within elitist catholic schools, homosexuality is treated as the result of conciliation between contemporary norms guaranteeing an individual’s coherent sexuality, and ecclesiastic rules defining a school’s educational program. Supposedly, catholic schools would be hostile towards non-dominant sexualities; however, different factors contribute to the emergence of an “accepting” treatment of homosexuality. That “acceptance”, nevertheless, is based on limited reflexivity regarding the process of sexual individuation. As a result, there is partial recognition of the homosexual person, and it is important to expose the hidden social traps that prevent a complete recognition from taking place. In a way, what we observe in catholic schools is also part of a much larger social process. The advance of political forms of acceptance towards homosexuality sometimes coexists with a much subtler structure of homophobia, whose eradication requires going beyond the apparent acceptance of the “other” that presently dominates this social space.