Based on theoretical reflections and empirical research, this paper analyzes one of the main drives of the educational reform that took place in the 1990s in Latin America: the consolidation of a new organization and administration of the educational system and of school, which defines almost mecantile forms of power delegation. This new regulation model supposes a radical change in the 'civil society' and 'citizenship' categories and is carried out through a three dimension decentralization process: decentralization among different governments agencies (municipalization), decentralization toward schools (school autonomy) and decentralization toward the market (social responsibility). It tries to analyze the conception of the educational reform in the framework of a new arrangement of the international relationships, and of a reconfiguration from the model of a regulating Welfare State to the that of a strong, minimalist State and mainly as the expression of the logics of the binomials globalization/communitarism and centralism/localism.
Educational Reform; Citizenship; Civil society; Latin America; Educational administration