This paper analyses the participation of the entrepreneurs in public basic education in Brazil and Argentina afer the reforms of the 1990s. It discusses the results of a survey conducted in both countries, whose empirical field was business organizations that provide in public education. It draws on the conceptual frameworks of contemporary authors of the areas of education and social sciences who tackle the reform of the State and the strategies and actions used by public authorities to involve the multiple social actors into the management of the education policies. Our results confirm that, although they are not new actors, entrepreneurs present themselves diff erently in education due to the way their sphere of action has been re-defined and readapted in the process of the recent reforms, in which the State pluralizes its ways of governing, while continuing to act as the central actor
State; Education politics; Entrepreneurs; Brazil; Argentina