Expectations of community leaders and municipal governments’ professionals regarding their relationship with the university. The case of the “lagging zones” of La Araucanía, Chile.

Abstract: This presentation aims at exploring the community’s expectations regarding the role of the university. The research is part of the project “Platform of Networks for Governance and Public Policy in La Araucanía”, developed at Universidad de La Frontera, Chile. The project is focused on strengthening the university’s relationship with two specific areas of the region which have been catalogued in national policies as “lagging zones” due to their low levels of social and economic development.
The study was embraced from an interpretative approach and based on a qualitative methodology. Data comprises 70 questionnaires applied to community leaders from the lagging zones and 70 questionnaires applied to municipal governments’ professionals, plus 9 in-depth interviews with managers from each of the 9 municipal governments included in the study.
Results show that the “mental model” of communities in the lagging zones frame the university only as a teaching institution. Participants expect training courses, the provision of interns to work in local services, and support for local children to enter the university and break the circle of poverty. The idea of a research university, able to provide solutions to local challenges, was mentioned in scarce occasions and mostly from the perspective of senior municipality managers. In order to expand this mental model, we propose that attention must be paid to building and maintaining an “interface” of relations between university and community. This is the space where a process of “demand building” can be generated in order to co-construct horizons of possibility.

Narrative: The present research aims to explore the expectations of community groups and municipal governments’ professionals regarding a relationship with the university.

The study is part of a project developed at Universidad de La Frontera, Chile, called “Platform of Networks for Governance and Public Policy in La Araucanía”, focused on strengthening the university’s relationship with two specific areas of the region: Nahuelbuta and Costa Araucanía. These zones were catalogued in national policies as “zonas de rezago” [1] (lagging zones) due to their low levels of social development. They include 9 municipalities with a total of 141.000 inhabitants who live mainly in rural areas and 46,5% identify themselves as Indigenous People [2].

The research problem emerges in a context where the novel National Accreditation criteria, Higher Education Law and Public Universities’ law state that Chilean universities must engage in reciprocal relations with the public, with a primary duty to contribute to their territories. In this context, we aim at exploring the community’s expectations regarding the role of the university and the possibilities of working together. The primary research question is: What does the community of the lagging zones expect from a relationship with the university?

We frame this study from the perspective of network governance, understanding the university as part of a network of agents that collaborate around common goals (Elgueta Rosas & Espinoza Espinoza, 2015). In order to facilitate and strengthen this collaboration, we pose that the issue of expectations is particularly relevant, especially in a territory with pressing and urgent needs, and we apply the concepts of mental models (Mantzavinos et al., 2015), interface (Long, 2007) and demand building (Galli et al., 2020) to analyse the data and build our discussion.

A mental model can be defined as a prediction or expectation about an environment, which can be individual or collective. Learning implies a modification of this mental model that occurs when individuals or groups receive feedback from the environment when trying to solve problems (Mantzavinos et al., 2015). The theory of social interfaces refers to spaces of encounter between different social remains, and highlights the importance of exploring how discrepancies regarding social interest, cultural interpretations, knowledge and power are mediated and perpetuated or transformed in critical points of linkage or confrontation (Long, 2007). Finally, demand building refers to a process of adjustment of expectations: when we enter a territory, we will find limitations in the imaginary horizons of what is possible, and we need to co-construct new horizons of possibility with our counterparts (Barrero et al., 2015). A process of demand building implies an adjustment of expectations, with a collective construction of problems and goals, that goes beyond the original social demand and the problem defined by the university (Galli et al., 2020).

The present study was embraced from an interpretative approach and based on a qualitative methodology. It comprises a preliminary phase that included 23 in depth interviews with university academics and managers and 60 interviews with community leaders from the lagging zones. Some of the results found in this process were 1) Municipal governments are a key point of contact for the university when trying to engage with local communities. 2) Community leaders scarcely consider the university as part of the networks that work in their territories. This contributed to formulating the research question that guided present study, related to the community expectations about their relationship with the university. Data comprises 70 questionnaires applied to community leaders from the lagging zones and 70 questionnaires applied to municipal governments’ professionals, plus 9 in-depth interviews with managers from each of the 9 municipal governments included in the study.

Results show that the expectations of community leaders and municipal governments’ professionals are centred in the teaching mission of the university. In the case of community leaders, in most cases they mention the provision of training courses as their only expectation of a relationship with the institution, which is also the only type of experience they have had with it. In the case of municipal governments’ workers, most participants expect training courses, the provision of interns to work in local services, and support for local children to enter the university and break with the circle of poverty. The idea of a research university, able to provide solutions to local challenges, is mentioned on scarce occasions and mostly by senior municipality managers.

These results present a challenge for University of La Frontera, which, as the rest of Chilean higher education institutions, is embarked on a process of institutionalization of public engagement as a two-way function, which should favour collaboration, mutual learning and research impact. Our data shows that the mental model of communities in the lagging zones frames the university only as a teaching institution, which has to do with their own experiences with it, linked to training courses and professional education. Therefore, the expectations they have about a relationship with it are limited to teaching experiences. In order to expand this mental model, we propose that attention must be paid to building and maintaining an interface of relations between university and community. If we aim at developing research that contributes to local development and co-create solutions for local problems, we first need to broaden our understanding and expectations of what the university can do. The interface is the space where the process of demand building can be generated, where we can co-construct horizons of possibility. We propose the challenge of building and maintaining interfaces where demand building can be promoted, as an approach that would both contribute to building collective projects and expanding mental models regarding the role of the university in the territory.

*This research was conducted following the Ethical Guidelines of Universidad de La Frontera. Participants received an information sheet, and interview participants signed a consent form. All participants were anonymized and data has been safeguarded.

[1] Classification done by the Chilean Under-Secretariat of Regional and Administrative Development, according to the Decree Law N°975 that states a National Policy of Lagging Zones.
[2] Data from Chilean Census 2017.