Introduction:

In recent decades, school coexistence has become relevant for educational research and legislation in Latin America. However, in Chile and other countries, educational and promotional approaches coexist with other narrow ones of a punitive type, which individualize, prosecute, and exclude school conflicts.

Goal:

The objective of this study was to understand the meaning and use of punitive practices in Chilean schools.

Methodology:

Through a qualitative study with an emphasis on participatory methodologies, four analysis tables were held with representatives from the microlevel (students, parents), mesolevel (teaching and non-teaching professionals), and macrolevel (executers of Chilean educational policy at the regional level); they were analyzed using the content analysis technique.

Results:

The findings show that punitive practices are justified as a means to cushion the effects of an educational policy that pushes for better school results, insofar as their regulated use would allow schools to exclude those students not achieving good results from the classroom. In addition, understandings of the punitive practices associated with an authoritarian school culture that has a dictatorial past as a legacy are built, where the figure of the teacher stands as a severe but loving pedagogical authority. Conclusion. Punitive practices are understood within a gradual process, where the sanction begins when the training action had no effect. The implications of these meanings for educational action are discussed, problematizing the meaning of pedagogical authority in a culture that positively values punitive action.