Governing through the community: state transversality, neoliberal governmentality, and struggles for schooling of social movements

This article investigates how Public Schools of Social Management (PSSM) in Chaco, Argentina, constitute hybrid socio-state arrangements that intertwine state and community practices. Grounded in governmentality studies, we advance a decentered approach to educational policy that moves beyond state-centric frameworks. Drawing on documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews (n = 8; 2020–2021), we examine how PSSM articulate state subsidiarity with community co-responsibility. Findings show that PSSM configure alternative modes of educational governance that move beyond traditional state – private binaries. The study contributes Global South evidence to international debates on co-managed educational governance and governmentality, clarifying how hybrid arrangements emerge amid inequality and their implications for policy design and school organization.