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‪This text, written by British sociologist Basil Bernstein, was taken from a lecture given at a seminar held in Santiago de Chile in 1986. The seminar aimed to help prepare for the “democratic transition” that would enable the country to end the period of military dictatorship that had been in place since the coup d’état of September 11, 1973, and which would last until the 1988 referendum. Basil Bernstein and several other intellectuals (including Jacques Rancière, Charles Taylor, and Roger Frydman) were invited to this seminar to help the Chilean researchers at the meeting reflect on the possibilities of democracy. Bernstein often said he was concerned with the question of change and the possible, which sociological work should allow to explore. The exercise requested of Bernstein, facing other researchers who were not afraid of exploring normative theories, would allow him to investigate this question in two different ways: by drawing, albeit very succinctly yet for the first time, the so-called “pedagogic rights” model, clarifying the possible contribution of education to democracy, and in a way, the contribution of sociology to this question; and by pursuing the Durkheimian reflection on the relative autonomy of the educational institution concerning the socio-economic world, socialisation and individuation.‪