Meanings attributed to school coexistence by management teams, teachers, and other professionals of chilean schools

School coexistence (SC) has been part of recent international educational policies. However, the construct of SC is polysemic and the policies have been designed upon the basis of different logical perspectives. The aim of this study was to understand the meanings that schools ascribe to the construct of SC, based on the assumption that their views will guide their actions and make intelligible their SC interventions. A qualitative methodology was employed. Active group and individual interviews were conducted with management teams, teachers, and other school professionals from 6 purposively selected municipal schools with high SC scores and good academic achievement as assessed by the national SIMCE test. Results reveal that 4 meanings are ascribed to SC: medical, accountability, socio-affective, and disciplinary, which are grouped into 2 approaches. One is standardizing, individualizing, and results-oriented, while the other is focused on differences, community-driven, and process-oriented. The discussion section refers to the need to advance towards understandings that integrate the meanings identified, in order to increase consistency and propose meanings associated with participation, democratization, and curricular integration.