“The Media Battle” of Parents in Action and the Conservative Discourse in the Peruvian Political Scene

Abstract

This article analyses aspects of the process of rhetorical constitution of an emerging political actor: the “conservative parent”, in Peru, in recent times, as well as the social and communicative practices that have allowed him to become an influential political representation in the right wing in the public contest. Starting from an initial state of the literature on conservative and mobilised parents, particularly active in schools and on issues of sexual and gender education, the study explores – with a comparative perspective – the strategically organized emergence of citizen groups with parental political identity, in different spaces of local conflict, as well as similar discourses with movements in different parts of the world. The research then focuses on a Peruvian case study: the group Parents in Action (“Padres en Acción”), which, with a legal appeal presented to the courts (a “popular action”), and the deployment of a <<media battle>> to support its position, questioned the application of the national curriculum with gender approach in Peruvian school education. The study uses a thematic-reflexive analysis of Parents in Action’s statements in the press to understand their argument focused on the defense of their parental rights, their vocation for mobilisation, and their call to constitute themselves as political actors.