This paper examines how compulsory high school, legally established by the current education law in Argentina, questions the historical pattern of normal schooling crossed by expulsive selection criteria. It thus begins by retracing how high school emerged and which characteristics made it a standard reference. It then explores what policies and institutional strategies were deployed at the macro and micro levels in order to introduce more inclusive or exclusive criteria, or a paradoxical combination of both. This approach highlights the constitutive oscillations between high school, when preparing for university or an immediate insertion into the labor market. This dilemma raises a question: why include? In other words, should we include maintaining this dichotomy or try to think a school model that prepares for both functions, respecting the diversity of teachers, students and their families who multiply the meanings of school.
High school; Compulsory school; Inclusion; Scholar meanings