José Martí's Latinidad: Justice, Culture, and Curriculum

• In Event: 26.020 - (Re)reading Curriculum History and Theorizing Hopeful Spaces Yet to Be Designed

Abstract

The enigmatic José Martí has a dual place in Cuban politics as he is a hero to Castro revolutionaries as well as to oppositional groups in Latin American and the U.S. Although he authored numerous texts on education, he is better known today as a political activist and poet than as an educational theorist. With this paper we seek to revive his ideas for today’s scholarly conversations and to bridge some gaps between educational theorizing in North America and Latin America. In considering Marti’s Latinidad, we draw attention to his positions on four social-justice issues associated with curriculum and culture and relate them to current thought. These include race and mestizaje; interculturalism and transculturation; and the global-local dialectic in education.

Authors

• Nancy J. Nelson, University of North Texas

• Estanislado S. Barrera, Louisiana State University