Educating for Prosperity: A Historical Analysis of Education as the Panacea for Poverty

• In Event: Race, Gender, and Power in Reimagining the History of American Curriculum

Abstract

Education as a medium to alleviate poverty and to achieve development has become one of the main drives behind educational policy and practice. The perspective of education as the panacea for poverty has permeated the way we think about education and engage multiple outlooks and possibilities for it. The strength of the narratives that sustain this perspective and their public acceptance have made it a taken-for-granted construct that should be challenged. Challenging it is important because accepted paradigms often serve tradition over the public good, and also because so we can develop a deeper understanding of educational paradigms’ genesis. I explore this idea as conceived by the two banks and a specific nation, through a textual historical analysis.

Author

• Elizabeth Ocampo Gomez, Universidad Veracruzana