Highlighted Session: The State and education in Latin America: Foundations, fault-lines, and alternatives (Panel 2)

Group Submission Type: Highlighted Paper Session

Proposal

A series of three panels is being proposed to look at issues related to the State and education in Latin America. These panels depart from the position that research on education reform in Latin America does not go far enough when it comes to considering the origins and limitations that are at the heart of the State itself. In recent decades, numerous studies have emerged that examine the impact of globalization and the role of international organizations in education reform processes. However, it seems to us that, within this area of research, insufficient attention is given not only to the nature of the State itself and to the ways that the characteristics of the State mediate or accelerate the influence of globalization and global education reforms, but also to the ways that the State is being contested, circumvented, or avoided from below. From our perspective, by insufficiently addressing these issues, extant research is necessarily limited in what it is able to reveal. Studies remain at a descriptive level, focusing on, for example, the process of making education policy, or the process of implementation, while being able to explain neither why education reform in the region looks the way it does nor what its limits are.

To be clear, when we speak of the nature of the State, we have in mind those material forces and onto-epistemological perspectives that have been engrained throughout the region since—and, in many cases, prior to—the foundation of modern State structures. This over-arching concern leads to questions such as those below, which are at the heart of the presentations contained in these panels:

1. How has the history and nature of colonialism, capitalism, racism, and patriarchy shaped the States of Latin America, and how have these considerations combined with contemporary forces of globalization to affect the kind of education reform that is pursued and the extent to which (or the ways in which) education reform is implemented?

2. In what ways has the spread of Christianity affected—and how does it continue to affect—the religious preferences that are embedded within States and the religious values that are contained in the curriculum?

3. How do the ideals of modern, liberal States—founded as they are on the principles of the American and French revolutions, i.e., liberty, equality, fraternity—serve as conceptual horizons that prevent the pursuit of other kinds of ideals, including through education?

4. What have been the consequences of Western (positivist) rationality—i.e., the individualized, disconnected, analytic self—for the ways that students are taught to be in the world? And how has this form of rationality combined with, and, indeed, been built upon, various forms of discrimination (advanced by States themselves) that are intertwined with colonialism (e.g., racism, anti-indigenous policies)? What other non-Western/Indigenous ways of being and knowing are marginalized (if they are recognized at all) by States that take the individual self as the basis for all relationships, whether they be economic, social, or other kinds of relationships, such as with nature?

5. In what ways have the ‘modernization’ imperatives to which countries in the region have been subject to at different times combined with, consolidated, advanced, and/or transformed the historical foundations of States in the region—and with what implications for education?

6. In what ways do global education reforms reinforce the tendencies addressed above and how do Latin American States respond?

By addressing these questions these panels seek to engage with the foundations and fault-lines of Latin American States and their implications for contemporary education reforms. To summarize from the above questions, the range of (overlapping) issues of interest that connect with the nature of Latin American States include: colonial foundations, capitalist development, racism, patriarchy, Christianity, Western rationality, liberal social and economic ideals, the development of modern bureaucracies and associated planning practices, and, lastly, the over-arching system of global governance that has grown out of the international State system. We intentionally refer to these issues as both foundations and fault-lines because they are not only layers of the modern State system but also dimensions along which there are cracks and tensions; that is, these are issues around which there is (and has always been) contestation and resistance. This point leads to the second focus of these panels.

Beyond offering a critical engagement with the above-mentioned issues, these panels seek to bring together studies that shed light on the potential for/of alternatives. Put differently, the panels also feature presentations that examine how the State is being resisted, transformed, and/or avoided by such actors as communities, social movements, indigenous groups, civil society organizations, international networks, and individuals within the government. The included presentations are explicitly framed in terms of how they respond to the kinds of State limitations mentioned in the questions above. For example, they investigate, among other things, (a) resistance to State-led initiatives (e.g., social movements, Indigenous/decolonial education), (b) efforts to transform the State (e.g., teacher union activism, anti-capitalist education, education for degrowth/environmental sustainability, socialist regimes), and (c) initiatives to avoid the State (e.g., autonomous communities, cooperatives, and regions and their educational strategies; international networks of solidarity to support local development). As can be seen, these examples are attentive to how different groups, movements, and initiatives have responded—and are responding—to the nature of the State (and its inherent limitations) in order to pursue development and education projects that serve their needs.

Although many dimensions and layers of the State have been highlighted above, we note here that the presentations are not guided by a single theory of the State. The lack of a definition is intentional, in order to create space for, and to accommodate, different approaches to research related to the State.

Each panel will have 4-5 presentations (12-15 mins each), followed by 30 minutes of discussion. Two of the panels are planned face-to-face while one will be virtual. Three organizers have worked together to prepare these panels; on each panel, one of the organizers will serve as a discussant.

Sub Unit

• Latin America SIG

Chair

• Mauro C Moschetti, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Individual Presentations

• Constraining or enabling the State? Regionalism as the mediator between the state and the global in Latin America? - Victoria Desimoni, Loyola University - Chicago; Tavis D Jules, Loyola University Chicago

• Network governance and new philanthropy in Latin America and the Caribbean: Reconfiguration of the State - D. Brent Edwards, University of Hawaii; Alejandro Caravaca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Mauro C Moschetti, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

• Neoliberal transformations of the State, new philanthropy and policy mobilities in federal education systems—the cases of Argentina and Brazil - Ivan Matovich, Monash University; Tomas Esper, Columbia University Teachers College

• States of convivencia: Policies for learning to get along in/through education in El Salvador - Pauline M. Martin, Universidad Centroamericana Jose Simeon Cañas

• Globalization, privatization, and the State: Education reform in post-colonial contexts—the case of Honduras - D. Brent Edwards, University of Hawaii; Mauro C Moschetti, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Alejandro Caravaca, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona

Discussant

• Claudia Milena Diaz-Rios, OISE (University of Toronto)