Jason Beech - Böcker

Latin America has tremendous diversity geographically, politically, and demographically. Some countries such as Argentina, Brazil and Chile, enjoy a time of peace and growing prosperity, while other countries such as Bolivia and Columbia are struggling with government and economic issues. This volume examines the history and present educational systems, both public and private, of approximately 15 countries in the Latin American region, along with a day in the life feature that shows what the school day is like from the students' point of view.

Providing one of the first accounts in English of the work of the founding scholars of comparative education in Latin America from the 19th and 20th centuries, this book presents a detailed analysis of their influence on the field and highlights the pivotal role played by each scholar in the development of comparative education in the Global South.The book chiefly comprises biographical contributions about the achievements of significant Latin American scholars both in terms of critical historical-epistemological traditions and educational reforms that impacted the development of Latin American societies and education systems. Across 13 chapters, the book discusses travellers who contributed to the post-independence period of nation-building; progressive reformers inspired by the work of John Dewey; and finally, scholars who played a key role in the institutionalisation of the field of comparative education in the region. Novel in its focus, even considering publications in Spanish and Portuguese, the book ultimately appeals to the current interest in understanding comparative education and its history as a worldwide project.Exploring the history of comparative education beyond the confines of established Anglo-European accounts, this volume will be of great interest to researchers and scholars in comparative and international education, history of education and Latin American studies.

By analysing the proposals for teacher education drawn up by UNESCO, the World Bank and OECD, this book shows that even though each of these organizations has different views about education, their proposals are based on a similar set of assumptions about the future, and about how educational systems should be reformed to adapt to this future. In order to explore the effects of these proposals in different contexts, the book examines the educational reforms implemented in Argentina and Brazil in the 1990s, revealing how the discourse of international agencies was transformed as it met with local assumptions about what constitutes good education for teachers. The findings of this research are discussed within a broader theoretical model which makes it possible, thus, to map the circulation of discourse in the global educational field.