Suchergebnisse

This book explores the cultural side of political and social debates about citizenship in Argentina, Colombia, and Peru. In all three countries, there has been an out-pouring of artistic and popular-performative activities in public spaces that have asked citizens to pose basic questions about the social order in which they live and about the memories of recent atrocities. Cala Buend̕a looks at ways in which cultural producers in these spaces adapted or developed products and strategies as resources for social actors to use or suppress in the struggle for social change.

It is a great pleasure to be here and to welcome you to the Regional Policy Forum for Latin America that we are organising within our Project "Fostering Governmental Support for Open Educational Resources Internationally", which is being implemented by the Commonwealth of Learning and UNESCO.//In this joint address I shall present the background to the project and our Senior Consultant, Stamenka Uvalić-Trumbić, will describe the project itself, update you on the responses we have received from your countries and outline our hopes for this meeting.

This book explores diverse contemporary paradigms of educational praxis and learning in Latin America, both non-formal and formal. Each contributor, from different geographical locations, focuses on theoretical and empirical positions, discusses the broader theme of how in times of historical ruptures, political reconstructions and epistemic formations, the production of paradigms rooted in 'other' logics, cosmologies and realities may renegotiate and redefine concepts of education, learning and knowledge.

Latin America is a politico-social laboratory. During the nineteenth century, following independence, three elements profoundly influenced life and thought: the Catholic church, the aristocracy, and the military. To these, as active political elements, were added a middle class, labor groups, and Communist and Leftist movements in the twentieth cen tury. The contrasts between "haves" and "have-nots" re main glaring. Latin-American constitutions are various and tend to be transient. Presidencies tend to evolve into dictator ships. The franchise has been widened, but electoral practices are erratic. Political factions, rather than national parties with continuity, are characteristic. Political campaigns are interesting, exciting, and dangerous. Politicians enjoy high social prestige. Revolutions in Latin America, given these conditions, are inevitable; Latin-American politics are volatile. United States policy toward Latin America is and can be catalytic in its effect. Much misunderstanding must be re placed with understanding, however, if the results are to be achieved for which everyone hopes.—Ed.

Abstract
This article identifies the shortcomings of the dominant approach to education around the globe today, which does not lead to equitable development. Latin American thinkers point to an alternative perspective based on solidarity, inclusion and humanity. Such a perspective puts social change at the heart of education and is evident in what is known as Popular Education. Jara defines and analyses these complex terms, and provides an historical overview of the development of popular education in Latin America since 1960. He notes the key factors: popular education is 'substantively political', and it is underpinned by a liberating pedagogy which is possible in both formal as well as informal education, and which builds people's capacities to question their reality and existing ideologies, and to learn and unlearn continuously.

This paper raises the question of whether work still plays an important role in the social, economic and political changes that have taken place in Latin America since the 1980s. First, we analyze working conditions and employment profiles with emphasis on so-called `truncated tertiarization' and on the growth of nonwage and women's work. Second, we examine the process of diversification of industrial work resulting from the globalization of world markets. Third, we look at the changes that have taken place in the labor movement itself as a function of the new neoliberal orientation of the state, changes in the labor market and industrial restructuring. Finally, we discuss the impact of these changes on the sociological study of labor, noting the emergence in Latin America since the 1980s of a new sociology of work which is alien to the heroic vision of the labor movement, yet also shuns the end of the work society view.

ABSTRACTWide disparities in growth potential and performance and hence, presumably an unequal sharing of benefits of trade liberalization, are among the most pressing issues facing the future course of economic integration in South America. The customary indices of changes in intra‐zonal trade among members of a preferential trade area do not adequately capture these tensions. This paper develops a framework based on differential rates of growth for analyzing the relative changes in production structure and per capita income in each member country vis‐à‐vis the corresponding set of free‐trading partners. The empirical investigation is carried out for member countries of the Latin American Free Trade Association (LAFTA) and of the Central American Common Market (CACM) for the period of their existence.Preliminary results suggest that although 'reciprocity' of benefits has been an elusive goal, there is no evidence that structural imbalance in the continent is worsening. In fact, in terms of per capita incomes there appears to be a modest trend toward convergence.

Fertility rates significantly fell over the last decades in Latin America. In order to assess the extent to which these changes contributed to the observed reduction in income poverty and inequality, we apply microeconometric decomposition to microdata from national household surveys from seven Latin American countries. We find that changes in fertility rates were associated with a nonnegligible reduction in inequality and poverty in the region. The main channel was straightforward: lower fertility implied smaller families and hence larger per capita incomes. Lower fertility also fostered labor force participation, especially among women, which contributed to the reduction of poverty and inequality in most countries, although the size of this effect was smaller.