scholarly journals Social justice debate and college access in Latin America: merit or need? The role of educational institutions and states in broadening access to higher education in the region

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cristobal Villalobos ◽  
Ernesto Treviño ◽  
Ignacio Wyman ◽  
Judith Scheele

During the first decade of the 21st century, Latin America experienced an intense economic growth that increased access in the school system. In this context, the paper  analyzes four different programs from Bolivia (Intercultural Community Indigenous Universities), Brazil (Quotas´ Law), Chile (Follow up and Effective Access to Higher Education Program) and Ecuador (Scholarship Program based on Quotas) aimed at improving the participation of marginalized students in the university from three different perspectives. First, conceptually, the paper analyzes the governance of these programs in terms of what are the institutional arrangements that define who is responsible for solving this source of inequality in higher education. Second, the study looks at the concepts of equality, fairness, merit, need and diversity behind the different initiatives presented, using the social justice debate. Thirdly, the paper uses the framework of analysis of different types of access programs to study the scope, components and arrangements of the policies.  The results show a high level of heterogeneity in the characteristics and focuses of the programs, which allows to deepen the discussion on the role of access to higher education in the region.

Author(s):  
Marlene M. Mendoza-Macías

The world is facing multiple changes and challenges; the environment shows inequalities, poverty, and corruption. Ecuador is not the exception. The man is declared the primary focus of the Ecuadorian Constitution to meet such changes. The objective of decreasing poverty, improving wealth distribution, and contributing to sustainable human development is unavoidable. In that context, the university has the pivotal role in generating interaction with society and its reality, to train professionals social and humanly responsible towards such facts, to promote the social management of knowledge from different action fields. The goal of this chapter is to specify the role of higher education institutions (HEIs) in a society where they take part, to draw up social responsibility of universities in Guayaquil and the challenges they face, as well as actions that contribute to the eradication of corruption and greater wellbeing of the society.


1967 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Felipe Herrera

The degree conferred upon me by the University of America with the concurrence of the 24 universities of the Republic of Colombia is a powerful incentive to the work of the Inter-American Development Bank in the field of higher education and research in Latin America. You will forgive me, then, if I take this occasion to mention the role of the Inter-American Bank as the “Bank of the Latin American University,” a role which has placed it in the vanguard of an impressive process of international cooperation for the modernization and decisive expansion of higher education in the Hemisphere. The $55 million it has loaned to 71 institutions in 17 countries bear eloquent testimony to an abiding preoccupation of the Bank in its brief years of existence.


PMLA ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 130 (2) ◽  
pp. 284-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Findeisen

Although many believe that “mass higher education” increased opportunity and egalitarianism in postwar American society, the reality has been quite different. While a greater proportion of students are enrolled in higher-educational institutions now than at any other point in history, economic inequality is at an all-time high. Postwar American campus novels largely misunderstand this historical development. While the genre represents the university as an institution that combats social inequality by expanding enrollment, these novels simultaneously obscure the social inequality that the university cannot combat and instead helps to legitimate. The symbolic work of American campus novels has thus been to imagine a system that stages social conflicts between the deserving and the elite when in fact the postwar meritocracy has made the two categories functionally indistinguishable.


2019 ◽  
Vol 35 (65) ◽  
pp. 18-30
Author(s):  
Cristian Bedoya Dorado ◽  
Mónica García-Solarte ◽  
Juan Sebastián Peña-Zúñiga ◽  
Steven Alejandro Piñeros Buriticá

Management in the context of higher education has been characterized by the predominance of male participation, mainly in senior management positions. As a result, women’s low participation is mainly concentrated in lower management positions, and their chances of escalating hierarchical positions are mediated by various factors ranging from subjective to socially naturalized. The objective of this research is to analyze the barriers women face to enter and escalate positions in university management in Colombia. Under a qualitative design, 26 semi-structured interviews were applied to university managers from different institutions of higher education in Colombia. The transcripts were analyzed using discourse analysis through three categories: individual, internal, and external barriers of the university. It was found that women face entry and promotion barriers marked by experiences, and conditions of inequality and discrimination in a male-dominated context. These barriers are conditioned by personal elements, organizational culture, and the social role of women. In addition, women’s trajectories involve mediation between professional development and family life. The study reveals experiences that contribute to understanding the research phenomenon from the webbing of senses and meanings. It is posited that the “glass ceiling” is mediated by variables in the internal order, and by the relationship between universities and their context.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 11
Author(s):  
Alberto Matías González ◽  
Orlando Fernández Aquino

Acudir a la epistemología es una práctica necesaria para el desempeño de la Educación Superior, más si se trata de la universidad en una sociedad cambiante, con interrogantes que echan por tierra lascreencias con las que se han diseñado los sistemas educativos. El objetivo ha sido analizar la mudanza paradigmática que está ocurriendo en la actualidad en las ciencias, y en particular en la concepción del papel social de la Universidad, marcada por el surgimiento de epistemologías emergentes como el Pensamiento Complejo, el Movimiento Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad, la Epistemología del Sur y la Epistemología de Segundo Orden. El método ha sido el análisis hermenéutico de las fuentes consultadas. El resultado ha sido una visión sintética de la trasformación epistemológica en curso contenida en tendencias de pensamento que, a pesar de sus diferencias, presentan coincidencias que muestran una ruptura con la epistemologia positivista tradicional, la cual ha sido el sostén de formas de educación que han quedado obsoletas.EPISTEMOLOGICAL CHALLENGES OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE 21ST CENTURYAbstractReturn to the epistemology is a necessary practice for the performance of Higher Education, still more so in the case of the university in the mutant society with question that play by land the beliefs considered in the design of the educative systems. The objective of this study was to analyze the paradigmatic change that is happening currently in the sciences, and in particular in the conception of the social role of the University, marked by the emergence of emerging epistemologies such as Complex Thought, the Movement Science, Technology and Society, the Epistemology of the South and the Epistemology of the Second Order. The method was the hermeneutic analysis of the consulted sources. The result was a synthetic vision of the still in progress epistemological transformation expressed in trend of thought tendencies that, despite their differences, present coincidences that show a rupture with the traditional positivist epistemology, which has been the support of forms of education that are obsolete.Keywords: Positivism. Higher education. Epistemology.DESAFIOS EPISTEMOLÓGICOS DA EDUCAÇÃO SUPERIOR NO SÉCULO XXIResumoRetomar a epistemologia é uma prática necessária para o desempenho da Educação Superior, mais ainda em se tratando da universidade numa sociedade mutante com interrogações que jogam por terra as crenças consideradas no desenho dos sistemas educativos. O objetivo deste estudo foi analisar a mudança paradigmática que está acontecendo na atualidade nas ciências e, particularmente, na concepção do papel social da universidade, marcada pelo aparecimento de epistemologias emergentes como o Pensamento Complexo, o Movimento Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade, a Epistemologia do Sul e a Epistemologia de Segunda Ordem. O método foi a análise hermenêutica das fontes consultadas. O resultado foi uma visão sintética da transformação epistemológica em curso expressa em tendências de pensamento que, apesar de suas diferenças, apresentam coincidências que mostram uma ruptura com a epistemologia positivista tradicional, a qual tem sido a base de formas de educação que estão obsoletas.Palavras-chaves: Positivismo. Educaçao Superior. Epistemologia.


2010 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 370-387
Author(s):  
Marcela Mandiola Cotroneo ◽  
Paula Ascorra Costa

The aim of this paper is to understand the character and the role of higher education in business in relation to the wider institutional and structural contexts within which they function. Being loyal to that widespread background, business schools in Chile have become efficient providers of appropriate goods and services for their respective clients and consumers, behaving more like corporations and businesses rather than educational institutions. From this perspective, business education's alignment with the wider political and socio-economic shifts associated with the developments of market economies and economic globalization is a necessary reflection. In this paper we will provide an account of our problematization of management education practices in Chile. This practice was pictured as one of the main characters at the forefront of the Chilean neo-liberal revolution during the final years of the last century. In particular, we will unravel more closely the chain of signifiers articulating the meaning of Chilean higher business education. This articulation is recuperated mainly around how those involved in the management education practice talk about (our)themselves. As well as specialised press writings, some academic accounts and fragments from our own 'ethnographic' involvement are used for this purpose. Particular attention is paid to the social, political and fantasmatic logics (GLYNOS; HOWARTH, 2007) as key elements of our own explanation of this practice, which in turn informs our critical standpoint.


2021 ◽  
pp. 221-226
Author(s):  
Mandla S. Makhanya

AbstractWhile the old Heraclitan adage: “The only constant in life is change” remains true, it is the scale and impact of that change that distinguishes the routine from the radical, and the evolution from the revolution. This difference is captured succinctly by Palinkas who asserts:“Change uses external influences to modify actions, but transformation modifies beliefs so actions become natural and thereby achieve the desired result ” (Palinkas 2013). Higher education, in its current state of disruption, is forcing us to revisit everything that we know and believe about education, in pursuit of its continued relevance and sustainability as a “new normal”. Key contributors to the state of disruption are fundamental and influential shifts in geo-socio-economic and political practices, rampant technological and scientific innovation, a multiplicity of role players, many of whom reside outside of the traditional higher education sphere, changing views on the nature and value of knowledge and the role of the university, and compelling contextual realities such as the need (and demands) for equity, social justice and redress.


Author(s):  
Alejandro Arturo Pérez Villegas ◽  
Adriana María Sánchez Navarrete ◽  
Mónica Méndez Montero

En trabajos previos de investigación sobre liderazgo se detectaron las carencias que manifiestan los egresados para su inserción social en los diversos ambientes de desarrollo profesional, principalmente en la superación del estrés ante la oportunidad de un nuevo empleo o ascenso. El objetivo de este trabajo, es plantear los medios para incorporar los elementos que enriquecen el ejercicio de la ingeniería, tal como el liderazgo, una vez que se ha egresado de la universidad. Para ello es necesario analizar el vínculo que se forma entre la escuela de enseñanza superior y el ingeniero durante su tránsito por las aulas. Por medio de este análisis y mediante observaciones y encuestas realizadas que contrastan las experiencias entre estudiantes y egresados, aparece en perspectiva el rol de la universidad en su papel activo durante la impartición de conocimientos en los salones de clase, así como en la organización de cursos y otros eventos de extensión que respondan a las necesidades profesionales en continuo cambio de los egresados.Palabras Clave: Liderazgo, necesidades profesionales, egresados de ingeniería, educación continua.  Previous papers relative to the social immersion to professional work at different environments, for the newly engineering graduates include lack of leadership, resulting the new job fear. The aim of this work is to propose the proper means to incorporate the elements that enrich the exercise of the engineering as soon as it has been graduated from the university, analyzing the link that is established between the school of higher education and the engineer during his/her traffic by the classrooms. Through the analysis of observations and applied surveys and having compared the experiences between pregrade students and graduated ones, the role of the university appears in perspective in its active role during lectures at the classroom, as well as in the planning of courses and several other events of extension that answer to the professional needs in continuous change of the graduated ones.Keywords: Leadership, professional needs, graduated engineers, continuous education.  


2013 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Byrd Clark ◽  
Eve Haque ◽  
Sylvie Lamoureux

This multi-voiced paper considers the role of language and linguistic heterogeneity in relation to larger discourses and processes of internationalization and globalization in Canadian higher education by examining two particular educational contexts in Ontario: newly arrived adult students participating in Immigrant language training programs; and Franco-Ontarian students transitioning to post-secondary schools and gaining access to higher education. The authors argue for a multidimensional conceptual approach to theorizing internationalization; one that takes into account the significance of language from the global, transnational and local levels of the social world whereby linguistic heterogeneity is viewed as the “norm” and one that allows for a broader and deeper engagement when considering what international education might mean for citizenship, integration, and linguistic minorities in Canada.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer M. Morton

In this paper, I reflect on the changing role of higher education by focusing on the case of online education. I consider the promise of online education as a means to mitigate educational inequalities. Based on the available empirical evidence, I argue that this promise is unlikely to be fulfilled because online education is not well-suited to develop the social and emotional skills needed by students from low-income and minority backgrounds for social mobility. Nonetheless, the changing social, political, and economic role of the university should lead us to revise the classical vision of the university’s aims. I argue that the aim of the university should be sensitive to its new social, political, and economic role without falling prey to coarse pragmatism. This third approach delicately navigates the middle-ground between idealism and pragmatism.


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