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- Convenors:
-
Guadalupe Mendoza-Zuany
(Universidad Veracruzana)
Nicolas Fleet (University of Cambridge)
- Location:
- Malet 354
- Start time:
- 3 April, 2014 at
Time zone: Europe/London
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
What are the social, political and market forces shaping Latin American HEIs and what is their role in the reproduction, or possibly the reduction, of inequalities and exclusions? The panel includes papers on issues of quality, class inequality, interculturality and affirmative action.
Long Abstract:
Higher education institutions (HEIs) have been fundamental for the building and development of Latin American nations. The university in particular has served as a crucial institution for the modernization, democratization and political mobilization of society. In this manner, especially towards the second half of twentieth century, the irruption of emergent social groups and classes into social and political power has been mediated by higher education. But at the same time, the university has also been an instrument of the state for the ongoing construction of a mono-cultural 'mestizo' nation, in which indigenous peoples and knowledge are diluted. In the wake of new relations of production, based on the intensive use of knowledge, new demands for access, quality, social mobility and cultural recognition have entailed transformations of HEIs in terms of massification, privatization and organizational differentiation. Universities are today somewhat fractured by the tension between delivering academic excellence - measured by world rankings that confine them to a peripheral position - and producing social inclusion - in terms of providing recognition and effectiveness to the social groups that are increasingly incorporated into Higher Education.
What are the social, political and market forces shaping Latin American HEIs and what is their role in the reproduction, or possibly the reduction, of inequalities and exclusions and also in the recognition of cultural diversity? The panel includes papers on issues of quality, class inequality, interculturality and affirmative action, for the cases of Brazil, Chile and México.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
The normative contradiction of the university in Chile takes place between the interests of particular universities – market niches and ideological projects – and the universalistic evaluation of their operation, in the sense of the ‘public good’ that justifies them as institutions.
Paper long abstract:
The institution of the university in Chile has been exposed in its contradiction. Namely, between the interests of particular universities, based on market positions and ideological projects, and the universalistic evaluation of their operation, in the sense of the 'public good' that justifies them as institutions. This contradiction may be illustrative for other cases in the Latin American region where the implementation of mechanisms to broaden higher education access is meant to counteract the reproduction of class inequality and cultural exclusion through universities. Chile's university system is mostly privatized and almost totally commodified, which in this manner reproduces socio-economic divisions. Moreover, empirical evidence suggests that the orientations of universities, the way they recruit students, their material conditions of operation, and the features of the teaching process vary in accordance to class segmentation. But on the other hand, the massification of higher education - paradoxically enabled by its marketization - has pulled universities back into the centre of public interest, evidenced particularly through the student movement in 2011. The empirical process to be described, from within the perspectives of universities, is the critique of the standards that align particular projects with class segmentation, using for that purpose universalistic frameworks on equality (decommodification), pluralism (access opportunities based on merit), quality of education (as opposed to for-profit-universities), and the meaning of professional labour (not reducible to economic return). Without being exhaustive, an emergent cleavage rises between universities that justify themselves by universalistic standards and those that remain entrenched in their market interests and ideological projects.
Paper short abstract:
This paper presents an analysis of the main results of a programme on transversalisation of the intercultural approach in a public university in Mexico, the Universidad Veracruzana. It also put forward emerging questions regarding its scope and objectives, which can also provide useful insights for higher education institutions with diverse population and located in multicultural sites.
Paper long abstract:
Having an intercultural university as part of its structure, the Universidad Veracruzana, one of the biggest public universities in México, has implemented a programme devoted to the transversalisation of the intercultural approach for the whole institution. What does transversalisation mean in this particular context? How has the programme gone beyond dealing with ethnic diversity amongst students?
How does the intercultural approach a) impact academic programmes and pedagogical practices, b) encourage dialogue of knowledge, and c) shape the perceptions of the academic community regarding diversity and the ways of dealing with it?
More than just having affirmative action strategies oriented to favour access and achievements of minorities such as indigenous peoples, transversalisation of the intercultural approach could be a real opportunity to transform higher education institutions.
Paper short abstract:
Using the method of analysis provided by strategic management and data from original research on the empirical determinants of universities' quality, this paper addresses the empirical factors of the crisis of Chilean higher education and generates the minimum guidelines for its sustainable reform.
Paper long abstract:
Since its re-foundation in 1981, Chilean higher education has developed structural problems of quality. Its massification, reaching over 50% of gross enrolment and implemented through private institutions operating on the basis of market competition, has entailed the extension of such problems on the broad society. The challenges of the university institution in Chile are framed in this context. On the one hand, the cost of higher education in Chile is among the most expensive in the world in relation to GDP per capita, leading to unbearable economic burdens on the students. On the other hand, the average length of an undergraduate programme extends over 14 semesters, whilst the effective graduation rate is only around 50%. These inefficiencies occur at the same time that some private universities, which by Law are required to be non-for-profit organizations, have been found extracting profit from student fees. The national quality assurance system, created in 2006 to introduce regulation on higher education, now suffers from a credibility crisis due to a case of corruption. Lastly, a student movement emerged in 2011, with hundreds of thousands of people taking the demand for free public education to the streets and this raised public awareness of the crisis at the root of higher education. Using the method of analysis provided by strategic management and data from original research on the empirical determinants of universities' quality, this paper addresses the empirical factors of the crisis of Chilean higher education and generates the minimum guidelines for its sustainable reform.
Paper short abstract:
An account of the 'quotas movement' which promoted the cause of positive discrimination principally for blacks in entry to state and federal universities, culminating in a historic Supreme Court decision and a law requiring Federal universities to establish a quota system for blacks and indigenous.
Paper long abstract:
Over a period of some 17 years a relatively small network of people conducted a campaign promoting the cause of 'quotas' for blacks in Brazilian public higher education at the undergraduate level. Their argument was that blacks suffer racial exclusion and are grossly underrepresented in HE and the only way to overcome this injustice is to allocate quotas for them. The campaign received strong and perhaps crucial support from the Ford Foundation, and was carried forward in university councils and the federal bureaucracy, and in community-based preparatory courses taught by volunteer staff, more than on the street. It was opposed by people who readily recognized the racial injustice but regarded official recognition of racial classification as a serious mistake which could have disastrous consequences for the country. By 2012 the Supreme Court had ruled that officially recognized racial classification was not unconstitutional and the Congress had passed a law requiring Federal Universities to set aside half their undergraduate places for people from state schools, divided between blacks, indigenous and students from low-income families. The paper will present a multi-layered account of these campaigns in several different institutional contexts, charting the movement's trajectory and the sometimes bitter polemics which divided the academic world for several years.
Paper short abstract:
Interculturality is more relevant and necessary than ever in today’s globalized world. This paper studies the largest educational project of social inclusion, local participation, and citizenship in Bahia (Brazil) through the lens of intercultural education.
Paper long abstract:
Interculturality is the interaction of peoples from different cultural backgrounds who have knowledge and understanding of those cultures; it refers to the capacity of an individual to experience cultural otherness and to be aware of it in light of one's own patterns of perception, thoughts, and behavior. Not surprisingly, interculturality has become increasingly relevant in today's globalized world, and acquiring intercultural competence more necessary than ever. This paper studies the largest educational project of social inclusion, local participation, and citizenship in Bahia (Brazil) through the lens of intercultural education. I conducted longitudinal ethnographic research in 2008 and 2009 at the Cidade do Saber (City of Knowledge, CDS), a pioneering project based on the concept of 'plural citizenship,' which provides free access to education, cultural events, sports and leisure activities to economically disadvantaged children and adults of the Municipality of Camaçari (Bahia). I argue that the CDS employs an approach to intercultural education as a mechanism to achieve their objectives, with uneven degrees of success. This project is not envisioned as a vocational school, but as an epicenter of cultural knowledge, education, and sports; as such, its goal is to counter the historically limited social, cultural, and symbolic capital of Camaçari's population, and ultimately, to reduce social and economic inequalities through education. I address the tensions and conflicts that result from the different views of culture, social inclusion, and citizenship of administrators, instructors, and students, as well as the difficulties the project encounters in materializing alternative Brazilian notions of citizenship.