15 - The Dialectics of Education and Development in Central America and the Latin Caribbean

Summary

Introduction

One characteristic of the relationship between education and development in Central America and the Latin Caribbean (CALC) is its dialectical nature. Although research on the region rarely speaks to this characteristic (see Chapter 1), it is clearly evident when looking across the cases presented in this volume. By dialectical nature, I am referring, first, to the reality that education helps to resolve or reduce tensions between the state and capitalism (as was first discussed in Chapter 2) and, second, to the fact that the ways in which this tension is resolved repeatedly creates new opportunities for a range of international actors to insert themselves into education reform dynamics in the region. Involvement by these actors, together with counterparts from state agencies, then proceeds – typically while ignoring or without input from teachers, students, and families – until a new crisis emerges, at which point the cycle repeats itself.

The purpose of the present chapter is, first, to make the aforementioned dialectical dynamics clear, which are summarized in Figure 15.1. Second, and relatedly, the purpose is to highlight the challenges that accompany this dynamic when translating policies and programmes into practice. These purposes will be addressed by engaging in an analysis of the chapters in this volume. The guiding framework for the discussion is the one presented in Chapter 2. The key points of this framework are summarized and further elaborated upon in the next section.

In that the chapters of this volume take the international political economy framework detailed in Chapter 2 as their point of departure, it is argued that a contribution to the literature on education and development in CALC has already been made. This chapter seeks to make a further contribution by harnessing and bringing together the insights from each study. The goal is to make explicit that which is typically unacknowledged or insufficiently addressed in research on education in CALC – that is, the extent to which education, in its reform and implementation (or lack thereof), is inextricably linked to and constrained by tensions and incentives produced as a result of the relationship between the state and the global capitalist economy.