Educational Foundations & Policy Studies

This course equips students with the general landscape of the history of Latin American philosophies of education while also engaging students with some of the paradoxes of the historical development of what has been understood as education in Latin America. In the first part of the course the student will be exposed to the two main Indigenous approaches to educational thought; on the one hand the Aztec that covered most of present-day Mexico and Central America, and on the other hand the Tahuantinsuyo which compromised some areas of what is today Ecuador, Perú, Bolivia and Chile. Then, the educative implications of the Spanish conquest of North and South America will be studied, since it was when the distinction between western and non-western knowledge was constructed and also when the principle Latin American universities where founded. Therefore, this course will explore to what extent the conquest also aimed to be an educative conquest. The destruction of Indigenous sacred books as well as the Indigenous educative institutions will be addressed in this course. Students will be guided to review the educational model that the Spaniards imposed in the area. In this period it is key to consider some of the main intellectuals’ work at that time, such as Juana Ramírez de Asbaje, among others. After that, students will study the impact of the creation of the liberal-nationalist Latin American states on the educational projects for those new nations; in other words, the post-independence periods of the nineteenth century.

The principle aim of this course is to begin an exploration of Latin American philosophies of education. Particular emphasis will be placed on investigating the different ways that philosophers of Latin American education have conceptualized education as a (trans)formative and liberatory process.

This course explores the notion of narrative knowledge as a special form of reasoning, feeling, and grasping the world. Latin American peoples translate knowing into telling and telling into knowing. Narrating or telling  knowledge is a special form of reasoning, feeling, and making sense of reality. The students will learn how to apply the Latin American narrative learning in educational settings.