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Scientific literacy is still being identified and recognised as one of the main goals of science education. However, this concept has multiple interpretations and its definition changes continuously depending on its social, cultural, and political contexts. In this paper, scientific literacy is conceptualised through "visions I, II and III." The first one is focused on the content and scientific processes for its subsequent application; the second, with a focus on understanding the usefulness of scientific knowledge in life and society; and the third one seeks to move towards a politicised scientific education to dialogic emancipation, attending social and eco-justice dimensions. The latter is also called critical scientific literacy. The research aimed at analysing how scientific literacy and these three visions are expressed in school curricula of Bolivia and Chile. Using a qualitative approach and thematic analysis, it is established that the Bolivian curriculum presents mainly a "critical scientific literacy" approach and the Chilean science curriculum presents mainly a "vision II" of scientific literacy. Findings of contrasting both school curricula show science education as non-neutral and profoundly political field, and therefore, we can see relevant opportunities for transformation and emancipation, understanding science curriculum as a social practice.

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.

This article introduces a special issue of EPAA/AAPE devoted to recent higher education reforms in Latin America. The last two decades have seen much policy development in higher education in the region, examined and discussed by scholars in each country, but dialog with the international literature on higher education reform, or an explicit comparative focus, have been mostly absent from these works. By way of presentation of the papers included in this issue, we first provide an overview of major policy changes in higher education in the Latin American region since the 1990s. We then turn to the six works in this special issue to describe the theories and methods supporting them. Next, we illustrate how general analytic categories can be derived from single or multi country case studies to illuminate themes capable of cutting across the particulars of national contexts, with their unique traditions, policy paths, and politics. Our three common threads are, first, the types of drivers for reform, that is, how policy change originates, either bottom-up from the institutions, or top-down from the government, and various possibilities in between. Second, understanding challenges to institutional autonomy in a continuum of intensity of state intended intervention in higher education. Third, explaining different levels of strain between public and private sectors in higher education based on conditions of competition for economic resources. While the papers in this special issue do not cover all countries, nor all issues on which policy has been crafted in the last two decades across the region, the collection of articles herein account for topics of enduring importance: faculty work in Ecuador, financial aid in Colombia, public policy decentralization in Argentina, quality assurance models in Colombia and Uruguay, the emerge of new institutions and universities in Argentina and Uruguay, and social justice, access, and inclusion in higher education, in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador. The articles presented in this special issue provide much insight onto higher education policy in Latin America and, additionally, offer ample opportunity to develop social science knowledge on the basis of strong comparative work.

Global learning may be understood as an educational response to the development towards a world society. The development of world society is accompanied by a wide range of adaptation challenges, such as the development of global social justice, the overcoming of paternalism or the facilitation of social solidarity and dealing with migration in an era of climate change. This paper reflects the learning of the understanding of world society by empirical studies. The paper shows some challenges for the research agenda, especially concerning the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's framework of global competences and suggests a framework for further research.

Latin American countries have evolved over the years. Still, after years of military reign, socioeconomicinstability, and civil wars, the region has been known for its anti-hegemonic economic growth (educationalpolicies) strategies. Central and South America's educational system has long been under investigation by researchers both theoretically and empirically. The transition of its education system through the introduction of centralized, liberalized, and populist ideology has sparked many researchers' interest. This paper aims to understand and compare 14 Latin American countries' education orientation. The study uses a matrix table to visualize the qualitative finding.

This paper summarises experiences of efforts made by twenty individuals when implementing small-scale ICT development projects in their organizations located in seven developing countries. The main focus of these projects was the use of ICT in educational settings. Challenges encountered and the contributing factors for implementation success of the projects are systematically investigated using interviews and follow up surveys. Results show that the typical limitations of technology and infrastructure were the key obstacles. The commitment of individual project managers in the role of "change agents" and organizational support in the were the strengths behind the success of the projects. Based on the outcome of this study, professional development of the change agents is a key factor for the success of projects. IT and infrastructure limitations contributed to the failure of the majority of the ICT related projects.

The government of Bolivia planned to introduce information technology in secondary education through establishing computer labs in schools and through granting each subject teacher a laptop. This initiative was tested for the first time in 2012 with three public schools in La Paz. Most of the subject teachers have never used a computer before. The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions (SPIDER) supported teachers' training in basic digital skills. This was not sufficient for the teachers to adopt the technology in their daily practice. Within a follow-up research project a constraints-driven model for overcoming the barriers teachers faced was developed and applied. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the whole process of digital inclusion with focus on the design and implementation of this model. Teachers' adoption of the technology and changes in their skills, attitudes, and beliefs were assessed through the analysis of the qualitative data obtained in focus group discussions and observations, as well as through the quantitative data collected through a longitudinal survey. The results show that the adopted model proved to be a successful complement to the government policy. From persons intimidated by the laptops, the subject teachers became confident users of digital technology capable of creating numerous educational units and interactive teaching tools.

This article explores and reconsiders the view of children's encounters with place as central to a place-based pedagogy that seeks to dismantle rather than support constructions of a nature-culture binary. I unpack the current fervour for reinserting the child in nature and nature-based education as a significant phenomenon in environmental and outdoor education. I will draw on recent literature on place-based research and theorise using new materialist and posthumanist approaches that seek to disrupt anthropocentric views and support new ways of considering our encounters with the more-than-human world. Then, using these new approaches, I will theorise a recent place-based research project with children in the city of La Paz, Bolivia, to illustrate how it is possible to challenge current assumptions that are firmly entrenched in the child in nature movement. I will conclude by considering what intraspecies relations, place encounters and child-body-animal-place relations can teach us about questioning anthropocentrism and human exceptionalism. Finally, I consider how can we overcome these limitations of a narrow and nostalgic view of "child and nature" and reimagine a more diverse approach to education for a sustainable future. [Paper presented at the 18th AAEE Biennial Conference--Sustainability, Smart Strategies for the 21st Century.]

This paper investigates the problems and promises of teachers' agency associated with Bolivia's current "decolonising" education reform. The Avelino Siñani Elizardo Pérez (ASEP) education reform is part of a counter-hegemonic and anti-neoliberal policy that aims to advance the political project of the government of Evo Morales, with teachers as its most strategic leading card. The article draws on theoretical insights from the Strategic Relational Approach (SRA) and applies this frame to analyse teachers' agency for change in Bolivia's contemporary socio-political context. This framework allows for a critical reflection of current discourses and educators' efforts to decolonize the education system, in a context of political and societal tensions and inequalities. The article argues that the current political discourse and socio-political changes open up some spaces for teachers' agency. However, the reality in rather conservative teacher education institutions and schools, together with teachers' daily struggle for survival, provide serious constraints for teachers to become "committed or transformative intellectuals".

Purpose: This paper aims to present an approach to achieve accessible and inclusive Virtual Education for all, but especially intended for students with disabilities. This work proposes main steps to take into consideration for stakeholders involved in the educational process related to an inclusive e-Learning. Design/methodology/approach: The paper pays particular regard to accessibility in Virtual Education. This work is based on the activities prepared from years 2012 to 2015 within the initiative called ESVI-AL. This initiative was carried out in conjunction with Latin American and European Universities; for this paper, experiences and best practices from the initiative were used to prepare the proposed approach. Findings: The aim of ESVI-AL initiative was to offer products that can help in the development of an accessible and inclusive e-Learning education. Among the main results were reports, case studies, practical guidelines, training courses and software to install virtual campuses with accessibility features. Social implications: Nowadays, few countries have laws promoting and enforcing accessibility for e-Education and e-Society. This work aims to sensitize educators from different countries and raise awareness on the importance of working together toward an inclusive society based on accessible e-Learning. Originality/value: Based on a literature review and ESVI-AL initiative results, a descriptive overview was prepared as a starting point for the four identified main actors of an educational project, namely, educators, technical staff, quality auditors and students, with special emphasis on students with disabilities.

This paper characterizes household spending in education using microdata from income and expenditure surveys for twelve Latin American and Caribbean countries and the United States. Bahamas, Chile, and Mexico have the highest household spending in education and Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay have the lowest. Tertiary education is the most important form of spending, and most educational spending is performed for 18- to 23-year-old individuals. More educated and wealthier household heads spend more in the education of household members. Households with both parents present and those with a female main income provider spend more than their counterparts. Urban households also spend more than rural households. On average, education in Latin America and the Caribbean is a luxury good, whereas it may be a necessity in the United States. No gender bias is found in primary education, but at secondary school age and up households invest more in females than in males.

Drawing from long-term ethnographic research in the Andes, this paper examines one Quechua-speaking Indigenous bilingual educator's trajectory as she traversed (and traverses) from rural highland communities of southern Peru through development as teacher, teacher educator, researcher, and advocate for Indigenous identity and language revitalization across urban, periurban, and rural spaces. Neri Mamani grew up in highland Peru and at the time I met her in 2005 was a bilingual intercultural education practitioner enrolled in master's studies at the Program for Professional Development in Bilingual Intercultural Education for the Andean Region (PROEIB-Andes) at the University of San Simón in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Drawing from my ethnographic research at PROEIB that year, situated also within a broader context of my ethnographic research on bilingual education in the Andes across several decades and Neri's life trajectory across those same decades, this paper analyzes her narrative as it emerged in a 4-hour interview with me. I argue that Neri and her peers' recognizing, valorizing, and studying the multiple and mobile linguistic, cultural, and intercultural resources at play in their own and others' professional practices around bilingual intercultural education enable them to co-construct an Indigenous identity that challenges deep-seated social inequalities in their Andean world.

The academic programs at the graduate level are increasingly interested about the enrollment management challenges in terms of international student mobility. Understanding fundamental enrollment concepts to attract international students provides the essential key to consider the competitive environment concerning university resources, academic program potential, complex cultural dynamics, and workplaces among others. Based on a six-year quantitative and descriptive statistical study, this paper addresses the trends of first-time graduate enrollment and patterns of international student mobility by faculty at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez. Results revealed the sustained trend of graduate enrollment of international students mainly from South America, Central America, and the Caribbean among others. Moreover, the presence of international graduate students adds a dimension of diversity to UPRM between teaching and research undertakings that enhance the Colleges of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, Agricultural Sciences, and Business Administration. The international student mobility has a consistent tendency mainly in the Colleges of Engineering, Arts and Sciences, and Agricultural Sciences. This consistency resembles the quality and reputation recognized by educational institutions and organizational world rankings. In-depth, understanding the trends related to international graduate enrollment and mobility should be considered by institutional leaders and administrators at UPRM to make knowledgeable decisions and to effectively set priorities to recruit highly qualified international students.

One of the main challenges confronted by higher education in the 21st century is to internationalize its programs and to make students more globally competent. This challenge is not new, but it has become increasingly complex. Gutek (1993) explains how the efforts to internationalize the university in the United States became particularly important in the second part of the 20th century. The purpose of this article is to further support the need to internationalize the undergraduate curriculum in teacher education programs by explaining some of the curricular issues identified in an education course with a study tour component to Bolivia. As many other courses involving an immersion experience, this class was developed as an effort to bring an international perspective to our program by providing preservice teachers with more opportunities to experience realities outside their own. Organized mainly around visits to schools in Bolivia, students' evaluations and comments indicated that this course has contributed, in very significant ways, to their understanding of the world, of themselves, and of teaching. Based on these experiences and reflections, this article identifies some of the issues that could help educators to rethink the curriculum in their teacher education programs to aid their students in the development of a stronger sensitivity and knowledge toward global and local realities. Aware that only a very limited number of students have access to immersion trips abroad, the author argues that courses that include these experiential international components offer a unique perspective from which to rethink their curriculum and its value in preparing globally competent teachers.

This article discusses the concept of "Vivir Bien" (Living Well) (VB) and its role as a decolonising project in connection with the "Political Constitution of the Plurinational State of Bolivia" (2009) (BC) and subordinated legislation. This subordinated legislation was enacted to implement in a more specific manner the general legal principles contained within the BC. The paper uses these legal texts within the framework of decolonial thinking to prove that the adoption of the concept of "VB" represents a legal and an epistemological shift that radically contests the dominant Western paradigm of modernity/coloniality. This shift has many facets; however, this article concentrates on two of them in order to characterise its radicalism: (a) the constitutional acknowledgment of the colonial difference, which is understood here as the pervading and living legacy of European colonialism in social organisations and the production of knowledge, and (b) the constitutional and legislative requirement of engaging in an ongoing intercultural dialogue as a vehicle for the achievement of a society based on the concept of "VB." This article concludes that the confluence of these two facets marks the epistemological shift and is important in the advancement of the intercultural and decolonising project represented by the concept of "VB."

In line with a broader Latin American turn to the left, since 2006 Bolivia's "politics of change" of president Evo Morales includes a new "decolonising" education reform called "Avelino Sinani Elizardo Perez" (ASEP). With the aim to break down deep historical processes of indigenous denial and exclusion in education, this "revolutionary reform" envisions a radical restructuring of Bolivian society and a revaluation of indigenous epistemological, cultural and linguistic heritage through education. Inspired by Latin America debates on coloniality theory and theories of alternative knowledges, and geared towards broader socio-political processes of social justice, Bolivia's envisaged education transformation is built around four pillars, being: (1) decolonization, (2) intra- and inter-culturalism together with plurilingualism, (3) productive education and (4) communitarian education. The transformation of pre-service teacher education in Bolivia's "Normales" is seen as a crucial step in these processes of socio-educational change. This paper particularly focuses on the ways in which the new ASEP Reforms' first two pillars of decolonisation and inter-/intracultural education apply to pre-service teacher education and how these discourses for change stand in contrast to various implementation challenges in the teacher education sector, including: a lack of conceptual clarity and information sharing with educators, long and complex processes of a negotiated teacher education curriculum and a general shortage of both teacher trainers' and future teachers' indigenous language skills. While Bolivia's new decolonising education reform is contested by various educational actors, the paper also highlights how the changed socio-political make-up helps to fuel future teachers' indigenous self-identification, cultural recognition and pluri-linguistic potentials. (Contains 8 notes.)

More than one billion people do not have access to an adequate water supply. In Gambia and Haiti, people live on less than 4 liters of water per day. By contrast, most toilets in the West use several times that amount of water for a single flush. The global distribution of water is making it increasingly difficult for poor people to access it, and movements to commodify water and privatize the industries that provide it exacerbate this situation, trapping the poorest in a cycle of water poverty. Much research has been done on the problem of water scarcity. However, the link between scarcity and water as a human right is rarely articulated, even the current index of the website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has no entry for water. This paper proposes a human right to water. It then considers the consequent obligations the right to water imposes on those who control water resources, such as governments, water corporations, and international lending institutions. (Contains 75 notes.)

This paper describes the prevalence of depression and suicidal tendencies as well as risk factors for attempted suicide among students in Bolivia. Adolescents 13-18 years old (182 females, 394 males) from randomly selected schools in La Paz completed the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. Frequencies and logistic regression were used to identify factors--including academic performance, violence, and sex--associated with suicidal attempts. One fourth (26.9%) of females and one in ten males (8.9%) attempted suicide at least once. Depression was highly correlated with suicidal attempts. Additional risk factors for females included ethnicity, low academic performance, violence (including forced sex), and drinking. Females who experienced forced sex and who drank 20 or more days in their life were 20.1 (95% CI: 2.3, 178.7) and 37.3 (95% CI: 4.7, 297.2) times more likely respectively than females without these risks to attempt suicide. An additional risk factor for males included being threatened or injured with a weapon. For parents, school administrators, policy makers and program planners this study represents an important step toward identifying risk factors for attempted suicide and for developing prevention programs. (Contains 3 tables and 1 figure.)

Purpose: This paper seeks to present the issue of e-learning development in a public university in Bolivia, together with challenges that could support the work of a sustainable development of practice and educational technologies. Design/methodology/approach: The paper presents the first phase of an interpretative case study. It comprises data sources found in observations, interviews, and documents, which the authors have analysed according to three genre themes associated with e-learning--people, spaces, and technologies. Findings: The paper identifies a set of challenges that is aimed at directing further development and research on sustainable e-learning approaches in developing regions. Originality/value: The paper offers a practitioner perspective on e-learning development at a university in a developing country.

The paper explores the relationship between education reform and Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) for Bolivia's majority indigenous peoples, as this has evolved since the 1990s into the era of Evo Morales, Latin America's first indigenous president, elected in 2005. In order to bring out the significance of the new Education Bill awaiting approval in parliament since 2006, the paper examines in detail the recent historical relationship between education reform and IBE, the role of the country's indigenous social organisations in evolving this relationship, and the ideological underpinnings of the new education reform legislation. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper addresses my understanding of well-being as harmonious relations in the city of El Alto, Bolivia. My approach shows the complexity of issues emerging when dealing with social relations. First of all, I analyse a specific case study showing the moral obligation involved among household members. Then I attempt to provide an insight into other aspects of social life to realise that the same degree of moral duty can be found when people participate in religious festivities or social protests. Collaboration, unity and co-operation often coexist with conflicts and moral obligation. The paper argues that this picture of complex coexistence is rather different from the substantive freedom described by Sen ("Development as freedom." Oxford University Press, 1999) in his capability approach. By taking Sen's theoretical framework as a point of departure for this investigation, it aims to emphasise the value of ethnography and other qualitative methods to the study of well-being. In the field of well-being, social interaction may greatly affect people's capabilities to choose the lives they have reason to value, obliging them to follow certain models based on shared values and preferences. The paper contributes to debates on this specific issue, trying to shed light on the picture emerging when engaging with ethnographic research.

We reflect on methodological issues arising in two of our own research projects as a form of practice, as a way of engaging in a praxis of project research. The projects chosen for this purpose are themselves concerned with teacher education and curriculum development in environmental education: they include participatory "reflective practice" processes in exploring issues relating to formal education in schools and informal education in communities and are grounded in the specific contexts of developing countries. We discuss issues in participatory research such as: (1) Whose research agenda gets to be explored?; (2) The importance of project partnerships; (3) Participants' preconceptions about the nature of research; (4) What is "rigor" in participatory research in environmental education?; (5) The Colonialist Dilemma: Avoiding the "package or perish" mentality; and (6) The Bigger Picture: Technocratic Rationality and Participatory Research. (Contains 2 notes.)

Applying the Strategic Relational Approach, this paper analyses the circumstances behind and educators' strategies in response to education reforms in two nation-states undergoing socio-political transformation--Bolivia and Timor-Leste. Despite the starkly different histories and contemporary context of each nation, we suggest that transformation in both settings is driven by a desire to unshackle histories of colonisation and social conflict. Education reform, at least discursively, aims to dislocate past practices and replace them with a new material reality. In such spaces, we find that teachers are acting as strategic political actors, but in ways that are historically situated and driven by real and perceived personal and professional constraints. Their actions lead to particular types of "resistance" and strategic action, leading to outcomes that are simultaneously continuous and disconnected from the past.

Within the last two decades, there has been increased interest in how technology supports Indigenous language revitalization and reclamation efforts. This paper considers the effect technology has on Indigenous language learning and teaching, while conceptualizing how language educators, speakers, learners, and technology users holistically understand, skillfully apply and communicate creative and balanced technological solutions that are based on understanding of contextual factors. A total of 80 participants representing at least 47 Indigenous languages completed a survey in 2009 representing individuals, organizations, and institutions that serve one or more Indigenous language communities across the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan, Guatemala, Peru, Greenland, Mexico, Bolivia, French Polynesia (Marquesas Islands and Tuamotu Islands), and Russia. The data reveal the functions digital technology has in Indigenous language revitalization, which include (1) positive and supportive roles (2) concerns, constraints, and tensions, and (3) Indigenous language education. Regardless of the size of the community, opportunities for using technology in Indigenous language revitalization efforts are shaped by linguistic, cultural, social, economic, environmental, and technological factors as expressed in the technacy framework for language revitalization. Findings indicate that technology has wide and mostly positive applications in language learning and teaching, that the benefits of those applications remain consistent across communities regardless of size and geographic location, and that new and innovative uses of technology are being adopted to support language revitalization efforts. Overall, the study underscores the importance of context in making grounded decisions about technology as a component of contemporary language revitalization efforts.

The paper reports from a comparative study on systems of quality assurance in 19 countries around the globe, and how these systems function as accountability mechanisms. Based on a theoretical framework for assessing how accountability mechanisms can contribute to build trust in the higher education sector, the analysis of the quality assurance systems underline the dominant role of quality assurance systems as the prime accountability mechanism in the sector, often accompanied by semi-autonomous agencies emphasising various forms of accreditation. Based on an assessment of the quality assurance systems it is still suggested that the current forms of accountability are not stimulating the up-building of trust in and of the sector. In the conclusion, some reflections are offered as alternatives to the current situation.

In response to neoliberal policies that have been in place since 1985, Bolivian young people have increasingly used hip hop music as a means of protest and to reclaim social and political participation. Hip hop in Latin America tells the story of the struggles that marginalized people have suffered, and speaks to the effects of international policies fueled by globalization. This paper focuses on what the Bolivian hip hopper Nina Uma calls "Hip hop revolution": a hip hop that critiques and interrogates the social, political, and economic structure, the differences between the haves and the have nots, and proposes using hip hop to spread "education as cultural action of freedom". This article examines the ways young people of El Alto, Bolivia are making sense of their social, political, and economic context. (Contains 17 notes.)

In response to exclusionary globalisation processes, Bolivia forms part of a wider Latin American return to regionalism and nationalism. With the indigenous president Morales, Bolivia distances itself from "imposed" neoliberal policies, aiming instead for "dignity and decolonisation". The Bolivian conflict is characterised by historical processes of poverty and inequality, discrimination and exclusion, a regional autonomy struggle linked to separatist discourses and identity politics, mistrust in the state and between societal groups and a tradition of (violent) popular pressure methods. Both urban and rural teachers play crucial roles in these processes of conflict. Drawing on insights from critical educational theories and the strategic relational approach, the paper analyses the possibilities and challenges Bolivian teachers face in changing this context of continuing tensions, discrimination and instability. It presents an analysis of teachers' complex identities, motivations and possible role as actors for or against change towards a just and peaceful society. (Contains 21 notes.)

The central aim of the present paper is to examine, from the Social Studies, Modern Languages, and Science Education perspectives, the role of the Project Citizen initiative in school communities of Bolivia. To that end, Project Citizen in Bolivia, during its first three years of implementation will be discussed, followed by views from each field (Social Studies, Foreign Languages, and Science Education) regarding the effect of this educational approach in Bolivian schools. For this purpose, the four core values suggested by Robinson and Taylor (2007) will serve as a framework to explore student voice: 1. A conception of communication as dialogue, 2. The requirement for participation and democratic inclusivity, 3. The recognition that power relations are unequal and problematic, and 4. The possibility for change and transformation.

In this paper we examine state and indigenous education in Bolivia. Focusing on debates about the hidden curriculum, we conceptualize the school as a political space where tensions between the overlapping jurisdictional powers of the hispanicizing state and indigenous authorities are played out. Our analysis of these tensions highlights the contested way in which indigenous educational policy is negotiated in Bolivia and points to the importance of the deep structures of the hidden curriculum in constructing the school as a territorial authority and a site of struggle in indigenous communities. Using the communities of Raqaypampa, Cochabamba as a case study, we show how local struggles over indigenous education in the 1980s and 1990s became scaled up to influence national educational policy and donor intervention strategies in Bolivia. (Contains 23 notes.)