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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 article presents a longitudinal research study that led to the development of a theoretical framework for explaining how students experience the process of transformational learning in service-learning. The article describes nonreflective and reflective dimensions of the process of transformational learning. The author recommends that future research focus on supporting the transformative potential of service-learning. (Contains 1 figure and 9 notes.)

This article reports findings from a longitudinal case study investigating how students experience perspective transformation from their participation in international service-learning program with an explicit social justice orientation. Findings indicate that each student experienced profound changes in their world-view in at least one of six dimensions: political, moral, intellectual, personal, spiritual, and cultural. Importantly, the study found that students who initially expressed a willingness to change their lifestyle and work for social justice experienced ongoing conflict and struggle in their attempts to translate their critical awareness into meaningful action. (Contains 3 tables and 8 notes.)

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to present the experience of a Central American university that has been successfully advancing an educational model focused on sustainability for over 25 years. Many universities in industrialized nations are assuming a more active role in promoting sustainable development, while in emerging countries, interest in this issue is recent and not well known. Design/methodology/approach: A study was conducted on perceptions of the impact from graduates of EARTH ("Escuela de Agricultura de la Región Tropical Húmeda") University in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala, utilizing a mixed methodology that combined the application of a standardized questionnaire, together with focus groups of graduates, and semi-structured interviews of graduates, their employers, members of their communities, clients of the companies where they work and colleagues. Findings: Agricultural engineers who received their education at EARTH University have had a positive social, economic and environmental impact in their communities of origin. They have taken on leadership positions and have become change agents who are aware of the social needs around them. They contribute to economic growth and job creation, and at the same time, promote sustainable management of natural resources. Research limitations/implications: It is a case study and their findings are limited. Practical implications: Learning about EARTH University's experience may be useful for other higher education institutions seeking to cultivate this perspective in their degree programs, and for academics who support a fundamental reorientation in higher education aimed at confronting the challenge of promoting sustainable development. Social implications: The results established that most of the agronomists who studied at EARTH University are having a positive economic, social and environmental influence, which appears to be closely associated with their university education. This suggests that higher education may in effect play an important role in promoting sustainability and contributing elements for advancing this perspective in higher education in Latin America. Originality/value: This study of EARTH University's educational model reveals that, in the case of Latin America, education for sustainability cannot be limited to providing training in natural resources management. The promotion of inclusive development supposes that students have learned how to manage productive activities that are economically and socially sustainable, and that students have received a solid education in values, aimed at fostering a commitment to build a fairer society.

One of the challenges of population aging is to ensure that there are enough trained professionals to meet the changing, specific needs of aging populations. The aim of this study was to describe the number, geographical distribution, and general characteristics of gerontological training programs offered by Latin American universities and to analyze their disciplinary content and the degree of similarity among programs. One hundred undergraduate and postgraduate programs with gerontological content were found to be offered by Latin American universities. Information on the institutional affiliation, academic level, management, length, and content of the programs was analyzed. Descriptive statistics were run and content analysis was performed on the programs' syllabuses to address the objectives of the study. Results show that despite being a relatively young region of the world, the majority of Latin American universities offer gerontological programs. However, the nature of this course offering seems to be quite diverse across countries. Moreover, the analysis of the programs' disciplinary content indicates that the program providers take a multidisciplinary approach to gerontology. The great diversity of programs and their multidisciplinary contents suggest a low degree of standardization of gerontological training in Latin America.

Technical and vocational education and training (TVET) is increasingly emphasised by international education organisations. In Nicaragua, particularly, this type of engagement is viewed as a potential for boosting the economy, improving employment and building the infrastructure and sustainability of remote and marginalised communities. To date, one specific region in Nicaragua has thoughtfully engaged multiple sectors to support TVET through public-private partnerships (PPPs) and community-level networks. The data for this article were collected through in-person interviews with TVET stakeholders over a two-week site visit in support of a USAID evaluation. In addition to interviews, data collection included analyses of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of TVET providers in the region. This study considers the demographics, economics and educational realities of Nicaragua and the potential for PPPs to enhance opportunities for youth and community development.

In this article two dimensions of handshape complexity are analyzed as potential building blocks of phonological contrast-joint complexity and finger group complexity. We ask whether sign language patterns are elaborations of those seen in the gestures produced by hearing people without speech (pantomime) or a more radical reorganization of them. Data from adults and children are analyzed to address issues of cross-linguistic variation, emergence, and acquisition. Study 1 addresses these issues in adult signers and gesturers from the United States, Italy, China, and Nicaragua. Study 2 addresses these issues in child and adult groups (signers and gesturers) from the United States, Italy, and Nicaragua. We argue that handshape undergoes a fairly radical reorganization, including loss and reorganization of iconicity and feature redistribution, as phonologization takes place in both of these dimensions. Moreover, while the patterns investigated here are not evidence of duality of patterning, we conclude that they are indeed phonological and that they appear earlier than related morphosyntactic patterns that use the same types of handshape.

This study seeks to explain macrolevel drivers of adolescent fertility rate using a panel data set derived from 17 Latin American countries over a period of 16 years (1997-2012). While many studies of adolescent fertility have focused on individual-level explanations, this study explores whether adolescent fertility rate is correlated to country-level determinants, specifically legislation adoption that guarantees access to school-based sexuality education, emergency contraception, and abortion. After controlling for other country-level factors, we find that countries that have adopted legislation on school-based sexuality education and those with legal access to abortion (under one or more restrictions) have lower adolescent fertility rates.

This article looks at the concept of "internationalised applied theatre" within Nicaraguan non-profit arts organisation Movimiento Teatro Popular Sin Fronteras (Movitep-SF). It examines the push-and-pull factors between local sovereignties and the international aid industry, and shows how this interaction occurs on a micro-level between the commissioning and execution of annual theatre festivals within Movitep-SF. More specifically, this article provides a discussion of how the international aid industry has been controlling the aesthetic discourses and social outcomes of "teatro popular." I argue that the manifestation of theatre due to the conditionality of foreign aid agendas serves neither the art form nor the community in the long term.

Objectives: To (1) describe barriers to diabetes prevention and self-management, (2) explore how religious beliefs inform diabetes prevention and self-management and (3) describe community action strategies to address the problem of diabetes locally. Design: Qualitative, descriptive design. Setting: Three Moravian Churches located, respectively, in Bluefields, Pearl Lagoon and Tasbapounie on Nicaragua's Southern Atlantic Coast. Methods: Using convenience sampling procedures, local church pastors or leaders, health professionals and local lay adults with or at-risk for type 2 diabetes were recruited. Structured by an interview guide, focus groups were conducted. Data were analysed using Krippendorff's content analysis method. Results: Barriers to diabetes prevention and self-management behaviours included financial constraints, inconsistent availability of diabetes medications and testing supplies, and limited diabetes knowledge. Religious faith was identified as central in coping with the daily demands of preventing or self-managing diabetes. Community action strategies to address diabetes included (1) the formation of interdisciplinary diabetes teams, (2) church-based diabetes care and (3) public health announcements. Conclusion: Findings informed culturally sensitive diabetes prevention and self-management education through the identified community action strategies.

Picture an undocumented student, and for most college counselors, it will be the image of a Latino student. However, the reality is that students from many other ethnic groups lack documentation as well. These students hail from everywhere. According to DreamActivist.org, an online resource network for undocumented students, they come from places such as Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Ecuador, England, Fiji, France, Ghana, Guatemala, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Mexico, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Senegal, South Korea, Taiwan, Tonga, and Venezuela. According to one of DreamActivist's founders, Prerna, the network has "black dreamies, brown dreamies, yellow dreamies, white dreamies--a rainbow full of dreamies." "Dreamies" refers to students who would benefit from the DREAM Act, a piece of legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for undocumented students who were brought to the US as minors. In this article, the author presents stories of five undocumented students and emphasizes the significant role of counselors in reaching out to this population by making information readily available and maintaining an environment of open dialogue, where no students feel judged.

This study examines possible semantic interaction in fully fluent adult simultaneous and early second language (L2) bilinguals. Monolingual and bilingual speakers of Spanish and English (n = 144) were tested for their understanding of lexical categories that differed in their two languages. Simultaneous bilinguals came from homes in which Spanish or Spanish and English were spoken when they were children, and L2 bilinguals entered the US as children. Accuracy data show higher ultimate attainment of language-specific semantic knowledge in English than in Spanish, but in both languages the interaction of the semantic categories with conceptual knowledge is observable. The data reveal subtle differences in early bilinguals' extensions of words, but only in some types of categories, and modified by level of proficiency.

This article proposes a conceptual framework for how education can promote adolescent girls' empowerment and, by mapping the field, highlights promising examples of empowering education programs. We conclude by identifying both research and programmatic opportunities for the future that will harness the expertise of a range of specialists from the interdisciplinary fields of gender studies and adolescent development in collaboration with experts from the fields of education, health, and labor.

This study examined a two-year special education and inclusive practices in-service training programme with a university in Nicaragua. Participants included 14 teachers from nine schools in Nicaragua. Participants' knowledge of special education concepts were evaluated as part of assessing the training modules. In addition, programme evaluation information were collected. Results from the knowledge pre- and post-test indicated that participants made significant gains in their special education knowledge and the module evaluation forms indicate participants were highly satisfied with the project. Recommendations for planning and implementing a future training programme are also provided.

This study revisits case learning's effects on student engagement and assesses student learning as a result of the use of case studies and problem-based learning. The author replicates a previous study that used indirect assessment techniques to get at case learning's impact, and then extends the analysis using a pre- and post-test experimental design to test whether case learning tools yield differential learning gains. Results confirm that while active learning does not lead to greater knowledge gains, it does often lead to different types of learning gains. Case-based materials led students to recall more about the texts used, and learn more about the cases being examined, and helped students gain a better understanding of central ideas and theoretical concepts than did control units without case-based approaches, confirming much of the previous research in this area.

Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are used to reduce poverty while incentivizing investments in children. Targeting CCTs to certain groups of children can improve efficiency, but positive effects on eligible children may be offset by reductions in investments for ineligible siblings. Using data from Nicaragua, we estimate program effects on eligible children and older siblings who aged out of eligibility. We find that CCTs had the largest effects on eligible children, but older brothers also benefited through increased schooling and fewer hours worked. These results suggest that income effects of CCTs apply to both eligible and ineligible children.

La Casa de los Colores (the House of Colors) is a feminist organization dedicated to defending human rights, particularly those of the LGBTQ+ community in León, Nicaragua. In 2016 Helen Alfaro, Yova Briones, Ani Guerrero, and Tannia Rizo Lazo, four members of La Casa's leadership team, "Las Coloras," were invited to speak about Nicaragua's sexual diversity and feminist movements in Women's Lives and Experiences in Nicaragua, a class offered by the University of Wisconsin--Eau Claire women's, gender, and sexuality studies program in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. In this interview, Helen Alfaro, Yova Briones, and Tannia Rizo Lazo discuss the history and the objectives of La Casa de los Colores and provide an overview of the programming offered by their organization. Additionally, they explain the theoretical and pedagogical framework that informs their engagement with the people of León--a city of approximately 201,110 people--and its surrounding area. Las Coloras detail the many challenges they face: the state of democracy, freedom, and human rights under today's Sandinismo, religion, divisions within and between Nicaragua's feminist and sexual diversity movements, financial constraints, and rural and urban outreach.

In 2009, the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire's (UWEC) women's studies program offered its first iteration of the faculty-led international immersion course Women's Lives and Experiences in Nicaragua. This program was created and initially led by Dr. Rose-Marie Avin, a faculty member in the economics department and an affiliate member of both women's studies and Latin American studies (LAS). Over the years, various faculty affiliated with both women's studies and LAS have continued to lead the program. In the first few years, the program took place in the colonial city of Granada. However, a number of factors led them to move the program's location in 2015 to Matagalpa, a more northern and mountainous city of about 150,000 known for its coffee growing. In Matagalpa, the university has found a new in-country partner, Colibrí Spanish School, which has enabled students and faculty to learn from a highly skilled group of feminist educators, entrepreneurs, and community activists. On 12 January 2016, Colibrí's Noelia Corrales and Lussiana Salazar kindly sat down with Theresa Kemp for an hour to talk about the history and development of Colibrí, its mission, and their perspective on the experience of working with faculty and students from UWEC. They discuss the history of Colibri, Colibri's feminist vision, and discuss their experiences collaborating with the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire's women's studies program.

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 article describes and analyzes how rural Nicaraguan teachers and NGO leaders are working with a US university-based team to develop a locally responsive, critical, and inquiry-based approach to the Ministry of Education requirement for English in secondary school. This requirement has placed a new and challenging expectation upon rural teachers, many of whom do not have basic English proficiency. Through macro level comparative analysis of language situations in different countries, coupled with meso and micro level analysis of authentic uses of English in their communities, the teachers and their US partners are shifting assumptions in multiple ways: from assuming that rural teachers need to be foreign language experts to re-envisioning teachers as co-explorers of languages together with their students; from assuming that Nicaragua has uniform needs for English to recognizing regional variation in the need for English; from assuming the availability of urban language learning tools and technologies to valuing and using rural resources that are locally available; and from reliance on so-called "foreign experts" to supporting community-based Nicaraguan teachers as leaders. Taken together, these shifts inform an emerging approach that supports teachers to move away from passive acceptance of language education policy and toward a more engaged, critical, and practical stance toward the introduction of English into the curriculum.

This article addresses how capacity is conceived of and understood in youth media/civic education programming, and how beliefs about agency, development, relationality and youth manifests in the discourses, programmes, and practices of organizations operating youth media programmes. Through attention to a youth media and development programme in rural Nicaragua, the article addresses a key gap in theorizing "how" capacity operates within discourses and related practices that constitute "youth media" and, in particular, it critically investigates how youth media discourse rests on an assumed foundation where capacity is defined as agency, empowerment or voice. This article situates youth media production within modernist discourses about education, development and "change," in order to re-conceptualize agency through a mobilities framework that more fully attends to the complex and affective moments in youth media discourses.

There is a clear need to support global professional development, international education, and collaborative learning opportunities in Extension. The program described here established an international learning exchange in Nicaragua to lead to global professional development and future international collaboration. The primary lessons and outcomes include first-hand experience of how rural outreach/Extension agencies in a foreign culture address similar issues, development of a multi-disciplined Extension educator network, opportunities for information sharing with U.S./Nicaraguan colleagues, and realization of the role Extension educators play as global citizens to develop innovative Extension programs within a global context. Implications for future exchanges are discussed.

There is a long-standing debate as to whether nonexperimental estimators of causal effects of social programs can overcome selection bias. Most existing reviews either are inconclusive or point to significant selection biases in nonexperimental studies. However, many of the reviews, the so-called "between-studies," do not make direct comparisons of the estimates. We survey four impact studies, all using data from development interventions that directly compare experimental and nonexperimental impact estimates. Our review illustrates that when the program participation process is well understood, and correctly modeled, then the nonexperimental estimators can overcome the selection bias to the same degree as randomized controlled trials. Hence, we suggest that evaluators of development programs aim to be careful and precise in the formulation of the statistical model for the assignment into the program and also to use the assignment information for model-based systematic sampling. (Contains 4 tables and 5 notes.)

This article explores the role of the Deaf child as peer educator. In schools where sign languages were banned, Deaf children became the educators of their Deaf peers in a number of contexts worldwide. This paper analyses how this peer education of sign language worked in context by drawing on two examples from boarding schools for the deaf in Nicaragua and Thailand. The argument is advanced that these practices constituted a child-led oppositional pedagogy. A connection is drawn to Freire's (1972) theory of critical pedagogy. Deaf children's actions as peer educators are framed as an act of resistance towards the oppression of their language and culture. A contrast is drawn between oralist pedagogy that is historically associated with punitive practices and didactic methods and the experiential and dialogic interaction that characterised peer learning of sign languages. The argument is made that the peer teaching and learning processes enabled the self-actualisation of the Deaf children whereas the oralist methods were based on a deficit model that focused on modifying deaf children according to the norms of hearing society. The implications of this for current policy and practice are inferred to be about access to sign languages and the importance of Deaf communities in deaf children's education. The argument is made that space needs to be created for deaf children to engage in peer learning.

In its recent report outlining principles for teaching undergraduate students in psychology, the American Psychological Association Board of Educational Affairs recommended including experiential learning in the curriculum and identified study abroad opportunities as being particularly valuable. Unfortunately, although American universities offer hundreds of faculty-led study abroad programs, only a handful of the programs offer coursework in psychology. In this article, I describe a program in Nicaragua on the psychology of social inequality I developed and have been leading for the past 10 years. I begin by describing the structure of the program and discuss my pedagogical approach and goals for the program. I then discuss research related to the value of short-term study abroad and provide evidence for the success of the Nicaragua program. Finally, I outline some initial steps in the program development process and urge faculty members to consider designing new study abroad programs in psychology. (Contains 2 notes.)

This paper explores Nicaragua's Participative Education Revolution and the Citizen Power national development model in the construction of socialism in the 21st century in Latin America and the Caribbean through the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America--Peoples' Trade Agreement. Centred around the notion of "revolutionary democracy", I argue that Citizen Power, promoted by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (Frente Sandinista de Liberacion Nacional, FSLN) since returning to government in January 2007, means the structural transformation from neoliberalism to socialism. Rather than providing a comprehensive analysis of the FSLN education policies, I explore two elements of the Participative Education Revolution of direct relevance to the construction of socialism/revolutionary democracy: the National Literacy Campaign "From Marti to Fidel" and the 2007/2008 Great National Consultation for the Reform of the Basic and Medium Education Curriculum. (Contains 19 notes.)

Objectives: Research from developed countries shows that child maltreatment increases the risk for substance use and problems. However, little evidence on this relationship is available from developing countries, and recognition of this relationship may have important implications for substance demand reduction strategies, including efforts to prevent and treat substance use and related problems. Latin America and the Caribbean is a rich and diverse region of the world with a large range of social and cultural influences. A working group constituted by the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in June, 2010 identified research on this relationship as a priority area for a multinational research partnership. Methods: This paper examines the association between self-reported child maltreatment and use in the past 12 months of alcohol and cannabis in 2294 university students in seven participating universities in six participating countries: Colombia, El Salvador, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama and Uruguay. The research also considers the possible impact of religiosity and minimal psychological distress as factors contributing to resiliency in these samples. Results: The results showed that experience of maltreatment was associated with increased use of alcohol and cannabis. However, the effects differed depending on the type of maltreatment experienced. Higher levels of religiosity were consistently associated with lower levels of alcohol and cannabis use, but we found no evidence of an impact of minimal psychological distress on these measures. Conclusions: This preliminary study shows that the experience of maltreatment may increase the risk of alcohol and cannabis use among university students in Latin American and Caribbean countries, but that higher levels of religiosity may reduce that risk. More work to determine the nature and significance of these relationships is needed. (Contains 2 tables.)

In measuring human development, one of the main concerns relates to the inclusion of a measure that penalizes inequalities in the distribution of achievements across the population. Using indicators from nationally representative household surveys and census data, this paper proposes a straightforward methodology to estimate a household-based distribution-sensitive human development index aggregated through generalized means. The evidence shows that the losses in human development due to inequality reach up 22, 29 and 57% in Mexico, Peru and Nicaragua, respectively. Among dimensions, the loss in the income index reaches up 61% in Nicaragua, while the education index appears as the most sensitive in the case of Mexico and Peru, with a percentage of loss between 38 and 48%. The importance of household-level calculations is highlighted when we compare the indices computed from the entire distribution with those existing indices computed for quintiles of the distribution, which minimizes the losses due to inequality. Overall, the estimations evidence a higher sensitivity of the index to inequality, and therefore an important space for public action to reduce inequality that could involve positive development returns. (Contains 5 figures, 5 tables and 15 footnotes.)

This article draws comparative lessons from seven job satisfaction studies on marine capture fishing that were recently carried out in nine countries and three geographical regions--Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. The seven studies made use of an identical job satisfaction assessment tool and present information on a selection of metiers mainly in the small-scale and semi-industrial fishing sectors. The responses manifest statistically significant geographical variation. Multidimensional plots and cluster analyses lead the authors to identify three clusters: (1) Southeast Asian (Vietnam and Thailand); (2) Caribbean (Belize, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic) and (3) Afro-Indian (Senegal, Guinea Bissau, and India). Jamaica is a significant outlier. On a general level, the authors conclude that fishers who report that they are not interested in leaving the occupation of fishing score higher on three traditional job satisfaction scales--basic needs, social needs and self actualization. Those who say they would leave fishing for another occupation are younger, have less fishing experience and smaller households. The latter findings are of relevance with regard to the pressing need, felt by fisheries managers, to move fishers out of the fishery. (Contains 6 figures and 11 tables.)