Download Democratic Citizenship Education in Latin America

Democratic Citizenship Education in Latin America
Global Interests, Institutional Forms,
Contested Meanings
Bradley A.U. Levinson
Juan G. Berumen
Indiana University
Overview
• Political democratization across Latin America, post 1983
• Imperative to create a “new citizen” for a “democratic
culture”
• Globalization, NGOs, and the “market” for democratic
citizenship education (DCE/FCD)
• Local appropriations/hybrids of globalizing educational
models
The organizational and
institutional landscape
Initial questions:
• What are the major organizations sponsoring democracy,
and how do they work? Who funds them?
• What laws and policy statements have been passed that are
driving these programs?
• What is the political/social context in which certain kinds
of programs and policies are being developed?
• What role do government agencies, especially ministries of
education, play in developing and implementing these
programs and what role do various NGOs play? What
kinds of collaborations/relationships, if any, exist between
these 2 different sectors?
The organizational and
institutional landscape (continued)
• Democratic social movements: within and without
ministries of education
• National ministries of education and the civil society
(NGO) sector
• The Inter-American Democratic Charter and the OAS
initiative
• Increased engagement with international NGOs and donor
agencies
Key values of democratic citizenship:
Contested meanings
Initial questions:
• In programs and initiatives, how is “democracy”
implicitly/explicitly defined or conceived?
• How is “the democratic citizen” implicitly/explicitly
defined or conceived?
• What kinds of knowledge, competencies, values, or
dispositions are highlighted?
• What is the political/social context in which certain
values and competencies are highlighted over others?
Key values of democratic citizenship:
Contested meanings (continued)
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Respect for authority and rule of law
Discipline and peaceful conflict resolution
Privacy and individual choice
Tolerance and respect for diversity
Equality and social justice (gender? ethnicity?)
Responsibility and civic participation
Examples…
Aristóbulo Izturiz,
Secretary of Education, Venezuela
Talks about need to turn turn democracia política into
democracia social; educación para un estado de derecho
into educación para justicia social; democracia formal
into democracia participativa; and democracia
representativa into democracia protagónica. Democratic
education is thus oriented toward the “new” democratic
society, towards “participación y protagonismo en la toma
de decisiones.”
Examples…
Lorenzo Gómez-Morín,
Subsecretary for Basic Education, Mexico
He highlights the features of the secondary program,
Education for a Culture of Lawfulness, which puts
emphasis on combating delinquency and corruption, but
also the “fortalecimiento de los procesos de toma de
decisiones dentro de un marco de respeto a la ley.”