“School, Identity and Discrimination”

IIEP recently held an International forum on this issue in Buenos Aires.

Organized by the IIEP regional office in Buenos Aires on 13-14 October, the forum aimed at promoting a debate on the challenges posed by the complex and growing diversity of Latin American societies in the field of education policy.

The forum was organized around an inaugural conference and three panels of Experts coming from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, France, Guatemala, Mexico and Spain, and resulted in an enriching debate on articulated elements providing:

  • a thorough diagnosis of the social and education situation in the region;
  • conceptual resources to meet the challenge of education in diverse societies; and
  • ideas for designing policies to ensure universal access to knowledge.

Three lines of reflection emerged:

1. The need to better understand the notion of diversity including those groups that are part of the identity and history of the region, such as peoples of indigenous and African descent, but also to consider other multiple expressions of identity which co-exist today, especially amongst adolescents and youth.

2. Develop a programme focusing on the need to promote policies based on recognition, without putting aside a central issue in Latin American countries – the challenge of redistribution – closely linked to the inequalities which characterize the countries of the region and their educational systems.

3. Emphasis was placed on the fact that the goal of quality education for all will not be achieved without taking into account the multiple discrimination which persists in the daily performance of the education systems and their schools.

Papers presented and discussed in this forum will be published in 2011 by IIPE Buenos Aires.







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