Workshops > Education access in the Americas

EDUCATION ACCESS IN THE AMERICAS

Organization: Sonia Birocheau (Université Paris-Est Créteil), Esther Cyna (Université Paris Saclay) and Artemisa Flores Espinola (Université Paris Saclay).

Abstract:

To examine access to education on the American continent is a multifaceted endeavor. It means engaging in a dialogue with very robust Caribbean, Central, North and South American historiographies which have looked at systems as well as actors, geographies as well as temporalities, structures and curricula as well as inequalities. It also means reflecting on the methods that researchers have used to study these issues, be they anthropological studies of indigenous populations, for example, sociological studies of certain cohorts, geographical case studies that explore different  locales or work at different scales, or historical studies of evolving trends and patterns. It also means  centering on a concept – education – which combines public institutions and the private sphere, and which has been at the heart of the political construction of the various American nations, regions and  states, and continues to shape them. The panel will promote dialogue between researchers on the  Americas from various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences to encourage comparative  and transnational perspectives.

For this panel, we invite researchers from various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences  to consider the following themes and approaches:

• The reality of access to primary, secondary and higher education, historically and in the  present day;
• Historical or contemporary discrimination faced by certain populations in the field of  education;  
• The transformation of educational landscapes by market logics and privatization;
• Dynamics of resistance in the education sector, whether individual, collective or institutional;
• Culture wars and controversies surrounding school curricula and the restriction of access to  certain types of knowledge and information.