This book seeks to offer the most up-to-date and relevant sample of contemporary research on Latin American education, by inviting the reader to understand the complexities, heterogenetics, nightmares, dreams, crisis and promises of education in the region.

We are living in a time of resurgent global conflicts and imperialistic tensions--a time in which many children are being left behind by school systems that appear more concerned with developing accountability schemes and standardized models of testing than with defending the right of every child to have access to a good education. The efforts of countless teachers, activists, and families working and living in poor areas around the world are labeled as failures, entirely discredited on the basis of their expendability in relation to capital gains, or simply ignored. In response to these...

This book calls for a different understanding of the professional preparation of pre-service teachers, critically reflecting on issues of caring and gender, and challenging the dominance of 'words only' educational research methodologies. Using conceptual tools from visual anthropology, cultural studies, feminism and critical pedagogy, Fischman focuses on the educational dilemmas that students and professors in teacher education programs face within institutions that reinforce, rather than challenge, oppressive class, racial, ethnic and gender dynamics. He pays special attention to the...