Day 1
Title: The various roles of Civil Society Organizations in Education in Latin America: From service delivery to advocacy
10:30am-11:50am
Panel Description
This panel offers new research on some strategies of civil society organizations dedicated to education for children and youth in Latin America. Three case studies analyze different roles currently being filled by these organizations, as well as some of their key challenges: Through cases from Colombia and Chile, the first article analyzes private public partnerships (PPPs) in education, private provision and competition between schools, as hypotheses about social betterment that need to be unpacked and tested before we assume they have an impact. Through the concept of NGO Diplomacies, the second article analyzes non-governmental actors’ transnational decision-making in global politics and local-global interactions Through the case of Mexicanos Primero the third article studies the strategic and accountability challenges of advocacy organizations within the field of education
Panelists
Antoni Verger, Antonio Alejo, Constanza Lafuente, Cristián Bellei
Discussant
Regina Cortina
Antoni Verger
Biography
Antoni Verger is associate professor at the Department of Sociology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. A former postdoctoral fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (University of Amsterdam), Dr. Verger research has specialized in the study of the relationship between global governance institutions and education policy. In particular, his research focuses on policies such as public-private partnerships and quasi-markets in education, and, in territorial terms, has mainly conducted research in the Latin American region (Argentina, Colombia and Chile). He has published more than four dozen journal articles, book chapters and edited books on these themes.
Panel Abstract
Alianzas Público-Privado en educación (o los Cuasi-Mercados Educativos) en América Latina desde una perspectiva de la evaluación realista / Public-private partnerships in education in Latin America: A realist evaluation approach
Market mechanisms in educational provision, under the form of so-called Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in education, have received a strong and renewed push by a considerable number of international organizations, development agencies and scholars. Latin America is one of the regions that has experimented for a longer period with these policy ideas in the education sector. Countries like Chile and Colombia have implemented, for some decades now, two of the most emblematic models of PPPs in education, a universal voucher scheme and a charter school system respectively.
To market advocates, the presence of private provision and competition between schools is identified as a key factor to increase school quality and efficiency. To them, giving more autonomy to both public and private providers is conceived also as a source of competition and school effectiveness. Nonetheless, the presumed benefits of PPPs in education are widely disseminated despite the existing empirical evidence on the impact of market mechanisms in educational provision is extremely weak (cf. Waslander, 2010). Markets in education’ advocates assume that the rules under which competition takes place configure genuine market dynamics in which the conditions defined in neoclassical economic theory are taken as a given. On the basis of the cases of Chile and Colombia, this paper reflects on the abundant alterations and ‘failures’ that market mechanisms suffer in real (non hypothetical) scenarios. Methodologically speaking, the presentation is based on the so-called ‘realist evaluation’ (cf. Pawson, 2013), a theory-driven evaluation approach that understands policy programs, in our case PPPs in education, as hypotheses about social betterment that need to be unpacked and tested before we assume they have an impact.
Antonio Alejo
Biography
Antonio Alejo is a postdoctoral fellow researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam, in The Hague, with support from the Mexican National Council of Technology and Science (CONACYT). He currently works at the Civic Innovation Research Initiative (CIRI), where his research focuses on the concept of NGO diplomacy as a transnational activism that operates in a global political environment. Dr. Alejo analyzes cases of citizen diplomacy interactions with the National Ministries of Foreign Affairs in Argentina and Mexico, in relation to the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation and the Post-2015 agenda. He also was postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Humanities at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). Antonio Alejo completed his Ph.D. in Contemporary Political Processes at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Panel Abstract
NGO Diplomacies and Transnational Activism: The Case of Equipo Pueblo in Mexico
Through the case of Equipo Pueblo, an NGO in Mexico, this study offers new ways to explain transnational activism in the Americas. The purpose of this study is to understand how education-related Latin American NGOs are becoming increasingly transnational in a globalized world, by focusing on the collective action experiences of Equipo Pueblo. The case study analyzes the transnational practices of this organization, explaining how the local and global spheres of action interact, and showing how the organization transmits global issues to its local community. The concept of NGO Diplomacies is proposed to study the transnational activism of NGOs in global politics in the 21st Century, including global awareness, interaction between the local and global spheres, and repertoire of transnational actions that NGOs use to influence global politics.
Constanza Lafuente
Biography
Dr. Constanza Lafuente is Program Supervisor at Bank Street College of Education in New York City. She is also an adjunct professor at Teachers College, Columbia University where she teaches the graduate course “NGOs in International Educational Development”. Dr. Constanza Lafuente obtained her Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education with a concentration in Political Science at Teachers College, Columbia University, in 2010, with a Fulbright scholarship. Her research expertise includes the study of strategies and networks of education civil society organizations (CSOs), Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Transnational Advocacy Organizations (TANs), their sustainability and network management, within the field of international education.
Panel Abstract
The Accountability Practices of an Advocacy Organization: The Case of Mexicanos Primero.
This paper explores the strategic and accountability challenges of advocacy organizations within the field of education through the case of Mexicanos Primero, an education civil society organization (CSO) that promotes the right to education. Mexicanos Primero demands accountability from public authorities in their use of public funds allocated for public education, and it is the first organization in Mexico to use legal resources—class action suits, injunctions, and appeals—to protect the constitutional right to education in Mexico. As CSOs arise as notable actors petitioning education reform and teachers evaluations, their organizational practices become major topics of study, building on existing research on multiple aspects of these organizations that examines impact, strategies and accountability practice and how these organizations interact with donors, public authorities and beneficiaries. The focus here is to study the challenges entailed in designing and implementing accountability mechanisms that include a broad range of stakeholders such as parents, students and teachers, while at the same time staying true to their mission. This qualitative case study is based on in-depth interviews with managers and professional staff, as well as an analysis of the organization’s public documents and website.
Cristián Bellei
Biography
Cristián Bellei (Doctor of Education, Harvard University; Master in International Education Policy, Harvard University; Sociologist, University of Chile) is an associate researcher of the Center for Advanced Research in Education and assistant professor in the Sociology Department, both at the University of Chile. His main research areas are educational policy, school effectiveness, and school improvement; he has published extensively about quality and equity in Chilean education.
Panel Abstract
Chilean Student Movements and Civil Society Organizations: The Collective Struggles to Transform a Market-oriented Educational System
During the last decade, Chilean society was shaken by sharply critical and powerful student movements: secondary students led the 2006 “Penguin Revolution” and university students led the 2011 “Chilean Winter”. Many students’ organizations across the country participated in those movements, which also had the active support of several civil society organizations. This article describes and analyzes these student movements to illustrate how student organizations can be highly relevant political actors in the educational arena. First, we explain the main features of the Chilean educational system, including its extreme degree of marketization, which provided the institutional context of the movements. Next, we analyze the key components and characteristics of the 2006 and 2011 student movements to describe basic features of the two movements and identify common elements of these movements, especially from an education policy perspective. We mainly focus on the link between students’ demands and discourses and the market-oriented institutions that prevail in Chilean education. Additionally, we describe and analyze the relationship between the student movements’ and civil society organizations (CSO); certainly, we identify students’ organizations as the key CSOs leading both movements; nevertheless, other CSOs also participated in both movements, although with varying levels of coordination. We also identify the movements’ impact on educational debates and policies in Chile, and examine the complexities for implementing the requested changes to “revert” some of the marketization dynamics. We conclude discussing key lessons from an educational policy perspective, recognizing that this is still an open-ended process in Chile.
Co-authored by Víctor Orellana and Cristian Cabalín
Regina Cortina, Discussant
Title: The various roles of Civil Society Organizations in Education in Latin America: From service delivery to advocacy
10:30am-11:50am
Panel Description
This panel offers new research on some strategies of civil society organizations dedicated to education for children and youth in Latin America. Three case studies analyze different roles currently being filled by these organizations, as well as some of their key challenges: Through cases from Colombia and Chile, the first article analyzes private public partnerships (PPPs) in education, private provision and competition between schools, as hypotheses about social betterment that need to be unpacked and tested before we assume they have an impact. Through the concept of NGO Diplomacies, the second article analyzes non-governmental actors’ transnational decision-making in global politics and local-global interactions Through the case of Mexicanos Primero the third article studies the strategic and accountability challenges of advocacy organizations within the field of education
Panelists
Antoni Verger, Antonio Alejo, Constanza Lafuente, Cristián Bellei
Discussant
Regina Cortina
Antoni Verger
Biography
Antoni Verger is associate professor at the Department of Sociology of the Autonomous University of Barcelona. A former postdoctoral fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (University of Amsterdam), Dr. Verger research has specialized in the study of the relationship between global governance institutions and education policy. In particular, his research focuses on policies such as public-private partnerships and quasi-markets in education, and, in territorial terms, has mainly conducted research in the Latin American region (Argentina, Colombia and Chile). He has published more than four dozen journal articles, book chapters and edited books on these themes.
Panel Abstract
Alianzas Público-Privado en educación (o los Cuasi-Mercados Educativos) en América Latina desde una perspectiva de la evaluación realista / Public-private partnerships in education in Latin America: A realist evaluation approach
Market mechanisms in educational provision, under the form of so-called Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs) in education, have received a strong and renewed push by a considerable number of international organizations, development agencies and scholars. Latin America is one of the regions that has experimented for a longer period with these policy ideas in the education sector. Countries like Chile and Colombia have implemented, for some decades now, two of the most emblematic models of PPPs in education, a universal voucher scheme and a charter school system respectively.
To market advocates, the presence of private provision and competition between schools is identified as a key factor to increase school quality and efficiency. To them, giving more autonomy to both public and private providers is conceived also as a source of competition and school effectiveness. Nonetheless, the presumed benefits of PPPs in education are widely disseminated despite the existing empirical evidence on the impact of market mechanisms in educational provision is extremely weak (cf. Waslander, 2010). Markets in education’ advocates assume that the rules under which competition takes place configure genuine market dynamics in which the conditions defined in neoclassical economic theory are taken as a given. On the basis of the cases of Chile and Colombia, this paper reflects on the abundant alterations and ‘failures’ that market mechanisms suffer in real (non hypothetical) scenarios. Methodologically speaking, the presentation is based on the so-called ‘realist evaluation’ (cf. Pawson, 2013), a theory-driven evaluation approach that understands policy programs, in our case PPPs in education, as hypotheses about social betterment that need to be unpacked and tested before we assume they have an impact.
Antonio Alejo
Biography
Antonio Alejo is a postdoctoral fellow researcher at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) at Erasmus University Rotterdam, in The Hague, with support from the Mexican National Council of Technology and Science (CONACYT). He currently works at the Civic Innovation Research Initiative (CIRI), where his research focuses on the concept of NGO diplomacy as a transnational activism that operates in a global political environment. Dr. Alejo analyzes cases of citizen diplomacy interactions with the National Ministries of Foreign Affairs in Argentina and Mexico, in relation to the Global Partnership for Effective Development Cooperation and the Post-2015 agenda. He also was postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Humanities at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). Antonio Alejo completed his Ph.D. in Contemporary Political Processes at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Panel Abstract
NGO Diplomacies and Transnational Activism: The Case of Equipo Pueblo in Mexico
Through the case of Equipo Pueblo, an NGO in Mexico, this study offers new ways to explain transnational activism in the Americas. The purpose of this study is to understand how education-related Latin American NGOs are becoming increasingly transnational in a globalized world, by focusing on the collective action experiences of Equipo Pueblo. The case study analyzes the transnational practices of this organization, explaining how the local and global spheres of action interact, and showing how the organization transmits global issues to its local community. The concept of NGO Diplomacies is proposed to study the transnational activism of NGOs in global politics in the 21st Century, including global awareness, interaction between the local and global spheres, and repertoire of transnational actions that NGOs use to influence global politics.
Constanza Lafuente
Biography
Dr. Constanza Lafuente is Program Supervisor at Bank Street College of Education in New York City. She is also an adjunct professor at Teachers College, Columbia University where she teaches the graduate course “NGOs in International Educational Development”. Dr. Constanza Lafuente obtained her Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education with a concentration in Political Science at Teachers College, Columbia University, in 2010, with a Fulbright scholarship. Her research expertise includes the study of strategies and networks of education civil society organizations (CSOs), Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Transnational Advocacy Organizations (TANs), their sustainability and network management, within the field of international education.
Panel Abstract
The Accountability Practices of an Advocacy Organization: The Case of Mexicanos Primero.
This paper explores the strategic and accountability challenges of advocacy organizations within the field of education through the case of Mexicanos Primero, an education civil society organization (CSO) that promotes the right to education. Mexicanos Primero demands accountability from public authorities in their use of public funds allocated for public education, and it is the first organization in Mexico to use legal resources—class action suits, injunctions, and appeals—to protect the constitutional right to education in Mexico. As CSOs arise as notable actors petitioning education reform and teachers evaluations, their organizational practices become major topics of study, building on existing research on multiple aspects of these organizations that examines impact, strategies and accountability practice and how these organizations interact with donors, public authorities and beneficiaries. The focus here is to study the challenges entailed in designing and implementing accountability mechanisms that include a broad range of stakeholders such as parents, students and teachers, while at the same time staying true to their mission. This qualitative case study is based on in-depth interviews with managers and professional staff, as well as an analysis of the organization’s public documents and website.
Cristián Bellei
Biography
Cristián Bellei (Doctor of Education, Harvard University; Master in International Education Policy, Harvard University; Sociologist, University of Chile) is an associate researcher of the Center for Advanced Research in Education and assistant professor in the Sociology Department, both at the University of Chile. His main research areas are educational policy, school effectiveness, and school improvement; he has published extensively about quality and equity in Chilean education.
Panel Abstract
Chilean Student Movements and Civil Society Organizations: The Collective Struggles to Transform a Market-oriented Educational System
During the last decade, Chilean society was shaken by sharply critical and powerful student movements: secondary students led the 2006 “Penguin Revolution” and university students led the 2011 “Chilean Winter”. Many students’ organizations across the country participated in those movements, which also had the active support of several civil society organizations. This article describes and analyzes these student movements to illustrate how student organizations can be highly relevant political actors in the educational arena. First, we explain the main features of the Chilean educational system, including its extreme degree of marketization, which provided the institutional context of the movements. Next, we analyze the key components and characteristics of the 2006 and 2011 student movements to describe basic features of the two movements and identify common elements of these movements, especially from an education policy perspective. We mainly focus on the link between students’ demands and discourses and the market-oriented institutions that prevail in Chilean education. Additionally, we describe and analyze the relationship between the student movements’ and civil society organizations (CSO); certainly, we identify students’ organizations as the key CSOs leading both movements; nevertheless, other CSOs also participated in both movements, although with varying levels of coordination. We also identify the movements’ impact on educational debates and policies in Chile, and examine the complexities for implementing the requested changes to “revert” some of the marketization dynamics. We conclude discussing key lessons from an educational policy perspective, recognizing that this is still an open-ended process in Chile.
Co-authored by Víctor Orellana and Cristian Cabalín
Regina Cortina, Discussant