Bolivian Teachers’ Agency: Soldiers of Liberation or Guards of Coloniality and Continuation?

This paper investigates the problems and promises of teachers’ agency associated with Bolivia’s current “decolonising” education reform. The Avelino Siñani Elizardo Pérez (ASEP) education reform is part of a counter-hegemonic and anti-neoliberal policy that aims to advance the political project of t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Education policy analysis archives 2015-01, Vol.23 (4), p.4
Main Author: Lopes Cardozo, Mieke T. A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activism
agency
Bolivia
Change Agents
Change Strategies
decolonisation
Educational Change
Equal Education
Ethnography
Foreign Countries
Government Role
Politics of Education
reform
Social Influences
Social Justice
Student Teacher Attitudes
Teacher Attitudes
Teacher Education
Teacher Educators
Teacher Role
teachers
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This paper investigates the problems and promises of teachers’ agency associated with Bolivia’s current “decolonising” education reform. The Avelino Siñani Elizardo Pérez (ASEP) education reform is part of a counter-hegemonic and anti-neoliberal policy that aims to advance the political project of the government of Evo Morales, with teachers as its most strategic leading card. The article draws on theoretical insights from the Strategic Relational Approach (SRA) and applies this frame to analyse teachers’ agency for change in Bolivia’s contemporary socio-political context. This framework allows for a critical reflection of current discourses and educators’ efforts to decolonize the education system, in a context of political and societal tensions and inequalities. The article argues that the current political discourse and socio-political changes open up some spaces for teachers’ agency. However, the reality in rather conservative teacher education institutions and schools, together with teachers’ daily struggle for survival, provide serious constraints for teachers to become “committed or transformative intellectuals”. 
ISSN:1068-2341
1068-2341
DOI:10.14507/epaa.v23.1713