Ethnography and critical knowledge of education

in Latin America Elsie Rockwell

In the last fifteen years or so, ethnographic re- search in education has taken on greater signif- icance in Latin America. Although projects and publications are still relatively few in number, many university faculties and educational re- search centres are debating and testing the possi- bilities offered by this option.

This article sets out to put forward some ideas on the ground covered by ethnographic re- search in Latin America. It starts by pointing to a number of features that distinguish ethno- graphic studies from other approaches to qual- itative research. It then attempts to recall the theoretical background to the purposes for that ethnographic research has been used in the re- gion and to outline some of its thematic trends and the theoretical contribution that it is making to critical knowledge of education.

Elsie Rockwell (Mexico). Educational anthropolo- gist. Since 1973, she has been working as a resear- cher in the Educational Research Department at the Centro de Investigaci6n y de Estudios A vanzados of the Instituto Polit~'nico Nacional {Mexico City), wiv~e she has carried out and directed ethnographic studies in Mexican primary schools, especially in connection rnith teaching work. She is currently engaged in a project on the social uses of written lan- guage, from the combined historical and ethnogra- phic standpoints. She is the author and co-author of numerous articles and research studies.

What is ethnography?

In the anthropological tradition, ethnography occupies a precise place as the branch of the science whose task is to describe the many forms in which human beings manage to survive, live and give meaning to their lives. Starting out from this initial definition, the term 'ethnogra- phy' takes on another meaning, in that it can be said to be the whole set of tools and practices de- veloped to perform that task. However, it has never been vizualizcd as being a 'method' in the strict sense: it is rather a particular way of link- hag field experience and analytical work, which has given rise to considerable epistemological and theoretical debate, as wcU as to differing methodological approaches.

Among the wide variety of ways in which ethnography can bc visualized, it is possible to find a number of features in common that define it by contrast with other forms of research.

The main task of ethnography is to docu- ment the undocumented aspects of social real- ity. The original task of the ethnographer, which consists in giving an account of peoples with no written culture, gathers fresh impetus from switching the anthropological focus from 'others' onto 'ourselves'. In our 'literate' socie- ties, studies are made of those environments that are not documented, such as school, where so- cial and power relationships are forged.

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Ethnography and critical knowledge of education in Latin America I57

Ethnographic research is based on the di- rect and prolonged experience gained by the ethnographer in a particular locality. The em- pirical reference system of an ethnographic stu- dy remains circumscribed by the horizon of the day-to-day personal reactions between the re- searcher and the inhabitants of the locality for the length of time needed to narrow down the questions and come up with a number of answ- ers. In ethnography, every researcher performs both the field-work and analytical work, which are inseparable parts of the same process.

Ethnographic research has addressed such varied aspects of human life as canoe-building techniques and initiation rites, kinship practices and production relationships, the distribution of physical space and the uses of language. Howev- er, regardless of the purpose of the study, the ethnographer attempts to grasp the 'local know- ledge' (Geertz, 1983) of the phenomenon being studied and integrate it into the description.

In ethnographic research, the main product of the analytical work is a descriptive paper. This analytical description is necessarily built up from a theoretical conceptualization, albeit an implicit one. In other words, the description made is one of many such possible descriptions. The challenge lies in writing a paper that pre- serves the specific local features, while at the same time making the phenomenon studied in- teUigible in the broader context. Ethnography steers the search for answers to the more general questions towards an understanding of the spec- ific and varied forms of human life. Unlike liter- attire or journalism, the description of these forms is inherent in the theoretical debate. The need to confine the empirical reference system of the study to a locality does not limit the scope of the construction. Paradoxically, in anthropol- ogy, the more successful it has proved to un- derstand the specificity, or 'intrinsic logic' of a particular cultural formation, the more possible it has been to answer wider-ranging questions about the different social groups and acknow- ledge their common humanity.

In the face of widespread empiricist atti- tudes, it has been possible to show the impor- tance of theoretical work in ethnographic re-

search. Both during the field-work and in the analytical process, the construction of categories and conceptual relationships makes it possible to articulate a more thorough and intelligible description of the real-life situation being stu- died. Owing to the way in which analysis is con -~ ducted in ethnographic research, the process can, in fact, contribute to evolving, qualifying and adding to the theoretical concepts that are its starting-point (Erickson, 1986; Hammersley and Atkinson, 1983).

In educational research, ethnography has opened up an area for the qualititative recon- struction of educational processes and relation- ships, with the aim of gaining an understanding of how education is built up in social terms. This approach has been adopted by a number of dis- ciplines taking the same line to the study of edu- cational processes, including sociology and psy- chology.

A critical approach to ethnography

In Latin America, the purposes for which eth' nography has come to be used stemmed from a series of experiences and discussions that steered it in a specific direction.

The educational processes existing in the region in the 1970s provided a meaningful con- text for ethnographic research. In those coun- tries dominated by military regimes during that period, a popular education movement - in the sense that it lay outside the formal system - came into being, primarily through the lead gi- ven by the thinking of Paulo Freire, with links with the Catholic Church and political groups. Projects were carried out which postulated that grassroots knowledge should be taken as the starting-point for fostering consciousness-rais- ing. Although, at the outset, the people involved in popular education argued against the state- run school system, which they regarded as being an 'instrument of reproduction', as the process of democratization went forward they began to

I58 Elsie Rockwell

seek ways of transferring to the school system the experience of pedagogical innovation gained in non-formal educational projects.

The situation differed in those countries where attempts were made to reform the public education system, such as Mexico, Colombia and Peru in the 1970s and other countries in the early 1980s. These reforms involved education- ists who were critical of the existing education system and who were committed to the task of bringing about a higher standard of public edu- cation. In such instances, this led to the identifi- cation of a number of common themes, such as the determination to transform schooling, the need to become familiar with the teaching pro- fession and the real-life situation in schools, and curriculum and teaching problems in the class- room environment.

Almost all of us who have engaged in eth- nographic studies in the region have had direct experience of popular education projects or re- forms in basic education, and our initial ques- tions and concerns were heavily marked by that experience. Some of us were anthropologists, while most of us had a background in education, sociology or psychology, but few of us had had training in educational ethnography through having done post-graduate studies in English- speaking universities. Originally, with some ex- ceptions, educational ethnography did not grow up in the academic climate of anthropology or sociology but in a number of interdisciplinary educational-research centres, in which the con- ditions existed for carrying out projects)

In these institutions, discussions were quick to focus on the real-life situation in schools. In the 1970s, the re-reading of the clas- sics of Marxism, including Lukacs and Gramsci, was accompanied by the study of contemporary theoreticians such as Althusser, Foucault, I;-Iel- lier, Habermas, Bourdieu and Williams, among others, all of whom represented importam refe- rences for ethnographic research in Latin Amer- ica. Other standpoints were also adopted, such as those of oral history, genetic epistemology and psycho-analysis, especially through the works of Lacan. In the initial approaches taken by ethnography, there was inevitably some de-

bate between the structural and phenomenolog- ical outlooks and the search for a view of things going beyond them.

However, the path taken by social thought in Latin America carried even more weight. In the 1970s, there were discussions on the Left about the relevance of Marxist categorization to the Latin American situation. The patterns specific to the region, such as dependence and the rural exodus, were analysed and discussed. Discussions in Latin America on Gramsci's the- ory (Arico, 1982; Pereya, 1984; Portantlero, 1977; et al.) had an influence on educational re- search. The macro-social and political ap- proaches gave added substance to the analysis of the relationship between school and society in the work of such Latin American researchers as Garcla Huidobro (1985), Tedesco (1987), Savia- ni (1984), Rama (1979), Brunner (1988), Paiva (1980) and Fuentes (1979). This theoretical background featured prominently in the origins of ethnographic research in the region and re- presented a significant influence prior to that ex- ercized by writers in the English-speaking tradi- tion, such as Young (1971), Apple (1982), Giroux (1983), Willis (1980), Erickson (1986) and Delamont (1983) who became references for the ensuing debate.

From this range of theoretical sources, eth- nographic research in Latin America set out from an epistemological concern which rejected the empiricist approach. Many researchers were aware that descriptions are always based on some form of conceptualization and therefore at- tempted to ensure a measure of consistency bet- ween ethnographic research and the develop- ments in theory in the region. From this standpoint, they analysed the ethnographic stu- dies produced by the American school of an- thropology and distanced themselves from the latter's basic concept of cultural conflict. They sought ways of building into ethnographic study a social context that was more wide-ranging and differentiated than the 'community' which had largely featured in educational ethnography in the 1970s. 2

In educational research institutions, eth- nography had to stake a place for itself and,

Ethnography and critical knowledge of education in Latin America 159

above all, establish its legitimacy in the face of long-standing traditions. As was to be expected, there were, for a variety of reasons, keen debates with those engaged in quantitative or participa- tory research. A dialogue was also established with other researchers with a qualitative outlook who did not see themselves as ethnographers (see, for example, Parra, 1986, Namo de Mello, 1982). With a few exceptions, 3 external funding for projects of this type was limited and there was little scope for publishing their findings. Progress started to be made with the setting up of small teams which were determined to create the conditions for carrying out studies. Ethnog- raphy is now acknowledged as being a valid op- tion and the region probably has more than 100 researchers engaged in ethnographic projects?

In Latin America, ethnography took on specific practices and forms on account of its re- lationship with other activities in the education- al field. It has been integrated into various pro- jects for pedagogical and curricular innovation. It has been introduced as a subject in the new curricula of teacher-training institutions and used in projects designed to put forward alterna- tive approaches to in-service teacher training. In situations such as these, the ethnographic work has generally been confined to preparing qualit- itative records for classes, which are subsequent- ly used as an integral part of the sessions con- ducted with the participants, in a bid to spark off ideas or else document the changes in practice. It has also been used for follow-up purposes or for evaluating curriculum development projects. The records of the experimental process, which include photographs and videos, have made it possible to amend proposals and communicate findings.

As the work proceeds, the difficult task of drawing the dividing line between ethnographic projects and other types of qualitative research is starting to be narrowed down. A number of qual- Itative studies which are not considered ethno- graphic (Ansion, 1990, inter alia), are in fact very close - in content and context - to ethnography, One significant change lay in the recognition and adoption of educational ethnography in an- thropological circles in several Latin American

countries, such as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. Ethnographic studies were the starting-point for disseminating new ideas on educational process- es, which were taken up by researchers who had been most reluctant to accept its methodological heterodoxy. The culture of school and student cultures, concealed and actual curricula, every- day teaching practices and conditions are all concepts that form an integral part of the educa- tional debate in the region, but which cannot be readily grasped through surveys, censuses or his- torical records.

It is important to recall that the goal of eth- nography is, above all, to document diversity, and the temptation has to be avoided of making unduly hasty summations. Few schools have so far been studied (and most of these have been at the primary level), though pre-school secondary and higher levels are now starting to be investi- gated? The research has been instrumental in raising a greater number of issues than those that existed some ten years ago. Even so, the stu- dies carried out from different conceptual stand- points have made it possible m build up a stock of knowledge and to outline the specific real-life features of education in the Latin American re- gion.

Thematic trends in educational ethnography in Latin America

Owing to the fact that ethnographic research in Latin America was quick to be associated with a critical outlook, investigations tended to be di- rected in a number of specific directions. One of its initial targets was the primary-school system and the relationship it bore to the social struc- ture of Latin American countries. Although the 1970s saw quantitative growth and significant re- forms in curricula in the region, educational re- search continued to point to high drop-out, re- petition and illiteracy rates. The problems of the quality of teaching were compounded by grow- ing evidence of the apparent irrelevance of the

I60 Elsie Rockwell

contents of basic education curricula to the bulk of the urban and rural population. It was accord- ingly important to start to disentangle the every- day mechanisms of school life. Ethnography was seen as being a suitable approach to tackling this problem.

Of all the thematic issues broached by eth- nographic research in Latin America, there are six that feature most prominently. An attempt is made here to quote examples of these thematic issues in relation to some of the projects carried out, though it is not proposed to engage in an ex- haustive review of all the work produced. 6

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL REPRODUCTION

One important standpoint adopted is the out- come of the early interest taken in the processes of social and cultural reproduction. Ethnogra- phy was suited to studying the concealed curri- culum and the implicit socialization of school. When schooling first began to be examined, it was possible to see the way in which educational practice re-creates the division of manual and intellectual work and conveys ideological atti- tudes consistent with the dominant capitalist structure.

Even so, a number of studies conducted along these lines gave rise to some discussion over the theoretical reference systems used. It was argued, for example, that the implicit for- mation of relations with labour and authority takes precedence over vocational technical training (Paradise, 1979). Factors that result in whole population groups being deprived of schooling is more indicative of cultural depriv- ation than of the imposition of an arbitrary sys- tem of symbols (Tadeu da Silva, 1988). The way in which subjects are set in schools concurs with the alternative cultural reference systems of the popular classes (Safa, 1986). In the context of the military regimes, stress was laid more on the as- pects bound up with political control than with social and cultural reproduction. These advanc- es in thinking call into question the idea of school as being a device that ensures the dom- ination of the state and determines to what ex-

tent the state can be effective in the field of edu- cation. The many questions to which this approach has given rise have still not been re- solved, and increasingly far-reaching and consi- dered thought is being given to the issue in the studies currently being carried out.

SCHOOL FAILURE

The alarming development whereby pupils are expelled from the education system in Latin America has caused many ethnographic studies to be addressed to the problem of school failure. In these studies, an attempt has been made to identify those educational factors influencing such cases of failure, in open controversy with studies giving prominence to such exogenous factors as social and economic levels (Avalos, 1986) and cultural differences or deficiencies (Souza Patto, 1990). It was found that there was a comp.lex network of ideological and pedagogical practices that are built into 'school culture' (Lt- pez et al., 1983) and that explain how individual failure patterns evolve within school. On the ba- sis of these studies, teacher-training methods were designed to focus on critical thinking about teaching practices and the understanding of popular cultures, and these in turn were the sub- ject of ethnographic analysis.

The questions asked about the quality of basic education prompted a search in the direc- tion of the environment in which teachers are trained. These studies (Calvo and Donnadieu, 1982; Parra et al., 1986; Tezanos, 1986) laid stress on the training implicit in the everyday practices and outlook that are a feature of teach- er-tralning colleges, by shoving their continuity with teaching practices in primary schools, which stand in marked ~:ontrast to the apparent discontinuity at the formal level.

Some of the researchers who analysed the problem of school failure subsequently exa~ mined its counterpart (in the form of schools and teachers that were regarded as good) in an attempt to understand the conditions that would make it possible to reverse the trends. They stu- died pupils who succeeded in completing the

Ethnography and critical knowledge of education in Latin America 161

basic education stage, with the aim of under- standing the ways in which they had adapted to school, as well as schools in which innovative projects had worked successfully in popular or indigenous situations. These studies show that, in spite of the obvious social correlations of fai- lure, educational results are particularly respon- sive to differences in the quality of the expe- rience gained at school, and hence that investment in school conditions should have a significant bearing on retention and develop- ment rates.

SCHOOLS AND THE UNDERCLASS

A number of ethnographic studies have set out to gain an understanding of the outlook of the more disadvantaged sectors of the population to schooling. In some of these, the analysis was fo- cused on parents and their relations with the teachers (de Crespo et al., 1982; Sara, 1986; L 6- pez et al., 1983, Rodriguez Brandao, 1983). In others, a study is made of cultural knowledge (Paradise, in press) and the everyday knowledge of children as opposed to the knowledge ac- quired at school

As a rule, it has proved possible to go beyond the straightforward school-community dichotomy to investigate the significance that the state-run school system represents for diffe- rent popular sectors. Although this significance differs in every country and region, depending on the specific background factors, there is so- mething thought-provoking in the idea that there is popular participation in the construction of the state-run school system and in the con- stant negotiations aimed at ensuring that it wiU continue to be free and at demanding quatity of service, according to the findings of a study car- ried out in Mexico (Mercado, 1985).

A number of studies have investigated the presence of local cultures in schools, relating the 'cultural conflict' explanation advanced in the United states in connection with ethnic minor- ities. In Latin America, the problem has been posed from the standpoint of the popular classes as the majority users of the basic school system

and discussions on their demands have taken on dimensions that are as much ideological and political as they are cultural.

EVERYDAY SCHOOL LIFE

As a result of ethnographic research, schools, that is, each individual school rather than the school system as a whole, are starting to be more visible and they are no longer taken for granted or are the subject of a priori suppositions (Ez- peleta, 1986). The study of everyday school life is coming to occupy a central place. What had originally seemed to be 'chaos' (de la Pefia, 1981), can be seen as being a complex institu- tional network that is the outcome of negotia- tions between many different interests. Descrip- tions have accordingly been produced of the effects of organization and bureaucratic control on everyday life in school. A start is being made to investigating how educational reforms filter through the successive administrative echelons clown to each teacher. It has been possible to find processes that are an impediment to change in schools or else contribute to their decline. Factors have been identified which govern or fa- cilitate teaching practices, such as the internal organization of the school and negotiations bet- ween directors, parents and teachers (Achilli, 1988; Ezpeleta, 1989; Rockwell and Mercado, 1986; Souza Patto, 1990; Quiroz, in press).

Although the initial studies show that prac- tices are similar from one school to another and people are starting to speak of a generalized 'school culture', more refined comparisons made between countries or regions, and even between closely adjoining schools, show that there are significant differences. These contrast, for example, the forms of discipline and teach- Lug traditions in different countries. Each local- ity has specific ways of combining the ideas, knowledge, customs and resources that go to shape schools, in spite of the standard rules ap- plying to the country as a whole. However, it can be seen from the wide variety of schools investi- gated that there are recurrent themes and simi- lar processes, as well as significant differences in

I6Z Elsie Rockwell

the quality of the education intended fordiffe- rent social classes.

TEACHERS AS WORKERS

Another specific feature that has had an in- fluence on ethnographic research has been the Linkage between researchers and the processes involved in the organization of teachers. Teach- ers' protest and pedagogical movements in Latin America in the 1980s made it mandatory to make allowance for their point of view in de- scriptions of life at school. School started to be seen as a 'teachers' work-place'.

Although from the very first studies refe- rence was made to the difficult working condi- tions experienced by teachers in the schools in- vestigated, it was necessary to redefine the concept of teaching work (Ezpeleta, 1989; Rock- well and Mercado, 1986). Part of the task consist- ed of visualizing teachers as social subjects and of considering their social background and the way in which their professional identity takes shape. In an endeavour to understand how school as an institution conditions the practices adopted by teachers, investigations were con- ducted into the everyday processes defining teaching work and the negotiations conducted on working conditions in the trade union and school contexts (Aguilar, 1986; Sandoval, 1986; Carva/al, 1991). Growing interest has been taken in a number of studies on material conditions and constraints and power relationships in school (Ezpeleta, 1989; Tovar, 1989; Sunirats and Nogales, 1989). The specific knowledge characterizing teaching work and the formative relationship between teachers is also an impor- tant subject area that is being increasingly opened up (Mercado, in press; Talavera, 1,991). In this connection, a number of teachers have adopted ethnography for their own purpose, in a bid to gain a closer insight into their working conditions and patterns.

These studies have made it possible to instil a fresh view of teachers as workers, rather than as 'agents for the perpetuation of the state', and to start rebuilding teaching as the central focus

of their work, from a different standpoint than that marked by a set of didactic prescriptions.

THE REAL KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED IN SCHOOL

In the Latin American critical tradition, the in- terest originally taken in ideological processes is giving way to interest in knowledge in school The real curriculum is replacing the concealed curriculum as the focal point of analysis. Instead of the issue of consciousness-raising which was topical in the 1970s, the quality of teaching is now regarded as being the fundamental political problem of education in the region (Tedesco, 1987). The handing down of a cultural heritage to all children, without detracting from their culture of origin, is considered essential to social change.

This urgent task prompted some ethnog- raphers to devote attention, from an early stage, to the processes of teaching and the transmission of ldaowledge in the school environment. In this connection, studies have been made not so much to evaluate proposals for curricula or in- novative teaching science as to understand how the educational process takes place in the histor- ical local conditions of each school.

Right from the outset, strains could be seen to exist between official syllabuses and the knowledge presented in the classroom, as well as between teaching methods and content, and bet- ween the proposals made by the teachers and children's activities. It has been noted that pu- pils adapt to the interaction patterns with teach- ers as they become involved in the content. Be- sides responding to the formal demands made of them, they set up a communication network among themselves, which functions as the con- text for school work.

One central question raised in ethnograph- ic studies in the classroom is how knowledge is built up in social terms. Descriptions have been made of the uses of written language (RockweU, 1982) and the construction of scientific know- ledge in the classroom (Candela, 1989, in press; Rockwell and Galvez, 1982), as weU as of the mechanisms militating against the lasting retch-

Ethnography and critical knowledge of education in Latin America I63

tion of what is learnt, such as ways of presenting and evaluating knowledge. The ways in which knowledge is expressed in the classroom and the relationship between the subjects taught and knowledge have been the thrust of a number of ethnographic studies (Assael and Neumann, 1987; BataLlan et al., 1986; Edwards, 1985; Ta- deu da Silva, 1988). Situations have been identi- fied in most of these studies which afford greater scope for the acquisition of knowledge by pupils, as well as teaching strategies adapted to children which foster significant learning attainment. The development of this line of research has provided a number of important criteria for crit- icism and curriculum development in basic edu- cation.

The critical perspective in Latin America

Ethnography is a study requiring the reformula- tion of theories, in turn altering attitudes to the object of study. Latin American ethnographers have beaten their own paths within the critical tradition forming the framework for ethno- graphic research, and many advances in ethnog- raphy in the region have occurred relatively in- dependently of developments in ethnography in the Anglo-Saxon countries. The intensification of exchanges of experience with European and North American researchers in recent years has occurred during a period of consolidation in La- tin American ethnographic research, and there is some awareness of the inappropriateness of studying real situations in Latin America in the light of theories based on study of situations in the developed countries. This has sparked off a debate in the region about universal theoretical frames of reference, from which both parties may have something to learn.

In the past decade the Anglo-Saxon school of 'critical ethnography' (Simon and Dippo, 1986; Anderson, 1989) and research in Latin America have developed along similar lines,

both tending to call into question the initial the- ories of social reproduction, both identifying contradictory cultural processes in the spheres of education and both showing a determination to understand the teaching profession and its work. Nevertheless, Latin American education- al experience has inclined scholars to take cer- tain positions that are worth summarizing.

Awareness of the magnitude of the problem of popular access to formal basic education (con- sidered as an end in itself) can be observed in La- tin American ethnography, even though the em- pirical referent is the daily life of individual schools. Ethnographic interpretations are usual- ly backed up by a knowledge of the national edu- cational and political context, without glossing over the heterogeneity of educational trends in the various localities and the diversity of back- grounds that produce them. In Latin America, therefore, theoretical conceptions have predom- inated in which daily life is related to social pro- cesses taking place at higher levels. 7

In a region characterized by strong indige- nous and popular traditions and by a history of creation of national identities that simultaneous- ly incorporate the colonial heritage and hold it at arm's length, scholars have found it indis- pensable to confront the cultural dimension. The cultural complexity of the region has helped research to transcend the dichotomies that characterize the work of many Anglo-Saxon ethnographers, and has enabled it to see the schools as points of convergence and reformula- tion of cultural influences not confined to the dominant models, though these, too, are vigo- rously propounded by certain educational prac- tices.

Many ethnographic studies based on repro- duction theory (e.g. Willis, 1980) have empha- sized cultural resistance to schooling as a bas- ically 'self-condemnatory' process, in that it perpetuates class and power relationships. In Latin America, a different concept of resistance can be discerned in many studies. What is de- scribed is the resistance of parents to the dis- mantling of public education and the resistance of teachers to the growing bureaucratization of their work. There is also resistance to failure on

I64 Elsie Rockwell

the part of those children who opt to remain in school and make sense of it, despite all the diffi- culties involved.

Another difference between Latin Amer- ican and Angio-Saxon research emerges in stu- dies of the teaching profession. While some wri- ters in the school of critical ethnography (e.g. Apple, 1982; Giroux, 1983) emphasize the alie- nation that characterizes teachers' working prac- tices, research in Latin America has concentrat- ed on the material conditions in which teaching is performed and on the techniques developed by teachers to deal with them. Anglo-Saxon eth- nography has adopted a critical approach to teaching methods, based on the work of Paulo Freire, which offers teachers models of peda- gogical practice radically different from those they are accustomed to using. In Latin America, ethnographic research has made us conscious of the difficulty of transferring to the public educa- tion system the models of popular education prevalent in the region, and has promoted the search for, and assessment, of widely applicable alternatives based on the teachers' situation and background.

The present upgrading of the teaching pro- fession is very timely. The situation in the re- gion is alarming; the miserable salaries paid to teachers and the political move towards the right in recent reforms seem likely to result in the complete disintegration of the teaching profes- sion, which would only aggravate the situation in education in Latin America. Better condi- tions of employment for teachers are now recog- nized to be the key to any reform of Latin Amer- ican education.

Ethnographic research encourages aware- ness both of the region's educational heritage and its trials and tribulations in the present. The integration of ethnographic and historical re- search, which is beginning to develop in the re- gion should give a clearer picture of the social processes that gave rise to present-day education systems and practices. Ethnographic research could thus help to foresee the side-effects of pu- blic policies and actions, and avoid imposing re- forms on education systems that are not properly understood in their existing form.

In Latin America, critical attitudes have succeeded in enhancing the status of the state- run school system in terms of effective demand emanating from the general public, regardless of its many material and teaching problems. We may recall Rama's (1984) claim that 'in Latin America, schooling has contributed more to critical rationality than to instrumental rational- ity'. While a certain critical heritage tends to condemn the place occupied by the state in pu- blic education and, in so doing, ultimately echoes those attitudes militating in favour of privatization, other critical voices demand that the state fulfil its constitutional obligation of providing basic, free quality education to the population as a whole. Educational ethnography has endeavoured to contribute to that struggle.

Notes

1. In Latin America, although there has been close contact between anthropologists and those responsible for indige- nous education since the beginning of the century, little ethnographic research was done on the schools themselves before the 19705 (see, for example, M. Saenz, Carapan (Mexico City), September 1966). In the 1970s a number of ethnographic research projects on education were started at the Centro de Investigaci6n Superior of the Instituto Na- c/onal de Antropologla e Historia and at the Departamento de Investigaciones Educatives (DIE) of the Centro de In- vestigaci6n y de Estudlos Avanzados at the Instituto Poli- t~cnico Nacioual in Mexico City. Soon afterwards projects were carried out in other institutions which already bad a good deal of experience in investigating the quality of edu- cation. These include: the Programa Interdiseiplinario de Investigaci6n Educativa, Santiago, Chile; the Centro de Investigaci6n of the Universidad Pedsgogica, BogotA, Co- lombia; the Facultad Latinoamericaua de Ciencias So- ciales, Buenos Aires, Argentina; the Fondaci6n Carlos Chagas, S~o Paulo, Brazil; the Centro Boliviano de In- vestigacio y Acci6n Educafiva, La Paz, Bolivia.

2. For example, the ser/es on education and the community published by the Teachers' College Press, under the co- ordination of G. Spindler.

3. In the 1980s, the International Development Research Centre (CRDI), in Canada, took the initiative of funding ethnographic research projects and supported the setting up of the Latin American Network of Qualititative Re- search on Educational Reality, which was coordinated by

Ethnography and critical knowledge of educat ion in Latin America I65

Rodrigo Vara, whose courses and publications (Dialogan- do) were successful in disseminating ethnographic work. The OAS, the World Bank and the UNESCO Regional Office of Education for Latin America and the Caribbean, along with scientific councils in several countries (CO- NACYT, CONICET), have also supported a number of projects. A useful contribution has been made by the com- parative studies between countries of the Region, directed by B. Avalos (Avalos, 1986; L6pez et at., 1983; de Crespo et at., 1982; Tezanos aided by Nogales (1986), and sup- ported by the CRDI; as well as studies by Ezpeleta (1989); Subirats and Nogales (1989) and Tovar (1989) published by OREALC, which proved to be very useful It would be most important to strengthen this comparative approach.

4. There are currently groups engaging in ethnographic stu- dies in other institutions, notably the following: in Mexico, the Universidad Pedagogica, the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, the Escuela Nacional de Antropolo- gia e Historia, and several universities and teachers' train- ing colleges; in Brazil, the Universities of Sio Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Fluminense, Porto Alegre and Minas Gerais, and the Pontifical Universities of Rio and Sio Paulo; and in Argentina, the Rosario Centre of Social Sciences Research and the Universities of C6rdoba and Buenos Aires. There are most probably many other groups on which we have no information.

5. Shortage of space and limited knowledge have made me confine my attention in this review to studies of the system of basic~ above all primary, education, though important research is being done at other levels. Researchers I have not mentioned include E. Remedi and E. Weiss and their colleagues and students at the Departamento de Investiga- ciones Educativas (DIE), who are working on higher and technical education, M. Bertely and A. Barcena, who have studied pre-school education, and colleagues in the Semi- nario de Investigacidn del Salon de Clase of the CISE, UN- AM in Mexico. In other countries too, ethnographic re- search on the higher levels of education is under way. There is also a growing number of foreign researchers who have recently produced work based on lengthy residence in Latin America, among them N. Hornberger, C. Martin and B. Levinson.

6. In so brief a presentation of the field, it is impossible to in- clude all the references. Almost all the authors mentioned have engaged in additional studies and have directed a large number of postgraduate the.-,es. Some of the com- ments relate to unpublished or ongoing research which would warrant being more widely publicized.

7. A major work on the subject is Heller, 1989.

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