LALS 105 - Conceptualizing Latin and Latino/a America

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as EDUC 105) Topic for 2019/20b: Popular Education and Social Struggle in Latin America. Popular education builds on the values of solidarity, inclusion, and respect for human rights. Its critical pedagogy and radical education philosophies arm learners with skills and knowledge which many see as vital to the construction of new forms of anti-capitalist politics and social movements. Popular education exists in both formal and informal education environments and characterizes the informal learning that underpins and emerges from protests and social movements. It challenges dominant education approaches and formal educational systems. The latter are legacies of Latin America’s colonial past and driven by present-day state agendas, which critics claim reproduce existing unjust social conditions.

This course examines the development of popular education in Latin America since the 1960s. Students learn about popular education’s philosophical and theoretical assumptions as well as its pedagogical practices. The course first looks historically at the roots of popular education and liberation theology in the history of social protest in Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico, and then at contemporary popular education and social protests in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, Haiti, and Guatemala. Throughout the course, students compare popular education models with formal educational systems. Applying their understandings of the course content, students develop a critical Latin American studies curriculum for middle and high school students that examines the social, economic, gender, environmental, linguistic, and racial-justice issues faced by groups within diverse communities in Latin America. The overall goal of the course is to allow students to become well versed and able to apply a variety of educational theories that are rooted in popular education and fall within the tradition of social justice education. Tracey Holland.

Two 75-minute periods.

Course Format: CLS