The neoliberal discourse in Latin American higher education: A call for national development and tighter government control

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DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.28.5610

Keywords:

Latin American higher education, university autonomy, neoliberalism, critical discourse analysis

Abstract

Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), we explored how educational leaders and policymakers in Mexico, Peru, Chile, and Argentina address complex issues while responding to – and in fact, developing – broader understandings (discourses) on the role of higher education in Latin America. Fairclough’s (1993) theory of discourse underscores that language is a social practice, socially and historically situated, and encompassing social identities, relations, and systems of knowledge and beliefs. Therefore, discourses, which are represented by all kinds of texts, exercise power because they can produce, reproduce, and transform social structures, including education policy. This study uncovers the nuances of the tensions that globalized discourses such as neoliberalism in particular face when met with national and local needs in Latin American higher education. These tensions need to be addressed in order to design policies that could effectively close the equity gap in the region amidst massification and the uncontrolled proliferation of private universities in many countries, offering access to underserved students to higher education but of questionable quality.  This study suggests research like this is important in order to understand how discourses that are deemed global play out at national and local levels and possibly, to uncover alternatives to the status quo.

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Author Biographies

Pilar Mendoza, University of Missouri Columbia

Pilar Mendoza is an Associate Professor in the Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (ELPA) at the University of Missouri Columbia and founder director of the International Research Center for the Development in Education (http://www.uniminuto.edu/web/ciide). Her research interests include decolonization, neoliberalism, globalization, and academic capitalism; higher education in Latin America; and comparative and international higher education.

Dorner Lisa, University of Missouri Columbia

Lisa M. Dorner is an Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis and a Faculty Fellow of the Cambio Center at the University of Missouri Columbia. Her research centers on language policy and planning, educational policy implementation, and immigrant childhoods, especially children’s and families’ integration in “new” spaces. Her work with the community includes co-founding the Missouri Dual Language Network (www.modlan.org).

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Published

2020-11-23

How to Cite

Mendoza, P., & Lisa, D. (2020). The neoliberal discourse in Latin American higher education: A call for national development and tighter government control. Education Policy Analysis Archives, 28, 176. https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.28.5610

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Articles