Barboni, Silvana; (2013) Politics of knowledge, innovation and participation in education systems in Latin America : the case of ESOL teachers in Buenos Aires. Doctoral thesis , UNSPECIFIED.

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Abstract

This thesis is centrally about knowledge changes and inclusive education in Latin America. It explores the ways in which politics of knowledge and teacher professional activity have changed, seem to be changing and resist change in the light of state policies which relate knowledge, literacy, technology and ESOL education as part of a strategic educational plan for sustained development and the inclusion of vulnerable sectors in the region. It reports the findings of a qualitative research study carried out in the field of ESOL literacy development in the second largest South American system of education, the province of Buenos Aires, using multiple methods of data collection. The thesis intends to assess what the present politics of knowledge are and to describe the ways ESOL teachers embrace change at ideological and practical levels when faced with novel policies. Findings show inconsistencies between theory and practice that place at risk innovation and the possibility of inclusive education and democratic participation of vulnerable social sectors in a knowledge society. These inconsistencies are evidenced in teachers‟ ineffective strategies to embody those changes in their daily practice, in highly complex contexts of work, by ignoring students‟ needs, by structuring authoritarian interaction patterns in class and by neglecting curricular aims. Also, ideological clashes are disclosed through contradictions between politicians´ discourses and the strategies implemented top down to support policies in educational institutions with vulnerable intakes. The main contribution of this thesis is the notion that this mismatch between policies and politics in the Province of Buenos Aires results in anarchic conditions of work in schools and the inexorable reproduction of inequality evidenced in schooling without learning, the ghettoisation of schools and effective ESOL education restricted to upper social classes. To conclude, as a further contribution of this thesis beyond mere analysis, I will explore a possible contextualization strategy of policy implementation and context bound teacher education provisions to address the needs in ESOL teacher education found in my research context.

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