Education Research Gender, Education and Development - A Partially Annotated and Selective Bibliography

the redefinition of women's role in society".

Literacy programmes have been a feature of Latin American countries since the days of
Jose Vasconcelos at least, but many of them have merely confirmed the status quo due
to their content and modus operandi. In the poorest areas the educational experiences of
everybody are severely limited and: "It is clear that the condition of women's literacy is
tied to the condition of men's literacy, which in turn is affected mostly by poverty and
social class location". Because most work on poverty fails to identify sexual dichotomy,
because total population data are used, the additional contrasts on females caused by
traditional roles and cultural restrictions are rendered invisible. Government literacy
programmes have tended to be very traditional in that they concentrate on language
issues, failing to work from social realities to generate conversations.

With respect to the situation of women in Latin America, unless the problem is
perceived from certain directions, appropriate solutions cannot be imagined. Illiteracy
problems of women are situated at the cross-roads of class and gender subordination,
and resolution of these problems must start from there. To do otherwise would be to
deny meaning to literacy exercises and fail to motivate poor women.

Individual countries

Argentina

Bolivia

Brazil

Chile

Costa Rica

Mexico

Peru

Argentina

BONDER, Gloria (1992) Altering Sexual Stereotypes Through Teacher Training, in:
STROMQUIST, Nelly (ed) (1992) Women and Education in Latin America.
Knowledge, Power and Change, Lynne Rienner, London, 229-249.

Teachers, as an integral part of educational settings, play a key role in the transmission
of gender ideologies. Through everyday actions, notions of femininity and masculinity
are shaped, strengthened, and transmitted. Teachers have been the targets of many
change efforts, usually through systematic efforts designed to produce attitudinal
change. In this chapter, Bonder reviews the studies on sexual stereotypes in Argentine

<<   194   195   196   197   198   199   200   >>

More intriguing information