Ernesto Schiefelbein

Women, Schooling, and Work in Chile: Evidence from a Longitudinal Study

When considering the education of women in developing nations, Chile is an extremely interesting case. It enjoys, and has long enjoyed, relatively high levels of female participation in the educational system. Also, female participation in the labor force, especially in semiprofessional and professional positions, is very high compared with other societies. This article analyzes womens participation in the educational system and their entrance into the labor force. It draws upon data from an ongoing longitudinal study of Chilean young people and advances some tentative explanations for the unusual phenomenon which Chile represents, using both current and historical data.

Educational Research in Latin America: From the Artisan to the Industrial Phase.

Educational research in Latin America used to be the rare activity of a few skilled artisans working in their isolated offices. It now tends to be more abundant and is carried out by teams based in research centres operating with some basic infrastructure. However, a new stage should soon be reached because many Latin American decision-makers are requesting even more relevant research results and easier access to the analysis of available data for coping with day to day problems.

The Process of Learning

The problems, and opportunities, of today’s world make learning more important than ever. In this book, we end with proposals for how to improve the capacity of our school systems to generate that learning. We arrive at these proposals after first discussing what learning is, how it occurs, and the actions and organizations most effective in bringing it about.

Instruction—and the Transformation of Society

The criterion of the common good taken as an absolute, as the only basis for action, is obviously false, but it offers valuable suggestions, among others that education is not a purely individual matter, but rather has an eminently social significance. The teacher should, therefore, direct education toward the formation of a new society, which will not be obtained by the mere warehousing of ideas deprived of any real meaning, but rather requires a personal contact with life and the evolution of humanity.

Strategies for Improvement of Instruction and Education

Man’s peculiar characteristic is his receptivity to progressive improvement. Education, which enriches his spirit with ideas and adorns his heart with virtues, is an effective means of promoting his progress. … If education is necessary and if it must be perfected through reforms suggested by observation of the human heart, then it becomes a question as important as the question of whether it is necessary to promote the happiness of mankind, and to enable man to attain as fully as possible all the aims intended by his Maker at the time of his creation.

The History of National School Systems

Learning has been a critical activity for humans from the beginning of our history. Efforts to learn, and to enable others to learn, appear in the earliest accounts. Shortly after, there are references to more or less formal organizations of teaching, to schools that prepare youth and others to contribute to the community. Only with the emergence of the nation-state, however, rather late in human history, was an effort made to provide learning for all.

The Process of Shaping a School System

Laws must be aimed precisely at the satisfaction of needs, of local instincts… But outside forces often either modify customs, and, following these, laws; or they alter laws and in consequence customs. The ideas of one people are incorporated into the ideas of another, and as both lose their purity, what was at first a mixture of discordant parts gradually becomes a homogeneous whole. It will in many ways resemble its divergent origins, and from certain points of view will also present new forms.

How to Get and Keep Effective Teachers

In this chapter, we discuss the preparation of teachers to be more effective as enablers of student learning. We acknowledge that, given rapid advances in technology and in our understanding of how humans learn, students in the future will learn much more from self-teaching than they do now. Most learning will occur outside of schools. The change will be slow, however.

Models of the Process of Teaching

In this chapter, we describe and assess several ways to organize and carry out teaching. We call these sets of structures and practices “models” to indicate that they are based on general principles and can be adjusted according to particular circumstances. The models prescribe the sequence of actions to be taken to maximize learning. The principles are derived from the discussion of the learning process in Chapter 1.

Models of the School as Organization

In the developed countries, and in those in other latitudes with successful experiences with what is called delayed industrialization, there is a clear recognition of the central importance of education and the production of knowledge in the process of development. This attitude is spreading among the countries in the region [of Latin America]. Education and the production of knowledge make a decisive contribution to the diffusion of ethical values and behavior, the generation of abilities and skills indispensable for international competitiveness (more and more based in technical progress).