Race to the classroom: the governance turn in Latin American education. The emerging era of accountability, control and prescribed curriculum

Abstract

During the first years of the new century, Latin America went through significant political changes in a period of economic growth. In education, we identify a ‘regulatory governance turn’ characterised by the emergence of four policy instruments: 1-New performance-based teaching career regulations with teachers' evaluations, 2-Curricular standards and increasing regulation via textbook provision, 3-Test-based accountability based on high-stakes assessments, 4-The formation of the ‘school unit’ as an accountable decision-making body. These policies created a new regime of accountability, control, and prescribed curriculum, which was fully developed in Chile and Mexico; and substantially in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. Our research was based on the revision of over 500 articles and policy documents, a genealogy of the trajectories of education policies, and 134 interviews in seven countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay. We present the new policy landscape and analyse the paradoxes of the increasing regulation of classroom practices.