The Education Systems of the Americas
Description
This handbook focuses on the education systems in the three Americas, North, Central and South America, and includes a chapter on most countries in the region. The chapters follow a common structure and include information on the development, organization, and current trends in mainstream education from pre-primary to tertiary level for each country. Chapter contributions are organized along three parts: Each chapter starts with a description of the historical and social foundations of the education system from their founding period up to today, including discussions of political, economic and cultural contexts and conditions. This first part closes with a description of how transitions from education to the labor market are organized. The second part consists of an overview of the institutional and organizational principles as well as of the structure of education from pre-primary to tertiary level. It includes a focus on legislative bases and financial provisions for the education system and a description of the structure by using the ISCED-classification. It further includes information of the supply of human resources such as teachers and other educators. The third and final part of the chapters discusses selected educational trends and aspects of particular interest: dealing with inequality, ICT and digitization activities, and STEM-related policies and programs.
The Handbook delivers a fundamental description of the educational systems, including information about how they were shaped, how they are organized and respectively cared for by national stakeholders. It provides both to students and scholars who seek concise and systematic knowledge about education in a particular country. Also, comparative researchers will find a basis for better understanding of various educational questions about the foundations and development of the national education systems.
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Sieglinde Jornitz is a senior researcher at the DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education in Frankfurt/Main, Germany and a regular lecturer for the Goethe University in Frankfurt/Main in the field of teacher education. She has been engaged in various projects at DIPF that are focused on national, European and international developments in education and information science. Her research interests focus on education theory as much as on international and European education policy and school education. Her research combines her overall interest in national and international education policies with the analysis of specific documents from educational practice, like school interaction transcripts or images.
She is involved in projects on professionalization issues of teachers that continue the work on analyzing school lessons to contribute to a theory of teaching as part of an education theory. Being a member of the international team at DIPF, she organises various network events for bringing together German and international partners in the field of education. She is also a member of several research groups on reconstructive hermeneutics in education and on digital media.
Marcelo Parreira do Amaral is Full Professor of Education at the Institute of Education of the University of Muenster, Germany. Parreira do Amaral teaches and researches in the field of Comparative and International Education, Education Policy Studies, Lifelong Learning and Education Institutions. His current research focuses on international educational policy and governance issues at various levels and scales. More recently, he has concentrated on studying the emergence and expansion of a Global Education Industry (GEI) and on how it is transforming conceptualizations of 'good' education. His research on (new) providers and policy actors within education aims at analyzing the possible consequences for education research, policy and practice. Beyond discerning particular expressions and manifestations of the GEI phenomenon in international contexts, it also looks into the rationales, processes and impacts of the GEI developments on education systems.
Parreira do Amaral has contributed to and coordinated several national and international research projects. From 2016 to 2019, he coordinated the ongoing project "YOUNG ADULLLT" (Policies Supporting Young People in their Life Course. A Comparative Perspective of Lifelong Learning and Inclusion in Education and Work in Europe, www.young-adulllt.eu), funded by the European Commission under the Horizon 2020 Research Framework. Parreira do Amaral is also a member of NESET II (Network of Experts on the Social Aspects of Education) funded by the European Commission. The focus of attention of his research lies on understanding how education institutions and systems are affected by the relationships among the local, national and international levels, paying particular attention to issues of access to and equity in education.