Entrepreneurship of basic education in Latin America : business networks for education

Author(s)

Erika Moreira Martins

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Faculdade de Educação
• Defense date: 2019-09-05

Examining board members

Eneida Oto Shiroma; Osvaldo Luís Angel Coggiola; Selma Borghi Venco; Débora Mazza

• Advisor: Nora Rut Krawczyk

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate the mobilization - the set of proposals, initiatives, and actions - of business groups for education in Latin America, based on the study of REDUCA (Latin American Network of Civil Society Organizations for Education). REDUCA represents the strengthening of an organized corporate action that connects various associations to the interests of governments. Orchestrated by international organizations expressing the pattern of imperialist domination in Latin America, REDUCA is structured around a process of reinventing capital with a view to safeguarding commercial interests. Therefore, we maintain that the foundation of this corporate action lies in the 'accumulation strategy', which extends to political and ideological issues, in which education represents a decisive dimension. Articulating global processes, national trajectories and regional dynamics, methodologically, we use the relational approach, in which corporate collective action would be the result of existing relations of forces, highlighting the conflictive and historical dimension. Since REDUCA is constituted as a 'network of networks' 'promoting 'network governance', within Social Network Analysis we mobilize the concepts of 'policy networks' as well as tools such as network ethnography. As a result, we have that, corporate reorganization, within the space of incidence in educational policy, must be understood as part of a hegemonic project that affirms its general interest in accumulation but also leverages the particular interests of subordinate forces. Indeed, the emergence of REDUCA can be assimilated as part of the response that responds to both corporate aspirations and the interests of US imperialism in the face of new geopolitical contours. The strengthening and deepening of the links between business and education has reached an unprecedented level in Latin American history: a situation that has forced entrepreneurs to refine the discursive matrix on the participation of 'civil society' and the 'right to quality education'. For the Latin American bourgeois fractions this would be an attempt to realign social forces around accumulation strategies and state projects, boosting the accumulation of capital on a national or international scale. In turn, imperialism maintains its domination and dependence on the region, ensuring penetration by efficient 'networked' organizations. Dependency relationships are still in place, but now they are reinvigorated and energized (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 14/09396-7 - Business cooperation for education in Latin America
• Grantee: Erika Moreira Martins
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate