A Contribution to the Evaluation and Design of Non-Formal Preschool Programs in Marginal Communities

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During the 1960s the developing countries focused their efforts on the achievement of sustained economic growth as a means of bridging the gap between developing and developed countries and improving their populations’ standards of living. By the end of the decade, however, it became evident that despite the great increase observed in the national product and even in the per capita income, the gap between developed and underdeveloped countries still existed and had even increased. Additionally, large sectors of the population of the latter remained in a condition of severe deprivation. Consequently, a “unified approach to development” was proposed by the United Nations.1 This approach put economic and social development on an equal footing. The concern which had been centered on “growth” shifted into a concern for “development.” In recent years, this concept has been translated into a concern for deprived sectors, the study of their characteristics and the strategies meant to support marginal communities. In practice, the trend of support measures for communities has been basically to compensate the most deprived groups for the problems resulting from the “style of development” in Latin American economies. This trend indicates a positive step in focusing compensatory policies on a specific approach to marginal sectors rather than on “global social indicators.”