Popular Education in Chile

Abstract

Popular education, a form of community-based education, is rooted in communities and defined by the complex social, economic, and political contexts of the countries in which it occurs. In this section, we present two articles from Chile, a country that for the past sixteen years has been subjected to a dictatorial government and in which conditions of poverty and a lack of quality education have been prevalent in many communities. In the following two articles, Salomon Magendzo and Liliana Vaccaro reflect on the efforts of marginalized people from these communities to educate them­ selves and participate actively in society. These two articles are presented as companion pieces because of their common theme — the experience of popular education in PIIE, Programa Interdisciplinario de Investigations en Education (Interdisciplinary Program for Research in Education). Magendzo first presents a global view of PIIE's role as an organization sponsoring various popular education programs and research in Chile. Vaccaro then focuses her discussion on one such program, the Learning Workshops, analyzing its pedagogical process over the past twelve years. Both authors provide a critical view of the educa­ tional inequities in Chile, and argue for teaching methods that promote the collabo­ ration and participation of people in poor communities as instruments of social change. We are publishing Vaccaro's article bilingually as a symbolic gesture in recognition of the native language of these authors and in an effort to convey the author's message in her own words. We can only speculate on what effects current changes in the Chilean government will have on the growth and future of popular education programs there. Nevertheless, in these articles Magendzo and Vaccaro give us a vision of continuity for popular edu­ cation that is based on a commitment to work and change by the people who live and struggle in the poor sectors of that country.