Cuban Education Research Articles

The Cuban Literacy Campaign at 50: Formal and Tacit Learning in Revolutionary Education

December 22, 2011, marked the 50th anniversary of the end of the Cuban Literacy Campaign, an initiative that dramatically increased literacy rates across the island and consolidated the presence of the revolutionary government. While Cuban schools are widely celebrated, a paucity of recent scholarship persists treating the structure and tenets, as well as the formal and tacit content of Cuban education. Beginning with an analysis of the political content of the literacy campaign, this article reviews the structure and content of Cuban education with a focus on the role of ideology. While numerous scholars have demonstrated the prescriptive and reproductive function of schooling Euro-American contexts, little comparative international work has treated the interfunction of schooling and ideology in the Global South. This article locates the literacy campaign as the formal genesis of contemporary Cuban ideology. Indeed the literacy campaign was the beginning of a discursive relationship that continues today.

Cuban Students Excel in Latin America

When the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) gave math and language tests in 1997 to 3rd and 4th graders in 13 Latin American countries, researchers were only mildly surprised to find that students in Cuba's lowest-income schools outperformed most upper middle-class students in the rest of the region. These test data confirmed years of anecdotal evidence that Cuba's primary schools are by far the best in the region and may be better than schools in neighboring Florida. UNESCO tested students again in 2007, this time in the 3rd and 6th grades of 16 Latin American countries. No surprise, Cuban students repeated as the region's top performers. Those students in the 25th percentile in Cuba scored higher in both 3rd and 6th grade mathematics than average students in all but two countries--Costa Rica and Uruguay. Although their advantage was not as great in reading, they still scored higher, on average, than students in any other country. How does Cuba--a poor and economically inefficient country living under U.S. economic sanctions for a half century and dependent for many years on Soviet aid--have such high-achieving elementary school students when other countries don't? In 2003-04, two Stanford doctoral students, Amber Gove and Jeffery Marshall, and I set out on an ambitious research project to learn why. We analyzed econometrically the 1997 UNESCO data on individual students in seven of the Latin American countries covered by the survey, and then homed in on a more detailed comparison of Cuban, Brazilian, and Chilean classrooms. We filmed more than 30 3rd grade math lessons, about 10 in each country. We also interviewed teachers, principals, and ministry officials, and we visited university teacher training programs. We found that Cuban children excel academically for fairly straightforward reasons: They attend school for a full day, unusual in Latin America, and the schools are intensely focused on instruction, staffed by well-trained, regularly supervised teachers in a social environment dedicated to high achievement for all. The Cuban system combines quality teaching, high academic expectations, and a tightly controlled school management hierarchy with well-defined goals and responsibilities. That combination distinguishes Cuban education from other systems in Latin America, including Chile and Brazil, where we observed little, if any, instructional monitoring or support by school administrators, and a lot of below-par teaching that could have been improved by knowledgeable instructional interventions. Much more than in Chile or Brazil, the 3rd grade math lessons we filmed in Cuba focused on problem solving and math strategies. Cuban teachers were more likely to have students solve math problems from worksheets during class, then analyze their solutions in full class discussion. A higher fraction of Cuban pupils in the classrooms we filmed, including classrooms in two distant rural schools, were fully involved and seemed to be getting the concepts being taught. The closest thing we found elsewhere to this type of teaching and level of student engagement was in an expensive Chilean private school. Since good teaching seemed to be a key element of Cuban students' success, we analyzed differences in how primary school teachers were prepared and inducted into teaching. Again, we found big differences. In Cuba, teacher preservice training programs focus heavily on how to teach the national European-style curriculum so that children learn language and mathematics skills. Then, when the young teachers start out in a school, they are closely mentored for three years by the school's administration and other teachers who have a clear idea of exactly what good teaching is. In Brazil and Chile, teachers are trained in autonomous universities that decide how best to train their teachers, with minimal control from the central or state governments. …

Notes from the Editors, July-August 2011

buy this issueFor MR this [special issue] represents only a starting point and we hope to continue to address the education question in future issues—not only in relation to the United States but also globally. Except for the crucial, concluding essay on Cuban education, provided by Ricardo Alarcón (President of Cuba's National Assembly of Peoples' Power), which points to what can be achieved in the realm of education once the barriers represented by capitalist society are removed, all of the articles in this special issue are concerned with the changing context of schooling in the United States. This is not meant, however, to ignore the rest of the world, but to constitute a warning of what may be in the offing for much of the global population—since the United States is the fountainhead of neoliberal policy.… It is clear…that education is under fire within much of global capitalist society.… Yet, the global struggle in this area is only just beginning and remains undetermined. The final outcome will depend to a considerable degree on the actions we take now.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Thoughts on Cuban Education

Thoughts on Cuban Education

Educação Básica e Formação Docente em Cuba: Prós e Contras

A educação cubana tem se sobressaído pela sua efetividade em inúmeros estudos internacionais e, no contexto atual, toda a suapolítica educacional encontra-se vinculada ao ambicioso projeto de universalização da educação superior, no qual se destaca o modelo de formação docente inserido em todos os cursos de graduação. Esse modelo de formação tem como elementos fundantes a unidade entre educação e instrução e a articulação entre estudo e trabalho, o que o torna uma referência para estudo. Além disso, Cuba apresenta uma única instituição formadora para os docentes da educação básica – o Instituto Superior Pedagógico – e um modelo único de formação, admitindo além da via presencial apenas a semipresencial. Para que a educação cumpra sua função social, importa sobremaneira avaliar em que medida tais propostas atendem às expectativas e necessidades apresentadas pelas demandas de formação, tendo em vista a qualidade do ensino. Esse artigo apresenta uma análise do tema em questão, indicando possibilidades, que deverão ser objeto de aprofundamento. O objetivo é, por meio de estudos comparados, contribuir para a busca de soluções dos problemas apresentados pelas atuais políticas de formação dos professores com vistas a uma educação de qualidade.

Socialist Consciousness Raising and Cuba's School to the Countryside Program

As a participant-observer, the author relates observations, interviews, and surveys from her experience in a Cuban Escuela al Campo (“School to the Countryside,” or EAC) camp located on a collective farm outside of the city of Havana. The Pioneers, the youth section of the official Cuban Communist Party, organize the EAC program nationwide. The program's rugged, military lifestyle experience is required for city-based junior high school students in Cuba, an essential rite of passage of the politicization and socialist consciousness-raising efforts designed by the Revolutionary Government. The author proposes that beneath the revolutionary symbols and activities of the EAC, a new and latent socialist consciousness has been evolving for some time, one that reflects neither an absolute nor an erosion of socialist ideals. Rather, this consciousness (conciencia), much like A. Yurchak (2005) demonstrates in his study of Gorbachev's Russia, reveals a system that inhabits incommensurable positions; Cuba's socialism is both everlasting and steadily declining, at the same time full of vigor and bleakness, as well as dedicated to high ideals and devoid of them. None of these positions is a mask. The intention of this article is, therefore, to show how each is real and mutually constitutive in the EAC. Understanding this peculiar dynamic is crucial for understanding the everyday practices of students, their parents and teachers, the socializing function of Cuban schools, and the seemingly duplicitous behavior in Cuban's daily lives. [Cuban education, socialism, value formation]

Education in Cuba—an alternative educational discourse: lessons to be learned?

This article focuses on the Cuban education system, which is well known for its focus on inclusion and equality of opportunity, but also for its focus on political and ideological conformity. The economic crisis in Cuba has led to an educational crisis as well, both in terms of teacher shortages and a decrease in quality and in political/ideological commitment. In 2001 a comprehensive transformation of the education system in Cuba was introduced. This transformation followed in the wake of ‘the battle of ideas’, a campaign introduced to mobilize the youth for the defence of the revolution. The article critically examines the ideas and ideology behind the transformation policy and discusses the problem of ideological exclusion, despite the inclusiveness of the system (free education). Education in Cuba has not received a cent from the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund since the revolution, but is still reputed to have one of the best school systems (if not the best) in the developing world. The article discusses this claim (what is meant by best?) and examines the lessons to be learnt from the Cuban educational experience. Its uniqueness in a global perspective—what the author defines as cultural capital more or less universally distributed—represents an alternative educational route that ought to be studied carefully by other countries in both the south and north.

Algunos fundamentos filosóficos y psicológicos de la tecnología educativa

El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo describir el surgimiento de la tecnología educativa como tendencia pedagógica contemporánea y sus referentes filosóficos y psicológicos.En especial se hace énfasis en el impacto que ha producido la tecnología educativa sobre la educación cubana y desde que presupuestos filosóficos y psicológicos se ha asumido, sin dejar de tener en cuenta sus antecedentes históricos. AbstractThe technological development of the 1950s finally generated a whole educational revolution at world-wide level whose leading exponent is what today is known as distance learning.This paper aims at finding a way of describing the emergence of educational technology as a contemporary pedagogical tendency. It also describes its philosophical and pedagogical referents, since they have led the way to its present developments, even in distance learning. Our point of departure is the concept of skill (técnica) and its subsequent link with science, thus giving origin to the concept of technology, to later describe the way in which the latter gradually related to different cultural and social systems.Special emphasis is laid on the impact that educational technology has had on Cuban education and on the identification of the philosophical and psychological assumptions that have been its point of departure, taking into account its historical background.

Cuba’s Academic Performance in Comparative Perspective

Previous articleNext article No AccessCuba’s Academic Performance in Comparative PerspectiveMartin Carnoy and Jeffery MarshallMartin Carnoy Search for more articles by this author and Jeffery Marshall Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 49, Number 2May 2005 Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/428721 Views: 160Total views on this site Citations: 14Citations are reported from Crossref © 2005 by the Comparative and International Education Society. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Holmes Finch, Maria E. Hernández Finch The Relationship of National, School, and Student Socioeconomic Status With Academic Achievement: A Model for Programme for International Student Assessment Reading and Mathematics Scores, Frontiers in Education 7 (Apr 2022).https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.857451Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Andreas de Barros, Sarah Dryden-Peterson, Bethany Mulimbi, Nozomi Nakajima, and Paola Uccelli Levers for Learning: Relationships between School-Level Factors and Literacy Outcomes in Low-Income Schools in Colombia, Comparative Education Review 64, no.22 (Apr 2020): 269–298.https://doi.org/10.1086/708431Johan Muller, Ursula Hoadley Curriculum Reform and Learner Performance: An Obstinate Paradox in the Quest for Equality, (Nov 2019): 109–125.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18811-5_6Thomas F. Luschei and Loris P. Fagioli A Vanishing Rural School Advantage? Changing Urban/Rural Student Achievement Differences in Latin America and the Caribbean, Comparative Education Review 60, no.44 (Sep 2016): 703–745.https://doi.org/10.1086/688394Martin Carnoy, Moses Ngware, and Moses Oketch The Role of Classroom Resources and National Educational Context in Student Learning Gains: Comparing Botswana, Kenya, and South Africa, Comparative Education Review 59, no.22 (Oct 2015): 199–233.https://doi.org/10.1086/680173Thomas F. Luschei, Amita Chudgar, W. Joshua Rew Exploring Differences in the Distribution of Teacher Qualifications Across Mexico and South Korea: Evidence from the Teaching and Learning International Survey, Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education 115, no.55 (May 2013): 1–38.https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811311500502Thomas F. Luschei In Search of Good Teachers: Patterns of Teacher Quality in Two Mexican States, Comparative Education Review 56, no.11 (Jul 2015): 69–97.https://doi.org/10.1086/661508Boris Prickarts Equality or equity, player or guardian? The Dutch government and its role in providing access opportunities for government sponsored international secondary education, 1979-2009, Journal of Research in International Education 9, no.33 (Jan 2011): 227–244.https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240910383841Peter H. Lindert The unequal lag in Latin American schooling since 1900: follow the money, Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History 28, no.22 (Sep 2010): 375–405.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0212610910000066Diane Brook Napier Education, Social Justice, and Development in South Africa and Cuba: Comparisons and Connections, (Nov 2009): 33–48.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3221-8_3A. Hickling-Hudson Curriculum in Postcolonial Contexts, (Jan 2010): 299–306.https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-044894-7.00056-7Noah W. Sobe, Renee N. Timberlake Staying the (post)socialist course: Global/local transformations and Cuban education, (Mar 2015): 351–367.https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2010)0000014016David F. Suárez Rewriting citizenship? Civic education in Costa Rica and Argentina, Comparative Education 44, no.44 (Nov 2008): 485–503.https://doi.org/10.1080/03050060802517505 REVIEW SYMPOSIUM, British Journal of Sociology of Education 27, no.33 (Jul 2006): 389–407.https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690600753928

Cuba's Academic Performance in Comparative Perspective

Previous articleNext article No AccessCuba’s Academic Performance in Comparative PerspectiveMartin Carnoy and Jeffery MarshallMartin Carnoy Search for more articles by this author and Jeffery Marshall Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 49, Number 2May 2005 Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/428721 Views: 162Total views on this site Citations: 14Citations are reported from Crossref © 2005 by the Comparative and International Education Society. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Holmes Finch, Maria E. Hernández Finch The Relationship of National, School, and Student Socioeconomic Status With Academic Achievement: A Model for Programme for International Student Assessment Reading and Mathematics Scores, Frontiers in Education 7 (Apr 2022).https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.857451Felipe Barrera-Osorio, Andreas de Barros, Sarah Dryden-Peterson, Bethany Mulimbi, Nozomi Nakajima, and Paola Uccelli Levers for Learning: Relationships between School-Level Factors and Literacy Outcomes in Low-Income Schools in Colombia, Comparative Education Review 64, no.22 (Apr 2020): 269–298.https://doi.org/10.1086/708431Johan Muller, Ursula Hoadley Curriculum Reform and Learner Performance: An Obstinate Paradox in the Quest for Equality, (Nov 2019): 109–125.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18811-5_6Thomas F. Luschei and Loris P. Fagioli A Vanishing Rural School Advantage? Changing Urban/Rural Student Achievement Differences in Latin America and the Caribbean, Comparative Education Review 60, no.44 (Sep 2016): 703–745.https://doi.org/10.1086/688394Martin Carnoy, Moses Ngware, and Moses Oketch The Role of Classroom Resources and National Educational Context in Student Learning Gains: Comparing Botswana, Kenya, and South Africa, Comparative Education Review 59, no.22 (Oct 2015): 199–233.https://doi.org/10.1086/680173Thomas F. Luschei, Amita Chudgar, W. Joshua Rew Exploring Differences in the Distribution of Teacher Qualifications Across Mexico and South Korea: Evidence from the Teaching and Learning International Survey, Teachers College Record: The Voice of Scholarship in Education 115, no.55 (May 2013): 1–38.https://doi.org/10.1177/016146811311500502Thomas F. Luschei In Search of Good Teachers: Patterns of Teacher Quality in Two Mexican States, Comparative Education Review 56, no.11 (Jul 2015): 69–97.https://doi.org/10.1086/661508Boris Prickarts Equality or equity, player or guardian? The Dutch government and its role in providing access opportunities for government sponsored international secondary education, 1979-2009, Journal of Research in International Education 9, no.33 (Jan 2011): 227–244.https://doi.org/10.1177/1475240910383841Peter H. Lindert The unequal lag in Latin American schooling since 1900: follow the money, Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History 28, no.22 (Sep 2010): 375–405.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0212610910000066Diane Brook Napier Education, Social Justice, and Development in South Africa and Cuba: Comparisons and Connections, (Nov 2009): 33–48.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3221-8_3A. Hickling-Hudson Curriculum in Postcolonial Contexts, (Jan 2010): 299–306.https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-044894-7.00056-7Noah W. Sobe, Renee N. Timberlake Staying the (post)socialist course: Global/local transformations and Cuban education, (Mar 2015): 351–367.https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2010)0000014016David F. Suárez Rewriting citizenship? Civic education in Costa Rica and Argentina, Comparative Education 44, no.44 (Nov 2008): 485–503.https://doi.org/10.1080/03050060802517505 REVIEW SYMPOSIUM, British Journal of Sociology of Education 27, no.33 (Jul 2006): 389–407.https://doi.org/10.1080/01425690600753928

Cuba

ABSTRACT Cuban librarianship is not well known to librarians in the United States. A rigid U.S. embargo has hampered communication and travel between the two countries for over 40 years. In March of 2000, the author joined a tour of Cuban libraries planned by Rhonda N. Neugebauer, and made the first of three recent trips to Cuba. This report discusses restrictions on travel; the island's economy and its cities; visits to Cuban libraries; contacts with Cuban librarians, educators, and scientists; and current Cuban library practice. It also discusses the Friends of Cuban Libraries, a U.S.-based organization that promotes a number of small non-state supported libraries that have recently opened in private homes. The author visited a number of these libraries and compares his findings with claims made by the “Friends” group.

The Cuban diabetes education program. Twenty years of experience

The Cuban diabetes education program. Twenty years of experience

The Reliability of Cuba's Educational Statistics

Previous articleNext article No AccessThe Reliability of Cuba's Educational StatisticsBenigno E. Aguirre and Roberto J. VichotBenigno E. Aguirre Search for more articles by this author and Roberto J. Vichot Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Comparative Education Review Volume 42, Number 2May, 1998 Sponsored by the Comparative and International Education Society Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/447492 Views: 5Total views on this site Citations: 6Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 1998 The Comparative and International Education SocietyPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Alejandro de la Fuente, Stanley R. Bailey THE PUZZLE OF RACIAL INEQUALITY IN CUBA, 1980s–2010s, Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race 18, no.11 (Mar 2021): 73–96.https://doi.org/10.1017/S1742058X21000060Ranu Basu Geopolitical Framings of Subalterity in Education: Compounding a Neoliberalized Welfare State, (Aug 2019): 163–176.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18799-6_9Peter H. Lindert The unequal lag in Latin American schooling since 1900: follow the money, Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History 28, no.22 (Sep 2010): 375–405.https://doi.org/10.1017/S0212610910000066Noah W. Sobe, Renee N. Timberlake Staying the (post)socialist course: Global/local transformations and Cuban education, (Mar 2015): 351–367.https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3679(2010)0000014016Benigno E. Aguirre Social Control in Cuba, Latin American Politics and Society 44, no.22 (Jan 2018): 67–98.https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-2456.2002.tb00206.xFrancis Musa Boakari 11. POVERTY AND EDUCATION: BRAZIL’S SEARCH FOR VIABLE SOLUTIONS?, (): 253–294.https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-358X(04)04011-2

Education and the Cuban Revolution: A Selected Bibliography

tion devoted to the first decades of change and such innovations as the Literacy Campaign or the combination of study and work, however, the pace of research and reporting on Cuban education has slowed. The recognition of past progress remains crucial for understanding the challenges facing the Cuban schools in the current period as well as where educational reformsincluding diminished access to higher education-fit in Cuba's strategy for survival in the new world order. The official commitment to education re-

The Coming Crisis in Cuban Education

Since the revolution of 1959 Cuba massively expanded and, in many respects, transformed its education system. While the strategy under Fidel Castro initially differed from other LDCs in its emphasis on mass education and technical training, with time the island has been inflicted with the same ‘diploma disease’ as so many other LDCs. And once inflicted, it has had exceptional difficulty curing the illness. The country has come to be overeducated, relative to the employment opportunities available. Overeducation has become a political as well as fiscal problem following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Soviet aid and trade in turn. Faced with the problem, the government is attempting to deschool the younger generation. However, families are resisting the downward mobility implicit in the education restructuring.

Molding the Hearts and Minds: Education, Communications, and Social Change in Latin America

Part 1 I The Colonial Legacy and the Nineteenth Century Chapter 2 In Search of Deference: Education and Civic Formation in Nineteenth-Century Buenos Aires Chapter 3 Children and Schooling in Guanajuato, Mexico, 1790-1840 Part 4 II Universities in Ferment Chapter 5 The Popular Universities and the Origins of Aprismo, 1921-1924 Chapter 6 The Great Conflict Part 7 III Revolution Part 8 The Roots of Revolution Chapter 9 The Satiric Penny Press for Workers in Mexico, 1900-1910: A Case Study in the Politicization of Popular culture Chapter 10 What is Sandinismo? Part 11 Revolutionary Governments and Social Change Chapter 12 The Educational Project of the Mexican Revolution: The Response of Local Societies (1934-1940) Chapter 13 God and Revolution: Protestant Missions in Revolutionary Guatemala, 1944-1954 Chapter 14 Educatoin for Peron Chapter 15 Pro-Communist Revolution in Cuban Education Part 16 IV Problems of Institutionalization Part 17 The Challenges of Bureaucratization and Centralization Chapter 18 Paulo Freire-Philospher of Adult Education Chapter 19 Animating Grassroots Development: Women's Popular Education in Bolivia Part 20 The Impact of International Institutions: Ideas and Images from Abroad Chapter 21 The Americanization of Latin American Television Chapter 22 The Projection of a Faborable American Image in Brazil Chapter 23 Autonomy versus Foreign Influence: Mexican Education Policy and UNESCO

National network for training diabetes educators. The Cuban diabetes education programme

National network for training diabetes educators. The Cuban diabetes education programme

Women in the transformation of Cuban education

Women in the transformation of Cuban education

Innovatory aspects of Cuban education

Innovatory aspects of Cuban education

Cuban Education and the Revolutionary Ideology

The rapid transformation of society in revolutionary Cuba vitally involves education. The author argues that school and society are always closely linked; in pre-revolutionary Cuba, schooling helped reproduce the class structure of economy and society from one generation to the next. In Cuba today education is attempting to serve the four major objectives of the revolution: economic growth; escape from the economic, political, and cultural hegemony of the United States; attainment of an egalitarian society; and the transformation of work into a creative activity for a new socialist man. The campaign against illiteracy,the general expansion of schooling, and the extension of education to the fields and factories are among the facets of the educational program described. Professor Bowles concludes with a discussion of dilemmas in Cuban education.