ABSTRACT
Research centres, professional journals and researchers in Latin America in the early 1980s have multiplied tenfold since 1970. Around 150 research reports are produced each year and the main problem now is diffusion and use of what is produced, and also how to continue operating at this level given economic and sometimes political constraints. There is a growing interest in using the products of research, but access to the available research is still difficult. It is not easy to break the monopoly of knowledge and to offer access to such knowledge to the more needy marginal groups of society. There are many examples of impact of available research, mainly in terms of the state school system. But recently there is an increasing amount of research aimed at overcoming unjust prevailing socio-economic regimes or improving forms of government condemned as abusive. Among the tendencies vaguely felt, but gaining momentum in the region, are participatory (action) research, evaluative research of current programmes, comparative education studies and state-of-the-art reviews that systematize available knowledge and relate it to assumptions in those areas where no objective knowledge is available.
