ABSTRACT
Education is a central issue in public discussion in the Americas. The shared concerns about education, however, tend to hide important context variety. Based on the aforementioned legal frameworks, Latin America’s modern school systems have been developed since the mid-19th century. They started from a shared orientation toward the French model, but with the passing of the decades and driven by political and social changes, the education systems gradually differentiated themselves. Despite decades of reforms aiming to improve equity, students’ social background continues to be the key factor for educational success. In the political practice, an increasing number of Latin American countries adapt themselves to the arguably Eurocentric conception of education quality from OECD’s PISA project. The incorporation of the perspective of interculturality in Latin American education systems also gained dynamic during the last period. Education in the Americas contains important divergences between the different regional, national, and local contexts.
