How and What we study in Latin America about Latin America ?

An overview of Latin American Studies in the Latin American Higher Education Curricula.

Higher Education enrollment map:

 Latin America is a region of contrasts. There are excellent public universities as well as weak ones. There is a growing private sector that includes both prestigious Catholic universities and substandard institutions that simply absorb demand. Alongside these institutions, new local and international providers have appeared. Together they form an interesting mix of public and private, national and international institutions of higher education.

Public vs. Private Higher Education

Latin American countries have approached the expansion of higher education in different ways. In Argentina, Mexico, Uruguay, and Venezuela, public universities have expanded and diversified, and new public institutions have been created at the regional level to absorb some of the demand. In Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, public education has remained restricted, and private institutions have accounted for most of the increase in opportunities. Differences notwithstanding, private provision of higher education has grown remarkably across the region in recent decades. Currently, private institutions in Latin America account for more than 40 percent of higher education enrollment.

How "globalized" is the syllabus of an introductory course in Latin America?

The discussion does not center on the globalization of education. Rather, globalization is presented as a phenomenon that affects internationalization. The international dimension of higher education responds to the challenges of globalization. The interdependence of todays economies and societies profoundly affects higher education, and higher education in turn shapes globalizationthrough teaching, research, and other services. In Europe and the United States, institutions have internationalized their curricula. In contrast, very little curricular change has occurred in Latin America.

International Connectivity of Higher Education

Latin America has more students at U.S. universities relative to the proportion enrolled at home than any other region in the world Europeparticularly Spain, Italy, and Francealso hosts a significant number of students from Latin America (OECD 2002b).Moreover, a rising number of scholars from Latin America are teaching or conducting research abroad. In 2002 the number of visiting scholars in the United States from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico grew 20 percent (Chin 2003).
Little is known about how diverse or similar, how heterogeneous or uniform, how complex or simple higher education and its international dimension have become in Latin America.

 International linkages of Latin American scholars graduated at U.S. universities, are one of the main reasons for curricula internationalization in recent years, particularly for Political Science and Economics. Most Latin American private universities provides , in avarage, two introductory Latin American as elective courses. Most common courses are : Latin American Pre Colonial History ; Latin American Colonial History;Latin American Republican History; Latin American Contemporary History; Country in the History of Latin America; State, Politcs and Society; Social and Political Porcess; Latin American Political Culture; Latin American Development , Poverty and Inequality;Etnicity