Donkeys and superteachers: structural adjustment and popular education in Latin America

In the past two decades Latin American governments have carried out dramatic social and economic transformations. The application of different programs of structural adjustment and decentralization has promoted deep changes, not only in the economic and social arenas, but also within the educational systems. The dominant tendency is to look for all the answers to educational problems in the realm of the 'free market'. However, contrary to what this situation may suggest, practitioners of 'popular education' in the region have not lost all their vitality. This paper explores the challenges and possibilities of popular education by examining the educational field after the application of structural adjustment programs, presenting a critique of Gramsi's model of the organic intellectual as understood by many within popular education, and offering the specific example of a popular education workshop in Argentina.