Spring 2013 | Volume Xliv | Issue 2 in This Issue
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spring 2013 | volume xliv | issue 2 in this issue Debates Education in Latin America: Advances and Challenges by Gabriel Ondetti and indira PalaciOs-Valladares La educación primaria y secundaria en América Latina: Balance y desafíos por néstOr lóPez Education and Social Mobility in Latin America by christian daude Affirmative Action in Brazil by edward telles and MarcelO PaixãO Educación y equidad de género por María del carMen FeijOó Financiamiento de la educación superior en América Latina: Viejas y nuevas prácticas por jOsé jOaquín brunner President Evelyne Huber University of North Carolina [email protected] Vice President Merilee Grindle Harvard University Past President Maria Hermínia Tavares de Almeida Table of Contents Universidade de São Paulo Treasurer Cristina Eguizábal Florida International University 1 Peter H. Smith | Recipient of the Kalman Silvert Award for 2013 ExEcuTive council For term ending May 2013 3 From the President | by eVelyne huber Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social Debates Maxine Molyneux, University of London Gioconda Herrera, FLACSO/Ecuador 4 Education in Latin America: Advances and Challenges For term ending May 2014: by Gabriel Ondetti and Indira PalaciOs-Valladares Graciela Montaldo, Columbia University María Clemencia Ramírez, Instituto Colombiano 5 La educación primaria y secundaria en América Latina: Balance y desafíos de Antropología e Historia por néstOr lóPez Catalina Romero, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú Ex officio 7 Education and Social Mobility in Latin America | by christian daude Gwen Kirkpatrick, Georgetown University 10 Affirmative Action in Brazil | by edward telles and MarcelO PaixãO Kenneth M. Roberts, Cornell University Milagros Pereyra-Rojas, University of Pittsburgh 12 Educación y equidad de género | por María del carMen FeijOó Philip Oxhorn, McGill University 15 Financiamiento de la educación superior en América Latina: Viejas y nuevas ForuM EdiTorial committee prácticas | por jOsé jOaquín brunner Editor Evelyne Huber, University of North Carolina On LASA2013 Managing Editor Milagros Pereyra-Rojas, University of Pittsburgh 18 Report from the Program Chairs | by Gwen KirKPatricK and Kenneth M. rOberts GuEsT associate EdiTors 19 LASA2013 Film Festival | por claudia FerMan Gabriel Ondetti, Missouri State University 21 On Washington, DC Indira Palacios-Valladares, Missouri State University LASA Staff lasa’S 50th Anniversary special Projects coordinator María Soledad Cabezas, University of Pittsburgh 23 Kalman Silvert and LASA’s Fiftieth Anniversary | by Martin weinstein assistant director for institutional advancement 24 Kal’s Gift | by lOuis w. GOOdMan Sandra Klinzing, University of Pittsburgh communications specialist SectiOn NewS Sara Lickey, University of Pittsburgh Executive director 28 LASA Pre-Conference Session Milagros Pereyra-Rojas, University of Pittsburgh 28 Film Studies Membership coordinator Israel R. Perlov, University of Pittsburgh 29 III Jornadas de la Sección de Estudios Venezolanos de la Asociación de Estudios operations Manager – congress coordinator Latinoamericanos LASA Pilar Rodriguez Blanco, University of Pittsburgh The LASA Forum is published four times a year. It is the official vehicle for conveying news about the Latin American Studies Association to its members. Articles appearing in the On the Profession and Debates sections of the Forum are commissioned by the Editorial Committee and deal with selected themes. The Committee welcomes responses to any material published in the Forum. Opinions expressed herein are those of individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the Latin American Studies Association or its officers. ISSN 0890-7218 Peter H. Smith Recipient of the Kalman Silvert Award for 2013 Autobiographical Statement science, initially by auditing courses at the University of California, Berkeley. With the My academic career has followed a encouragement of Kalman Silvert, I serendipitous path. It has been marked by determined to acquire a working command abundant opportunity, generous of quantitative methodology. This linkage encouragement, unstinting intellectual of history and political science would support—and exceedingly good luck. define a core concern of my scholarly old man, I can assure you!—and produced efforts: to analyze long-term patterns of a book entitled Labyrinths of Power The journey began many years ago when I political change in Latin America through (1979). One significant by-product of this yearned to take a summer trip to Europe, the judicious application of cutting-edge effort was a roll-call analysis of voting as many of my college classmates did at the methods in political science. patterns in Mexico’s constitutional time. The problem was a lack of funds, so convention of 1917. I set out on a less expensive venture: a bus This bifocal approach to history and ride from New York City to Mexico City. I political science had its occasional In the mid-1980s I received an invitation knew no Spanish, no Mexican history, no downsides. Sometimes I felt that I fit into from the Ford Foundation to serve as Latin American politics, nothing. Talk neither discipline, somewhere on an empty co–staff director (along with Rosario about a tabula rasa! borderland with no one else in sight. Said Green) of a major project on U.S.-Mexican one friend about this dilemma: “Isn’t that relations. Headed by a blue-ribbon That trip changed my life. Mexico was exactly where you want to be?” bilateral commission, the program was vivacious, energetic, exuberant, still in its intended to improve understanding, design postrevolutionary phase. I was utterly My first corpus of research focused on practical initiatives, and rejuvenate a captivated. I witnessed student protests, Argentina and resulted in two books: relationship that was under considerable listened to expositions about all sorts of Politics and Beef in Argentina (1969), pressure at the time. This brought me political values, and heard discussions (and which examined political struggles over a face-to-face with two additional diatribes) about Fidel Castro and U.S. key sector of the national economy from dimensions of analysis: international imperialism. Most of all, I observed silent the 1880s to the 1940s, and Argentina and relations and public policy. The project dignity in the face of social injustice. the Failure of Democracy (1974), based on produced a book-length study titled The Ashamed of my own ignorance, I became a statistical analysis of roll-call votes in the Challenge of Interdependence (1988), led troubled by the historic roles of the United Chamber of Deputies from 1904 through to encounters with presidents and States. I cast my lot with los de abajo. My 1955. The latter book suffered from dignitaries in both countries, and resulted self-appointed mission would be to ferret methodological asphyxiation at the time, in the publication of five volumes of out the truth. but it seems to have caught a second wind background papers. We think the project in light of recent interest in legislative did some good; at the very least, it did no Fortunately I enrolled for graduate study in behavior in a democratizing Latin America. harm. (One spin-off for me was a history at Columbia University in 1961, These efforts also resulted in a book subsequent volume on drug trafficking in just in time for the inauguration of its chapter on the breakdown of Argentine the Americas.) renowned Institute of Latin American democracy in 1930. Studies. I was able to study with such Scholarly work since the 1990s has luminaries as Albert O. Hirschman, Juan J. I then turned to Mexico and sought to consisted primarily of synthesis. Wary of Linz, Frank Tannenbaum, and the unravel the political logic of its the triumphalist tone of American indefatigable Lewis Hanke. My student authoritarian regime. After some commentary after the end of the Cold War cohort was itself remarkable— deliberation I decided to examine the (and inspired by a quote from Mark knowledgeable, accomplished, intelligent, structure and transformation of the Twain), I could not resist the temptation to and unceasingly supportive. nation’s political elite from 1900 through write Talons of the Eagle: Latin America, the 1970s. I gathered and computerized the United States, and the World (1996), In subsequent years I embarked upon a data on the political biographies of more now in its fourth edition. Also unhappy program of self-education in political than 6,000 officeholders—not a task for an with bland and blasé assessments of 1 lasaforum spring 2013 : volume xliv : issue 2 patterns of democratization around the Teaching has been one of my great world, I managed to compose a book pleasures. I learn from every class I give. I entitled Democracy in Latin America: take every session as an opportunity to Political Change in Comparative convince students about the importance of Perspective (2005), now in its second the subject matter—its moral significance, edition. The goal of this volume was to not just its analytical relevance—and to combine historical, institutional, and demonstrate my commitment to the behavioral elements of political conduct endeavor. Not surprisingly, this focus has into a holistic and coherent interpretation strengthened my resolve to help make of democratic transformation. This from Modern Latin America the best book that someone who had devoted so much effort it can be. There is ego in this activity. In to the study of authoritarian