Education decentralization in Argentina: a ‘global-local conditions of possibility’ approach to state,market, and society change

This research examined the international origins, national intentions, and local interpretations and actions of the most recent education decentralization movement in Argentina. As a mixed-method, multi-level study, the research was framed with the understanding that current reforms like education decentralization must be approached as contemporaneously constituted policies but historically constructed processes. Using historical methods and archival analysis, this research traced the patterns and pressures of the international policy environment in which policies like privatization, deregulation and decentralization have gained much attention. It reviewed Argentina's recent current educational decentralization laws in light of these global trends as well as their national and subnational context. Employing technical, political, and narrative methods of policy analysis, this research examined the degree of correspondence between the laws' international origins and national intentions and the actors' local interpretations and actions of them. Drawing from the ‘analytic narratives’ that resulted from this study, the bulk of this article compares actors' interpretations, re-actions, and en-actions of education decentralization in three provinces of Argentina. By assessing the relationship between the provinces' political, economic, and cultural contexts and the actors' interpretations and actions of education decentralization, the research concludes that both material capacities and symbolic identities affect the outcomes of education decentralization.     

Evaluating carrascolendas: A television series for Mexican‐American children

Readers with young children may have noticed the occasional Spanish language vignettes appearing from time to time on Sesame Street, the popular public television program for pre‐schoolers. The following article describes the development and audience impact of a program designed to reach a Spanish‐American audience in a Texas city. The study is presented primarily as a guide for other programmers desiring to evaluate audience effects of such content. This article is a summary of a longer report done under an Office of Education subcontract to the Center for Communication Research at the University of Texas. Dr. Williams is Director of the Center and professor in the school of communications, while Diana Natalicio is now an assistant professor of linguistics at the University of Texas at El Paso after having completed her doctorate in linguistics at the Austin campus in 1970.