The spread of targeted educational policies in Latin America: global thesis and local impacts

This article analyses the new educational mandate for Latin America, exploring its repercussions on the design and development of certain educational policies. In particular, it concentrates both on the anti‐poverty educational agenda (at a global level) and on targeted educational policies (at a regional, national and local level), analyzing, on one hand, their interaction and, on the other, their limits, opportunities and omissions. Within this framework, the article is organised as follows. First, it presents the current anti‐poverty educational agenda, analysing its thesis and foundations. Second, it discusses the repercussions of this agenda on Latin America, explaining the emergence, spread and logic of action of targeted educational policies. The third and fourth sections focus on a particular model of educational targeting, initially explaining the features of the programme (called Bolsa Escola) and then presenting an assessment of its impacts from an educational standpoint. Finally, to conclude, it analyses the shortcomings and omissions of both targeted educational policies and the global anti‐poverty agenda.