by Cristobal Madero and Daniel Cano In August 2015, a telephone rings in the history department of an elite high school in Santiago, Chile. After several unanswered calls, Marcela, one of the history teachers, finally picks up the phone. It only takes us a few minutes to convince her to participate in a program on... Continue Reading →
By Steve Weissman You don’t need to convince the farmers in Bolivia’s Altiplano that their climate is changing, as weather patterns and drought become consistently more severe. Glaciers have retreated. Snow pack is short-lived. People living and working in these communities have no confidence that sufficient water will return to support plants and animals. Dramatic life... Continue Reading →
Dando la vuelta, author walking on the shore of Lago Villarica/Mallalafquén, Volcán Villarica/Rucapillán in the distance. (Photo courtesy of Marcelo Montalvo.) By Marcelo Garzo Montalvo In a paradigm of research as theft (Robbins 2006), research as a dirty word (Smith 1999), or an otherwise extractive imperial process of hurried knowledge production; qualitative research projects are... Continue Reading →
Marcela Salazar, instructor at the Grange School in Santiago, teaching at the Escuela de Primer Agua, Mapuche. (Photo by Cristobal Madero.) By Cristobal Madero With support from CLAS and the Tinker Foundation, I spent two weeks in May implementing an education project in Chile with Daniel Cano of Georgetown University. The idea behind the project... Continue Reading →
I had the opportunity to visit the nonlinear physics group at the University of Chile in Santiago this past December. During my stay, I met with researchers working on a broad range of theory and experiments that really highlight the universality of nonlinear phenomena across many fields. I am broadly interested in the emergence of... Continue Reading →
By Javier Couso Isabel Allende swears in Michelet Bachelet as outgoing president Sebastián Piñera looks on. Photo by Alex Ibañez. On March 11, 2014, Chile experienced a highly symbolic political development when the newly elected head of the senate, Isabel Allende (daughter of the late Salvador Allende), swore in Michelle Bachelet as the new president... Continue Reading →
by Jonathan Peterson* Jonathan Peterson. On September 16, I had the opportunity to see Robert Reich's play Milton and Augusto, which gives one account of the mysterious meeting between Milton Friedman and August Pinochet right after the fall of the government of Salvador Allende in 1973. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the military takeover, making its... Continue Reading →
by Miguel Ordenes The Chilean education system, the paradigm of market-based reform, is experiencing one of its biggest twists since its foundation in 1981. Chile is moving away from a totally free market in education toward a mixed system with a powerful new role for the state. Chile has been a pioneer in the implementation... Continue Reading →
by Mayra Feddersen Last year, the Chilean National Congress modernized the electoral system, automatically registering all qualified residents to vote and making voting itself voluntary. Previously, registering to vote was optional, but once you registered, voting was obligatory, with fines of up to $224 for registered voters who didn’t show up at the polls. The... Continue Reading →
