Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This paper analyzes migration from Mexico to the United States over the past decades and seeks to explain why it began to fall starting in 2008. After providing some background on the historical trends of labor migration to the United States, the article focuses on the place of Mexicans and other Latin Americans in the United States labormarket as the context that frames Mexican migration. This work then analyzes the impact of the 2008-2009 recession on Latin American laborers, especially Mexicans, and how migration flows from Mexico have evolved in recent years. The conclusion derived from the analysis of the data and trends observed is that the decline in Mexican migration starting in 2008 can primarily be explained by the behavior of labor demandin the United States, largely determined by the recession.

This paper addresses the association between socio-scientific controversies and key competencies in sustainability from science education (SE) and environmental education (EE), specifically in initial teacher training (ITT). It is suggested that new research opportunities are also obtained from the articulation between SE and EE, with those on the factors that affect the development of the key competencies outlined by Wiek et al. (2011) being particularly relevant. In order to verify this proposal, quantitative methodologies were used, which investigate the concepts of socio-scientific controversies and the relative degree of deployment of key competencies for sustainability. In order to achieve this, the BIOHEAD-citizen questionnaire and a case study test evaluated with rubrics were applied to trainee teachers to collect evidence of conceptions of controversies in various topics and the relative degree of development of three competencies, namely, systems thinking, strategic, and normative competencies. The association of both sets of data was done with linear models, based on the score for each competency as a dependent variable. The best model obtained shows a statistically significant explanation of systems-thinking on the part of two systems of conceptions: socio-environmentally negative and socio-political religious; whereas for the other two competencies (strategic and normative) no independent variable resulted in a relevant model. These results suggest that conceptions are important for the development of key competencies, supporting the importance of a symbiotic relationship between SE and EE, the ’implications of which are discussed for ITT.

La violencia escolar debe comprenderse en su relación con las personas, organizaciones y culturas que la enmarcan. Resulta interesante conocer la perspectiva de los niños y niñas de enseñanza primaria al respecto, especialmente en los segmentos sociales marginados y vulnerados por condiciones de injusticia y pobreza, cuyas voces suelen estar menos representadas en la cultura escolar. Considerando estos antecedentes, realizamos una indagación cualitativa en una escuela básica, en la que el 100% de los estudiantes acreditaban condiciones de vulnerabilidad social y educativa. Asimismo, en el centro escolar solían ocurrir hechos de violencia. El objetivo fue conocer los significados construidos respecto de la violencia y su gestión en la escuela. Los resultados refieren a una experiencia cotidiana de aburrimiento en el aula, ante la cual algunos estudiantes se conformaban, en tanto que otros buscaban fugarse de clases o interrumpirlas a través de peleas o destrucción de mobiliario. Quienes protagonizaban estas acciones eran atendidos por profesores y profesionales de apoyo, a diferencia de aquellos que observaban o recibían agresiones. Los participantes manifiestan propuestas para mejorar la convivencia en la escuela y el aula. Estos resultados son discutidos en relación con las necesidades de reconocimiento identitario y cultural de los estudiantes.

This research sought to determine the attitudes and capabilities of teachers towards educational innovation from the perspective of 828 students from 19 educational establishments in the Biobío region of Chile. In order to answer the research questions, we conducted comparative analyses of mean differences using ANOVA, the t-test, and correlations using Pearson’s coefficient. The main results show that, teachers are generally highly rated by students in terms of the characteristics of an innovative teacher, particularly regarding respect (84.7%), disposition (86.9%), commitment (82%), and vocation (81.1%). However, they are less well rated in the use of technological tools such as email and social networks to support the teaching-learning process. In addition, women appear to have a higher opinion of some characteristics of teachers linked to interpersonal relationships. Finally, the correlations revealed a positive and significant relationship for the variables examined with respect to the students’ gender.

This study analyzes the characteristics of the episodes of Aprendo TV, prepared by the Chilean Ministry of Education to teach early literacy, in order to explore the assumptions, approaches, or didactic models to which they respond. In order to do this, we conducted an analysis of the first 10 episodes on language aimed at first-grade students. The methodology is qualitative through thematic analysis, with theoretical and emergent categories. The results of this study show that in the design of the episodes there is not a clear and progressive learning path. Learning is centered mainly around the code in a decontextualized manner, going from the smallest units of the language to the more complex units. In other words, from the perspective of the reader, the text-code relationship is not fully explained. Moreover, there are few teaching and learning situations that consider the integrality of the core curricular themes. Finally, the results indicate that the vernacular practices that children, along with their families, develop in their daily lives are ignored. This study contributes to a reconsideration of the guidelines of public policy to teach and approach the process of initial literacy in virtual contexts.

Participatory methodologies are aimed at achieving active learning through collective activities and discussion of ideas and experiences between teachers and students. The purpose of this study was to learn about teachers’ notions of participatory methodologies at the conceptual, procedural, and attitudinal level. We conducted a descriptive, cross[1]sectional, and comparative study. A KPSI questionnaire on didactic learning strategies was applied to 81 elementary and secondary school teachers in the Biobío region of Chile. For the statistical analysis, we used the ANOVA test for repeated measures and the Student’s t test to determine whether there were significant differences between the three levels of the questionnaire (conceptual, procedural, and attitudinal). The inferential analysis determined that there are statistically significant differences between the means for the conceptual and procedural levels, and between the means for the procedural and attitudinal levels. The difference implied that the procedural level was significantly better than the conceptual and attitudinal levels. The results suggest a lack of implementation of participatory methodologies in the classroom as a consequence of the traditional teaching-learning model, resistance to pedagogical change, and initial teacher training, factors that hinder the use of participatory methodologies in the classroom.

Videogames are part of students’ everyday lives. Nevertheless, they are not always considered as educational resources in the teaching process. The purpose of this study was to analyze the attitudes of teachers at the preschool, elementary, and secondary levels in the Dominican Republic regarding the use of videogames as an educational resource. To do so, a quantitative, non-experimental methodology was used with an exploratory-descriptive design, applying an exploratory factorial analysis with SPSS and a confirmatory factor analysis with AMOS. The results show that younger teachers, who have used video games, are more willing to incorporate them into the classroom than those who have never used them or been trained in their use. This creates barriers that limit the incorporation of these games into classes, which implies that there is an urgent need for teacher training in the grades studied in this field. 

Teachers and students constantly recreate meanings, conditioned by the digital media used in remote education during the pandemic. Semiosis is designed by teachers as learning games, involving students in the simulation of cultural practices in which didactic writing sequences are realized in chains that shift meanings between different semiotic modes, giving rise to transmodal moments. This study combines three theoretical approaches: socio-semiotic, anthropological-didactic, and didactic-disciplinary. Our objective is to explore semiosis in the transmodal moments that occur in the virtual interaction during a didactic sequence. From the qualitative point of view, this case study examines the simulation of cultural practices of a female student in the fourth year of Chilean elementary education, using the integrated analysis of semiotic chains and Hybrid Text-Image-Sound Systems (HTISS). The findings offer a description of the learning games associated with two cultural practices, whose cores of meaning shift between six links. The semiotic tracking reflects the tension between the agency of both meaning makers: the didactic meanings proposed by the teacher and the thematic meanings proposed by the student realized in the semiotic ensembles of teaching and learning mediated by a digital platform, in which the recycling of videos and documents is utilized. However, the feedback reveals that visual meanings remain invisible.

The New Public Education Law (NEP) has imposed a structural reform of the public school system in Chile, transferring the control of municipally-run schools to state services that are under the authority of the Ministry of Education. This implies an unprecedented process of recentralization and an increase in administrative scale not seen previously anywhere else in the world. In this paper, we carry out a qualitative analysis of the implementation of a Local Public Education Service, which combines three municipalities of Greater Santiago. We identify serious institutional design flaws that generate labor distress, offset by a sense of heroism with which staff aspire to improve the future of children and public education. This situation is not sustainable over time and it is essential to improve working conditions to guarantee the quality of education in this service. With this aim, we highlight the need for urgent improvements in the administrative operation of the NEP in terms of financial management, human capacities, and institutional learning.

There will be no progress in the interculturality of textbooks associated with the topic of the military occupation of the Araucanía region if attention is only paid to political or social matters. The environment should also be included. This study provides an environmental analysis of secondary education textbooks that cover this content on the history of Chile. A mixed research strategy and a multiple research design were employed. The sample was composed of eight textbooks used in the secondary school subject of History and Geography from 2008 to 2021. The data were subjected to a quantitative content analysis and a documentary analysis. The results show that there is only limited representation of biodiversity and ecosystems, as well as a lack of didactic activities that foster environmentally friendly behavior and attitudes among students. More importantly, the environment is addressed from an anthropocentric perspective, which does not consider the biocentric environmental relationship that tends to characterize aboriginal peoples and, in this case, the Mapuche people. A more effective link with the tenets of environmental history and environmental education could correct these biases. This would foster methodologies that are more focused on human diversity, the role of the environment in human history would be highlighted, and the content of textbooks would be aligned with the sustainability that is required in the modern world.