The geopolitics of research in teaching and learning in the university in Latin America

Abstract

Over recent decades, research and scholarship on teaching and learning in higher education have focused on (i) how to promote student learning in tertiary education through good teaching practices and (ii) on teaching and learning as an area of study of its own. However, there is a meta-component that needs to come into play: (iii) the geopolitics (de Sousa Santos 2014; Connell 2007) in which teaching and learning processes take place. In this paper, I take up this last aspect and offer a perspective on teaching and learning as geographically located in particular countries, focusing especially on the South and especially on Latin America. A search was conducted of papers on teaching and learning that were included in the Web of Science database, and produced by authors in Latin-American universities, between 2000 and 2015. The findings show that the scholarly research on teaching and learning in mainstream journals is dynamic and growing in the region. However, it also shows that most of the academic productivity in the area draws on theories produced in the North and lacks a geopolitical perspective. These findings help to illuminate the challenges faced by researchers on teaching and learning in Latin America, and prompt reflection as to how to make more visible the knowledge produced in the South.