Community school programmes in Latin America: Imagining the long-term impact of developing pupils’ agency

• Community school programmes have expanded educational access and awareness in many deprived rural areas of Latin America.
• They have allowed a gradual inclusion of first-generation children from disadvantaged backgrounds into schooling.
• Researchers should explore how community school programmes can help to tackle educational inequalities.
• It is crucial to investigate whether community school programmes prepare its pupils for the exercise of critical thinking.
• Community school programmes should be able to help students to pursue their own self-interests.

Community school programmes in Latin America have received relatively little consideration when compared to the amount of research conducted on popular education in the region. This paper revises the literature on community school programmes in the context of the theory of dialogic action and the capability approach. First, the roots of inequality in Latin America are discussed. This is followed by a summary of the literature on community school programmes in Latin America, analysing their differences and commonalities and exploring two different community school programmes operating in the region. A conceptual framework is next presented to explore the role of the progressive educator and individuals’ agency, drawing parallels between the ideas of Paulo Freire and those of M S Archer and Amartya Sen in relation to agency and freedom. The paper concludes by questioning whether, by developing pupils’ agency, community school programmes such as those analysed in this paper, could help to tackle educational inequalities in the long term, with a discussion of the implications for further research.