What you say about education being priority is interesting. In my family, there is heavy valuation of education, but my parents definitely view non-academic education as valuable, and have instilled that in me. Education as a means of upwards mobility is so often the main reason and goal behind learning, which definitely makes sense. If only education was acted on as the universal right it should be. If only education was not blocked by a massive paywall in North America and many other places. I grieve the knowledge we don't have because of lack of universal education standards.
Your post left me thinking as to how my family treats education and how that also might be a product of constructs of social mobility. I'm very lucky that my parents have always been very open as to what my brother and I ended up doing, but at the same time it just felt like an assumption that we would go to university. I guess that is a privileged upbringing in itself. Although education is considered important everywhere, it is true that the region you grow up in and the familial ideology you receive as a result of what that region is can change your reasoning as to *why* education is important.
"I’m left pondering, to what extent can an academic lens sharpen the familiar narrative, and a familial lens sharpen the academic narrative?" Very good question. As you can imagine, my family background in that sense is a bit similar to yours. It seems to me that there are fundamental differences in the conception of higher education in Anglo and Latin America that explain what roles are adopted in university studies (including gender roles, of course). I am referring above all to those that occurred between the time when Mariátegui wrote and your parents' generation. Until the 1950s it was still a space for the elites, although it was perceived as democratic after the University Reforms common to several countries, which occurred in the 1920s. The greatest mobility occurred in the 60s and 70s. Then, At the end of the 80s, neoliberal dismantling came.The curious thing is that this historicization is not part of family history, at least in my case. It is as if the changes in the concept of the University and its practices have remained static. That has always caught my attention.
Hi Ana,
What you say about education being priority is interesting. In my family, there is heavy valuation of education, but my parents definitely view non-academic education as valuable, and have instilled that in me. Education as a means of upwards mobility is so often the main reason and goal behind learning, which definitely makes sense. If only education was acted on as the universal right it should be. If only education was not blocked by a massive paywall in North America and many other places. I grieve the knowledge we don't have because of lack of universal education standards.
Hi Ana!
Your post left me thinking as to how my family treats education and how that also might be a product of constructs of social mobility. I'm very lucky that my parents have always been very open as to what my brother and I ended up doing, but at the same time it just felt like an assumption that we would go to university. I guess that is a privileged upbringing in itself. Although education is considered important everywhere, it is true that the region you grow up in and the familial ideology you receive as a result of what that region is can change your reasoning as to *why* education is important.
"I’m left pondering, to what extent can an academic lens sharpen the familiar narrative, and a familial lens sharpen the academic narrative?" Very good question. As you can imagine, my family background in that sense is a bit similar to yours. It seems to me that there are fundamental differences in the conception of higher education in Anglo and Latin America that explain what roles are adopted in university studies (including gender roles, of course). I am referring above all to those that occurred between the time when Mariátegui wrote and your parents' generation. Until the 1950s it was still a space for the elites, although it was perceived as democratic after the University Reforms common to several countries, which occurred in the 1920s. The greatest mobility occurred in the 60s and 70s. Then, At the end of the 80s, neoliberal dismantling came.The curious thing is that this historicization is not part of family history, at least in my case. It is as if the changes in the concept of the University and its practices have remained static. That has always caught my attention.