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I"'AV.IL‘.‘"I 'I‘II‘"l l” .n'rnlwéthI’n‘I‘H‘IIhl III‘IE" III a” I n“ My; 'HESIS This is to certify that the thesis entitled TO BE EDUCATED IS TO BE CULTURED: SCHOOLING AND DEVELOPMENT IN AN ECUADORIAN VILLAGE presented by Emily Winter Gladhart has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Master—oLAr-ts—degree in Social—and— Philosophical Foundations of Education rim «142/ 241%“, Major professor Date May 21, 1981 07639 mung: 25¢ per day per item RETURNING LIBRARY MATERIALS: Place in book ntum to remove charge from circulation records TO BE EDUCATED IS TO BE CULTURED: SCHOOLING AND DEVELOPMENT IN AN ECUADORIAN VILLAGE By Emily Winter Gladhart A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS College of Education Social and Philosophical Foundations 1981 ABSTRACT TO BE EDUCATED IS TO BE CULTURED SCHOOLING AND DEVELOPMENT IN AN ECUADORIAN VILLAGE By Emily Winter Gladhart The study describes the role of schooling and the basic premises influencing investment of human and economic resources in it within the village of Mira in northern Ecuador. Schooling since colonial times is reviewed to illustrate the development of the pervasive definition of schooling as "culture." Participant observation and interviews were employed to study the population providing education in Mira including those teaching and caring for children. Villagers perceived schooling as the system most universally able to prepare individuals and groups for consolidating and continuing a concrete process of organized change within the community that could bring integration into the national society. Villagers educate children as a strategy for improving life chances of individuals and redistributing resources toward their families. Analysis of school programs and teacher interviews revealed how school expansion was used to develop the community. Primary and secondary school attendance in Mira is among the highest in rural Ecuador. New social institutions were evolved that fostered a reinterpretation of existing social and cultural structures and fostered personal and extra community linkages that served changing community needs. Teachers' and parents' joint participation in such activities as school openings and final examinations demonstrate linkages both to the local community and to the larger society. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express special thanks to Dr. Ruth Hill Useem, my major advisor, for her patience and wise counsel throughout the entire project. Special thanks go also to Dr. Beatrice Paolucci for her observations and constructive criticism. Thanks go to Dr. Marilyn Parkhurst who provided the needed encouragement to complete the project. My heartfelt thanks go to my husband and colleague Peter Gladhart for his professional advice, encouragement and support. Amalia and Russell Gladhart contributed greatly during the process of collecting field data by sharing insights about life in Mira with me and with villagers who were extremely curious about how they perceived life in the village. Ms. Barbara Pumfrey typed the thesis with interest and care which I appreciate. Needless to say, without the cooperation of all the people my family and I worked with in the village of Mira, Carchi, the project would have been neither possible nor productive. People willingly participated in the study while extending to us their warm hospitality. To all, many, many thanks. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter I. Research Methodology .................. 1 Purpose ............................ l Orientation .......................... 2 Methodology .......................... 4 Chapter 11. Formal Schooling: The World and National Setting. . . 8 Latin America in World Context ................ 9 Schooling in Latin America .................. l4 Ecuadorian School Attendance Summary ............. 17 Discussion of Ecuadorian Population and School Enrollment ................... 18 Provincial Data ........................ 23 The Parish of Mira - Its Village Center and Rural Area ....................... 27 Summary .......... _ .................. 32 Chapter III. The History of Land Reform and Schooling in Mira ................ 34 Description of Mira ...................... 34 Education and the Study of Culture .............. 39 Spanish Colonization of Mira ................. 40 Mira and Independence from Spain ............... 43 Education and the Church at Independence ........... 44 The Beginning of Land Reform ................. 48 Land Tenure Changes and the Effect on Schooling ........ 52 Senor Padilla and the Pedogogy of the Oppressed ........ 53 Economic Development: Schooling and Integration of the Parish ............... 57 The Goals of Land and Education Reform in Ecuador ..................... 59 Summary ............................ 64 Chapter IV. Schools in Mira, The Teachers and the Administrators ................ 68 Primary Schools in Mira in l966 ................ 70 Networking and the Community Dance .............. 73 The Social Implications of Schooling in Mira ......... 75 Primary Teachers in Mira - The Promoter ............ 76 The Director of the School for Girls ............. 79 Other Teachers in Mira .................... 83 The Director of the School for Boys .............. 88 Mira Students in Sixth Grade ................. 89 The Sixth Grade Girls Class Including Non-Mira Residents ................ 92 iii Chapter IV (cont'd) The Sixth Grade Boys Class Including Non-Mira Residents ................ 93 Secondary School Enrollments in l979 ............. 94 The Graduating Colegio Classes of 1979 ............ 95 Summary ............................ 97 Chapter V. Participation of Families in the Schooling of Children ............... lOO School Registration in Mira .................. lOl Public School Examinations and Parental Participation ..... 105 The Continuation and Elaboration of a Tradition ........ l07 Primary School Equivalency .................. llO Summary ............................ ll2 Some Confirming Evidence ................... ll4 Chapter VI. Observations and Conclusions ............. ll6 The Transferring of the Process to Neighboring Areas .................... ll8 The Status of Women and Education as Culture ......... l20 Curriculum and Education as Culture .............. lZl Implications for Development ................. l23 Bibliography ............................ 127 Appendix A ............................. l33 Appendix B ............................. l34 Appendix C ............................. 136 Appendix D ............................. l43 iv LIST OF TABLES Table l ..... Regional Population Statistics in 1975 ......... Table 2 ..... Regional School Attendance Statistics in 1975 ........................ Table 3 ..... Latin American Population and Percent Enrolled in School in 1975 Under Age 15 ............. Table 4 ..... Ecuadorian Population and School Enrollment 1957-1976 .................. Table 5 ..... School Attendance Rates in Rural Areas of Children 6-14 from National 1962 and 1974 Censuses. (Percent) .................. Table 6 ..... Rural Literacy Rates, Population 10 Years Old and Above from Population Censuses of 1950,1962, and 1974. (Percent) .................. Table 7 ..... Population 6-14 Years of Age Attending School in Carchi Province by Canton and Parish ........ Table 8 ..... School Attendance in Canton Espejo, Carchi Province - Rural and Urban Sector 1974 ......... Table 9 ..... Population of Mira Parish 1974 ............. Table 10....Birth Year of Students Graduating from Mira Primary Schools in 1979 .............. Table 11....1974 Land Tenure Patterns in the Mira Parish ...... Table 12....Description of School Teachers in Mira Schools ..... Table 13....Expansion of the Educational System 1957-1979 ..... Table 14....Policarpa Salvarietta Girls School Enrollment Flow of 1979 Mira Residents in Class of 1978-79 . . . . Table 15....Rafael Arellano Boys School Enrollment Flow of 1979 Mira Residents Class of 1978-79 .......... Table 16....Post Secondary Activities of 1979 Six Course Class. . . Table 17....Students Enrolled in Primary School Equivalency Program in Mira by Age Categories, 1978-1980 ...... v 10 12 15 19 21 22 25 26 28 31 58 85 87 90 91 96 111 LIST OF FIGURES Figure l ..... Map of Ecuador .................... x Figure 2 ..... Map of the Province of Carchi ............ xi vi GLOSSARY OF ECUADORIAN TERMS AGASAJO: Special treat provided to school children at Christmas by a school benefactor, often an urban emigrant in the case of Mira. ANALFABETO: Illiterate man or woman. AUDIENCIA: Royal Court established by Spanish Crown in the colonies for administrative purposes. BACHILLERES DE HUMANIDADES: High school degree in modern humanities. BACHILIER: A person with such a degree. BILINGUISMO: Condition of Quetchua speakers who also speak Spanish. CABECERA: County or township seat. CAMPESINO, CAMPESINA: Rural peasant, male or female, of low economic and political status. CANTON: County. CASERIO: Rural hamlet or neighborhood, settlement. CO-GOBIERNO: Student participation in university administration. COLEGIO: In the Ecuadorian public school system it means secondary school or grades 7-12; in the private system it means academy and includes grades l-12. CONQUISTADOR: Spanish conqueror. CONTRABANDISTA: Male or female contraband runner. 0105 LE PAGARA: Common refrain, "God will repay you." ENCOMIENDA: A grant of land made by the Spanish Crown to conquistadors which included authority over the Indians on it. Theoretically it carried an obligation to christianize and protect them in exchange for tribute. ENCOMENDERO: The honored conquistador. ESCUELA FISCAL: Public primary school. FORMACION PRIMARIA: Primary school education which includes grades one through six. vii Glossary (cont'd) GRACIA A SACAR: Royal order that declared that any Indian or Negro blood an individual had was 'extinguished.‘ It could be purchased from the King. HACIENDA: Landed estate. Encomiendas became haciendas after Independence. HACENDADO, HACENDADA: The man or woman who owned the hacienda. HERENCIA: Inheritance. LA UNICA HERENCIA LES PUEDO DAR: With regard to education, villagers and Ecuadorians generally use it to mean "Education is the only inheritance I can leave my children." MANUALIDADES: Manual arts required for both boys and girls at primary and secondary level. MATERIA OBLIGATORIA: Nationally required school curriculum. MINGA: Spanish derivative of MITA, and Inca term for enforced service to appointed person. In Spanish means participation in community work group, not unlike a tax because lack of participation requires other tribute. MIRENO, MIRENA: Man or woman from Mira. MUNICIPIO: Village and immediate environs. MONOLINGUISMO: A pejorative term to describe Quetchua speakers who do not speak Spanish. NORMALISTA: Twelfth grade graduate of a teaching institute. Since 1970 two additional years are required. ORIENTE: Eastern provinces leading to the Amazon basin. PARROQUIA: Township and immediate environs. Also ecclesiastical term for parish. PATRON: Boss, in particular refers to the hacendados. PADRE DE FAMILIA: Mother or father responsible for the economic and social maintenance of a child. PADRES: Parents PADRES DE FAMILIA: Committee of parents. PAISANO: People who come from the same part of the country and are therefore expected to share a similar heritage. PASATIEMPOS: Toys, timepassers. viii Glossary (cont'd) PROVINCIA: State and ecclesiastical district. QUETCHUA: Native language, including many dialects, spoken by Ecuadorian Indians. REPARTIMEIENTO: A system whereby the conquering Spanish soldiers “shared out" the indigenous people to provide labor in fields and mines. Replaced later by the more civilized encomienda. SIERRA: Mountain area of Ecuador. SUCRE: Ecuadorian money. TENIENTE POLITICO: Politically appointed "mayor" in a village. TRABAJOS FEMENINOS: Feminine handwork. Required in both primary and secondary schools. ix “I -'I '“. catamara , g 5/ , v/ " ‘ Esmeralda: It“: Mocha above in .0 a... 00 IN. but...” to! mono“, I... nag-bod by M «M W. (Erickson, 1966:iv) <~E$02; x ...:m_w. ., .5 2E; .ILAn. Ilul. .0 ..v. :mfl aw: .. < a s. o S o .w u. we . I...“ . an: . .. .w. —‘m— .I.._A_J.— 1! 9.!5! ciao-Bosn— ! l1. __ .. I. .t‘ all. .II ..v .6. o? w“ .93.! 3.2:! t. o . . .— i . .5 it gE.ZaU‘KI CHAPTER I RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Purpose The purpose of this study is to describe the educational process in the village of Mira in Carchi Province, Ecuador. The original intent of the researcher was to investigate the activities of children and the formal and informal learning experiences that were provided them as they grew to take their place in traditional rural society. She expected to gain insight into the productive roles that children play within families, and to gain a clearer understanding of how these roles were linked to the ones they played as adults. However, upon arriving in Mira the researcher found a changing and less traditional society in which new roles were emerging for children. Though children participated doing household-related chores, including the care and feeding of animals and irrigation of crops, these tasks were considered secondary to that of becoming educated. The priorities became obvious because children were characterized by their families as industrious or lazy in terms of how they approached and completed school work rather than how well they performed family chores. Accordingly, the focus of the study shifted to one of describing the role of formal education in the community and the basic premises which influence investment of human and economic resources in it. Such a description can provide insights concerning economic development as defined by the community and help identify junctures where additional effbrts might enhance that development. Orientation To understand the educational process in Ecuador, it is necessary to look at aspects of Ecuadorian history which have influenced its development: the lasting heritage of the Spanish conquest and colonization (1542-1822), the early years of Independence (1822-1906), the period after literacy became a requirement for citizenship (1906- 1939), and the impact of recent social and economic development which began with the attempts to alter the land tenure system in 1939. The fieldwork for this study was done in 1979-1980, a period in which the development of the petroleum industry had spurred industrialization in Ecuador while awareness of the limited extent of the oil reserves had already undermined the initial euphoria of becoming an oil-producing nation. The consequence was that the ruling military junta was relinquishing its diminished power to the democratically-elected government of President Jaime Roldés and Vice President Osvaldo Hurtado. They were elected on a platform advocating social change and participation of the populace in establishing the conditions and priorities of that change. The education system was being publicly debated everywhere. While a banner flew over the public secondary school for weeks proclaiming that education was culture, I probed the significance of this definition and the extent to which participation in formal education was prompted by assumptions about the likelihood that it would create new roles for people. This research was designed to be exploratory and to generate hypotheses that might be examined in future studies. As many aspects or categories as possible were isolated to investigate the broadest 3 understanding of the meaning of education among Mirefios, as residents of Mira are called. Since the purpose of this investigation was to discover the role of education in Mira and to describe its functioning in terms of the villagers' perceptions, the ongoing national debate served to indicate subtle differences between a community which perceives itself to be progressive and an urban sector strategizing the development of the rural areas. Education as "culture" emerged as a common theme from oral histories and from interviews with parents and teachers. People said of education that it was the only inheritance they could hope to leave their children. Children were disciplined to be "educated" and "cultured," not be like their rural neighbors. Awareness of the concept of education as an agent of change or as a development strategy of the national government evolved while following the newspaper debate and discussing rural development with school teachers and administrators. Newspaper accounts contrasted "modern" education with the traditional system which emphasized "culture." Local administrators were concerned with being integrated into the culture which was modernizing. The conceptual framework developed to understand the process of education in Mira proposes that formal education programs are the central focus of the process by which villagers imagine the development of their community culturally and socio-economically. The programs must therefore be assessed by national institutions for their relationship to social change both within the community and in the" linkages established beyond the comnunity. Methodology Prior to going into the field a search of the current literature on Andean and specifically Ecuadorian education was made. This included the role of children in the anthropological literature and in the economic development literature. On the basis of this literature and prior experience in Ecuador, a set of research questions was written which permitted investigating the particular Ecuadorian context (See Appendix D). The fieldwork for this study was done between January 1979 and March 1980. The population studied are the people of Mira who provide for the education of children, the people who care for the children and the people who teach in the village schools. The initial phase of colleCting data involved a household by household survey of the entire village, conducted by the researcher and her colleague Peter Gladhart. As a research device it provided an opportunity to gain a broad understanding of the village and the role of schooling in it. It also served to identify households with teachers, sixth grade students and children 11 to 13 not in school who would be interviewed again (See Appendix A). School enrollment and promotion records for the class of 1978-1979 for both primary and secondary schools were used to develop a flow chart for these groups beginning with first grade and first course registration in 1973-1974. This permitted a comparison with the survey data which in turn made it possible to locate children not from Mira who were enrolled in the village schools. The data were analyzed to determine the rate of completion of different levels of schooling by different types of students and to 5 observe the use made of Mira schools by migrants from throughout the parish and beyond. Continued school registration in 1979-1980 of students who had been part of the classes studied was collected at the beginning of the next school year. The researcher broadened the category of children aged 11 to 13 and not in school to include children described by parents as doing something unusual: for example, struggling through second grade at age 13 or not preceeding on to colegio (secondary school) though it was the intent of the parent to send the child. Because so few children did not attend school it was thought desirable to have a broader range of categories which prompted non-attendance. Surveyed were 490 households of the estimated 500 households in Mira. In these were identified 64 teachers who resided in 50 households. 46 boys who registered at some point in the class which progressed through primary school between 1973-1979 in 46 households. 46 girls who registered at some point in the class which progressed through primary school between 1973-1979 in 46 households. I 8 boys 11 to 13 never enrolled in 1979 class and not in school in eight households. 11 girls 11 to 13 never enrolled in 1978 class and not Otherwise in school in 11 households. 175 persons in 130 households. Between January and March 1979, while taking the survey, the researcher familiarized herself with the schbol programs. Then, using a prepared protocol for guidance, interviews were conducted with the persons identified as teachers (See Appendix B). 6' These people included the following: 1 supervisor of primary schools at the canton level 1 director of the village school for girls 1 director of the village school for boys directors of hamlet schools teachers at the school for boys teachers at the school for girls wmmm rural primary teachers of coeducational classrooms 10 secondary teachers In addition five nonresident Mira secondary teachers were interviewed. Theory in sociology is a strategy for handling data in research and providing modes of conceptualization for describing and explaining (Glaser and Strauss, 1976:3) Grounded theory is theory discovered from the data by constant comparison of awareness contexts which suggest categories which can be variously compared (Ibid.:83). The orientation emphasizes the processes of continuous adjustment, substitution and reorganization of data to provide modes of conceptualization. The data used to generate the theoretical ideas in this thesis come from interviews with teachers, observations in schools, observations and interviews with villagers, parents and children, utilizing the constant comparative method of Glaser and Strauss (Ibid.: 101). Field notes were recorded each day, coded for categories of analysis and compared to previous examples of the same categories. The process of joint coding and analysis of data suggested new hypotheses and new categories which were recorded in memos and became the basis of subsequent observations and data collection. The emerging 7 theoretical ideas were checked and discussed with my research colleague and the results of these discussions recorded (Glaser and Strauss, 1967:107). As categories became saturated with examples and tentative theories became clearer, they were checked, reorganized and adjusted through repeated visits to village and outlying schools, through observations and questions asked teachers and parents. CHAPTER II FORMAL SCHOOLING: THE WORLD AND NATIONAL SETTING It is generally accepted that "among the demographic variables usually investigated -- sex, place of residence, occupation, income, age and so on -- none compares with the educational variable in the extent to which it seems to determine political attitudes" (Inkeles and Smith, 1974:132). The school modernizes through a number of processes other than formal instruction in academic subjects. These processes are reward and punishment, modeling, exemplification and generalization (Inkeles and Smith, 1975:140). Inkeles and Smith do not discuss how these same processes are the organizing strategies of human survival outside of school nor do they distinguish the quality of these processes in the modern institutional setting which explains why the educational variable is so critical in modernization. What they make explicit is the need to understand the modernizing effect of education on individuals. Clifford Geertz writes that one of the major reasons why functional theory is unable to cope with change lies in its failure to treat sociological and cultural processes on equal terms, but rather almost inevitably one or the other is ignored or is sacrificed to become but a simple reflex, a "mirror image," of the other (Geertz, 1973:143). The purpose of this chapter is to consider the implications of macro statistics regarding education. Revising the concepts of functional theory so as to make them capable of dealing more effectively with historical material might well begin, according to Geertz, with an attempt to distinguish analytically between the cultural and social 8 aspects of human life, and to treat them as independently variable yet mutually interdependent factors (Geertz, 1975:144). The significance of education is a cultural aspect of life, being enrolled and participating in school is a social aspect. Both are recorded simultaneously in the statistics of world education. Latin America in World Context In the world, 36 percent or about 1.4 billion of the total population are children under 15 years of age (McHale, et.al., 1979:1). On the African continent 44 percent of the population is under 15, on the Asian 38 percent and in Latin America, 42 percent or about one hundred thirty-four million persons. The overall population structure in Africa, Asia and Latin America is very similar among those under five years old in Africa. These are summarized in Table l. The school age population was 26 percent of the total population in Africa and Latin America, 24 percent of the Asian Population. The Latin American proportion attending school is anywhere from 32 percent greater in the case of males six to 11 years old, to 124 percent greater in the case of females 12 to 17 years old, than the African. With its school age population two percentage points greater than that of Asia, Latin America enrolls children by rates of five to 26 percentage points higher. The rates vary from seven to 93 percent greater attendance (Table 2). The smallest differences are for males in the six to 11 year old population and the greatest differences are for females in the 12 to 17 year old age group. Therefore, while the burden of educating the population is similar in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the extent to Which it is currently accomplished varies 10 Apummm— ..pm.uw .mpmzuzv Ne om mmn.mm om_.mv mo_._m mmo.emp mupcoe< cwumm mm em mpm.mo~ www.mmm mem.m~m mom.mmm m_m< ea mm omp.m¢ pev.om ooo.~u pmo.nn_ wowcm< mm mm mum.o¢e vem.moe mFo.m~m www.mme.p upcoz Amocomzospv Amccwmzoguv Amucmmaozuv Amucmmzosuv mp Laue: mpum om< epuo— mm< mum wm< m mm< cone: mp mm< cove: :owmma peach & Page» a :mcu_m;u coccpwgu :mcuppzo pouch :mcvagu Pouch upzamcmomw mam_ a. muwpmwuaum cowpaFaaoa .aeowmam F mpnmp 11 greatly. In Latin America there is a strong regional commitment on the part of most national governments in the late 20th century to educate their prospective citizenry as there is in other parts of the developing world. Present enrollment patterns are the result of geographical conditions as well as political policies. In Latin America the commitment to educate is based on national development goals and upon a Spanish colonial heritage in which the Spanish King, Phillip III, as early as 1545, requested the conquistadores, the conquerors, to christianize the populace and then educate it in the Church. He thereby integrated the social and cultural aspects of education. Since Independence in 1822 the cultural aspects have remained a dominant influence. Under the English colonial system in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean sector of Latin America, education of the masses was always intended to serve the economic development requirements of the colonialists. Independence came more than a century later than in Latin America and then peicemeal as colony upon colony won the struggle for independence. Mass education programs were part of the process of preparation for nationhood during the era in which the modernization theory of development dominated in the international circles. Education for modernizing was an important component of that theory. For example, as independence approached in Kenya pressure began to grow to abolish the system of exams which had served to limit access to education above Standard IV during colonialisnn When it was, within three years, there were 400,000 students in that portion of the school which selection had earlier restricted to 40,000 (King, 1977:31-32). 12 Table 2 Regional School Attendance Statistics in 1975 Geographic Percent Enrolled in School R8910" Male Female Male Female 6-11 6-11 12-17 12-17 World 76 64 55 46 Africa 59 43 39 24 Asia 73 54 43 28 Latin America 78 78 58 54 (McHale, et.at., 1979zl) 13 In all instances colonization and schooling affected the processes of modeling, exemplification and generalization in distinct manner because the social realities were perceived differently by people seeking education and by those responsible for extending the school system to include persons previously excluded. While in both cases the educated remained a select group, the critera used to extend educational opportunities differed. In Kenya it was specifically related to modernization and development while in Latin America it was social identity or citizenship within a more traditional society which individuals sought, and which the national governments believed they needed to extend. Perhaps as a result, girls and boys are educated in more equal proportion at the primary levels and to only a slightly lesser extent at the secondary levels in Latin America than in other parts of the world. Within Latin America, only the Middle American Region shows a major discrepancy in enrollment at the secondary level. The fact that male enrollment exceeds female enrollment by 12 percentage points means that 19 percent more boys than girls from this age group are enrolled (Table 2). While a contributing factor is the size of the Mexican and Caribbean population in relationship to the rest of the region and the extent to which these children are enrolled in primary school (Tables 2 and 3), the similar levels of enrollment indicate the social significance of primary education or "formacibn primaria" in Latin America at local and national levels. 14 Schooling in Latin America The amount of variation in school enrollment within the Andean countries is similar to that of American countries as a whole. In Ecuador, children under 15 account for 46 percent of the total population or about three and a quarter million children. By comparison to the neighboring countries of Colombia and Peru this percentage is high; only 40 percent of Colombia's population is under 15 and 44 percent of Peru's (See Table 3). School enrollment of children six to 11 is higher, however, in Ecuador where 78 percent of the girls and boys are enrolled than in Colombia where 62 percent of the boys and 67 percent of the girls are registered. In Peru 81 percent of the boys attend and 78 percent of the girls. In tropical South America the differences are greatest in those countries with the largest Indian populations or those countries with the greatest variation between the cultural and social aspects of human life. For example in Bolivia, the country often compared to Ecuador in terms of general economic development in the Andean area, school enrollment is lower for both girls and boys but it is 15 percentage points below regional estimates for girls and seven percentage points lower for boys (McHale, et.al., 1979). In Ecuador the 21 percent not enrolled are frequently the Indian, Quetchua-speaking people identified as rural. The difficulty under which rural Bolivian parents educate their children is described by the wife of a Bolivian miner (Viezzer, 1977:170-178). The difficulties in a rural area for a Quetchua- speaking boy going to a Spanish-medium schOol in Ecuador described by Oswaldo Diaz. He concludes that the high social, economic and psychological costs of schooling encourages non-attendance, in part 15 mmU: Pup; mu mLmE< m :v—u w: .msocma ucm mzmocmowz .ouwxwz .mmczuco: .o—msopmsu .conm>Pmm pm .mu_m mumou .xmamzc: use wFqu .mcwucomc< mmvspocw muwcms< cuaom mumcmasm» .m_m=~m=m> ucm Emcwssm .scma .xmamacma .mcmxzu .Loumzom .awasopou .wamcm .mw>VFom mwvspucp moveme< guaom —movaoch_ AP mam, ..Pa.pm .m_a:uzv mm mm oop cop cm NNN.F emp.P om~.P Foo.m mpwgu mm on mm mm om wu~.m muw.m mso.¢ muo._F muwgms< guaom mpmconsmh mm mm mm FR me New omo mus omm.F mw>wpom no om mu —m «a w~m.~ mmm.~ omo.m mmn.m new; mm em no No oe Nem.m mpm.~ mm—.m oF¢.m mwnsopou «m cm as an me «ya mmo.p nm~.p ¢o~.m goumaum em mm mm an me mmm.- mw¢.m~ ouo.m~ NmN.¢n mowcma< zgzom pmuwaoc» me No mm pm me mmm.n mmm.m umw.o_ m-.m~ oowxmz we mm mm mm Ne omm.o_ ¢F~.- ¢m~.e. emw.mm muwcws< m_ucwz mm on mm mm oe omm.m m_o.m eon.m o_~.op cmmnawcou em mm mm wk Na mmn.mm mm~.m¢ mop.Pm ~mo.em_ mu_cms< swam; npump spump Pp-m Pp-o m— smug: Amccmmaoguv Amvcmmaoguv Amccmmzoguv Amucmmzogpv auczoo mpmamd mpmz mpmsmd ope: Pouch a aplop mum m Luvs: mp cone: to copmmm coagum cw uappoczm mp mm< cows: mumF cw poosum cw umppoccm pcmugma ucm scene—anon cmuwcms< :_um4 m «Fame 16 because of the childrenVsattending school outside their home communities (Diaz. 1979:43-50). While it seems clear that the existence of lingering Indian traditions and exclusion from schooling are related, in most of Latin America there are very few people who live in traditional societies. Most have been Christianized by one group or another and most are aware of being illiterate in literate society. Non-attendance is largely dependent on government policy and lack of schools and it is, therefore, necessary to understand the significance of the educational variable in a defined context. Mexico, in Middle America, has the highest percentage of its p0pulation enrolled in school on the continent with the exception of Temperate America (See again Table 3) as a consequence of the Mexican revolution of the 1920's which sought to alter the social factors established prior to independence. The significance of formal education, however, must be understood in a particular environment. Dealing specifically with the issues of ethnicity, education and modernization in her study of Hueyapan, Judith Friedlander concludes that the Indian population, classified as Indian by the national society, remains separate from the national society and that schools play a critical role in maintaining an awareness of that separateness not only among Indian children but among their urban counterparts (Friedlander, 1976:144-172). In another study done by Larissa Lomnitz of networks and marginality in a shantytown on the outskirts of Mexico City, the heads of households and their spouses are described as being primarily of rural origin (70 percent), under 40 years of age and having lived in 17 Cerrada del Condor for less than five years (Lomnitz, 1977:210). The author estimated that 70 percent of the adults were literate and that at least 80 percent of the children under 12 went to school (Lomnitz, 1977:182). Nationalfigures show 90 percent enrollment (Table 3). And yet she characterizes these people as having a low degree of participation in national institutions (Lomnitz, 1977:182). In fact, however, it is not low participation but rather the processes of schooling must not be construed to impact on all people's schooling in the same manner. Ecuadorian School Attendance Summary The following figures describing 1975 school enrollment, published by the Ecuadorian National Council of Education, suggests that of a population of 6,500, 845 persons, 19 percent or 1,235,160 children were enrolled in primary school, five percent or 325,042 children in secondary school and two percent or 130,017 persons in tertiary facilities (Knowles, 1977:1349). Population growth and school enrollment changes in Ecuador from 1957 through 1974 are summarized in Table 4. [In 1968, about 18 percent of the total population of 5,776,100 were registered in elementary and secondary school combined. By 1976, 26 percent of a population of 7,306,000 were registered (E1 Comercio, 6 September, 1979:81). At the same time population growth of more than three percent per year had increased the number of children under age 14 to 46 percent of the total population. To emphasize the actual commitment on the part of the national government to education the increase in school registrations of the 1976 figures represents over 30 percent of the 18 1968 total population, an increase of 67 percent in primary and secondary enrollment in eight years. For whom, then, are there no schools in Ecuador in 1980? Twenty percent of the 1,340,000 elementary school age children have but "marginal" access to schooling; of the 20 percent, a total of 80 percent live in rural areas (Torres, 8 January, 1979:Al). Rural non-attendance varies considerably within the major geographical zones in Ecuador and less between the coastal region, the sierra and the Oriente, or the eastern lowlands, as described in Table 5. For the country as a whole the National Planning Board estimated that 70 percent of the rural population six to 11 years old were enrolled in school in 1979, compared with 100 percent in urban areas (Luzuriaga and Zuvekas, 1980:125). Discussion of Ecuadorian Population and School Enrollment Estimates of Ecuador's total population and school enrollments from 1958 to 1976 are presented in Table 4. In the lower half of the table the enrollments are also expressed as a percentage of total population. In 1957-58 about 14 percent of the population was estimated to be enrolled in school; by 1976 this had risen to over 26 percent. The total population grew by 74 percent during the 18 year interval. Primary school enrollment increased by 153 percent, secondary enrollment by 765 percent and tertiary enrollment by more than 2800 percent. In the second half of the table, it can be seen that enrollment of children aged six to 12 increased from 70 to 79 percent between 1958 and 1974, and enrollment of children aged 13-19 increased from nine to 55 percent. But these are not uncontested. 19 Apm "asap .mesabaam m.o.ucmsou _mva. Ama-om com, .mxcabv. "mmucaom .<.z mm mm ksmzmzmu camp m.p m o“ «mumspumm ommp mgmm> omlom mgmm> maump meow» Npuo onh<4=aoa mo< Aoozum do Hzmumua < m< hszAAOmzm o.mp o.opm.~ m.mn mm, as mum—-mmmF mmmmguca a m.o~ o.m m.m o.m_ oop cowumpzaom Pouch we & vpm.mem.~ emp.mop mpm.Fm¢ mm¢.wpm.F ooo.oom.n «mmmp m.mp e. o.~ m.m_ cop cowumpaaoa . Papa» mo a moo.Fuo.F www.mm No~._mp mmm.now oo~.o~u.m «emmmp ~.¢— N. N.F m.~_ oop seven—anon Pouch mo x oom.o~m «No.9 oom.m¢ NN¢.o~m omm.mmo.e «mmmpunmmp ucmEFFoccm xcmwpcm» Poocom xgmucoomm Poocum xgmewca cowgmngoa peach cw cop—occm cw emppoccm cw umppoccm Peach mum—.INmmF ucmEF—OLcm Foocum 6:0 cowuwpzaoa :meOUmzum v epoch 20 Knowles stated that in 1971-72, 74 percent of the student population did not have access to secondary education (Knowles, 1977:1353). An article in E1 Comercio in 1979, indicated that the university population had grown 910 percent in the 10 years since 1969 (E1 Comercio, 5 September, 1979:81). The figures given in Table 5 are lower than Table 4 because the census age categories do not coincide with the Ecuadorian school program. Because there are few secondary schools in the rural sector, the number of children enrolled beyond age 12 is low. School attendance by age in one sierra cantén, or county, is described in Table 6. The age group with the highest school attendance is seven to 12 year olds which coincides with the six year old elementary program. The difference between age 11 attendance and age 14 is 40 percent. It is likely that the differences would be similar in other cantons because Cantbn Espejo is classified primarily as rural and the principal employment is agricultural production. If adjustments are made to coincide with Ecuadorian primary school years, about 78 percent of its population attended in 1976. Comparing Tables 5 and 6 suggests the interrelationships which existed between general rural economic development and school attendance in 1974. Border provinces of Carchi and El Oro have historically had more schooling opportunities and have had a greater variety of rural agricultural and non-agricultural employment options. The Ministry of Education has taken the initiative in rural areas along the border to establish elementary schools in order to secure the Ecuadorian citizenship of the children of Colombian settlers in the north and Peruvian settlers in the south. Contraband running has been 21 Table 5 School Attendance Rates in Rural Areas of Children 6-14 from National 1962 and 1974 Censuses. (Percent) Region and Province 1962 1974 Sierra Carchi 72.5 71.7 Imbabura 53.9 60.6 Pichincha 59.2 67.1 Cotopaxi 52.5 60.2 Tungurahua 62.6 70.0 Bolivar 52.6 62.9 Chimborazo 26.9 54.7 Canar 55.2 68.4 Azuay 58.4 64.1 Loja 68.2 71.4 Coast Esmeraldas 48.8 60.6 Manabi 52.4 52.9 Los Rios 54.7 64.3 Guayas 60.9 69.0 E1 Oro 77.3 76.3 Oriente Napo 64.0 65.2 Pastaza 60.0 57.5 Morona Santiago 76.2 65.9 Zamora Chinchipe 73.9 68.9 Galapagos 80.7 87.2 Adapted from Luzuriaga and Zuvekas,1980:124 (Table v.13) 22 Table 6 Rural Literacy Rates, Population 10 Years Old and Above, from Population Censuses of 1950, 1962, and 1974. (Percent) Region and Province 1950 1962 1974 Sierra fl _§_6_ 6_l_ Carchi 66 75 82 Imbabura 38 46 51 Pichincha 46 59 72 Cotopaxi 34 - 48 48 Tungurahua 45 60 62 Bolivar 48 57 56 Chimborazo 3O 35 42 Canar 42 54 64 Azuay 48 62 69 Loja 54 72 70 Coast fl 6_l_ 64 Esmeraldas 42 55 56 Manabi 42 57 63 Los Rios 37 56 61 Guayas 52 64 64 El Oro 68 81 83 Oriente 38 55 70 Galapagos 81 91 90 TOTAL 45 58 63 Adapted from Luzuriaga and Zuvekas, 1980:122 (Table v.12) 23 an important source of employment, though formally unrecognized in both the rural and urban sectors. The customs officials support local schooling efforts by distributing a portion of the goods confiscated to rural primary teachers who have no other source of special treats, or agasajo, at Christmas and other times (Interview with rural teacher). Land tenure patterns have also been most prone to change in the border areas through the opening up of government land to colonization, through official land reform programs since 1964, and through voluntary sale by landowners who feared both government action and squatters. The sierra or mountain provinces showing lowest school attendance and literacy rates are those characterized by land tenure patterns known as minifundism, the subdivision of land into plots too small to support subsistence farmers. This has encouraged the emigration of those most likely to find employment elsewhere, leaving women and children to farm. Without political reasons for establishing schools and with the additional farming burden placed on the subsistence farm women, there are no individuals able to dedicate themselves to securing formal school opportunities for the young. Provincial Data In Carchi Province, rural illiteracy was down to 18 percent in 1974 from 34 percent in 1950 (Luzuriaga and Zuvekas, 1980:122). The province had the lowest rate in the sierra and only one coastal province was lower (See again Table 6). Besides the political explanation previously noted, the total absence of "monolinguismo" or Quetchua-speaking populations since the colonial period has influenced school attendance. Schools were more often available and the Spanish 24 language facility enhanced the appropriateness of the curriculum. The sierra provinces with the highest rate of school non-attendance and adult literacy, are also those with heavy concentrations of Quetchua- speaking populations. In these areas schools are less accessible physically and socially, than in other areas (Diaz, 1978:44-45). Another explanation of the low illiteracy rate and high school attendance rate in Carchi is the usefulness of literacy and computation skills to the extensive trade with Colombia.1 Most rural populations in ohter provinces have not had a large non-agricultural employment component which capitalized on school learned skills. Within the province there is a direct relationshiop between the degree of population concentration and school attendance rates for the province as a whole, for each cantbn and for the parishes within the cant6ns. Attendance rates for the six to 14 year old population are presented in Table 7 for Carchi, the three cantbns of Tulcén, Montufar and Espejo and the seven parishes of Canton Espejo. For each cabecera, or county seat, attendance is highest in the "urban center," lower for the city area as a whole, and lower still for the rural portion of the cant6n. Within the rural area of Cantbn Espejo, the attendance was higher in the parish seats than in the outlying areas. The suggested explanation for these urban-rural differences within Carchi is simply greater accessibility of schools in the parish seats and urban areas; the rural areas are more likely to lack schools that do not complete the primary six year cycle. 1When this researcher placed an order with a Mira contraband runner, the woman called upon her daughter in Colegio to record the item properly in the order book. Table 7 25 Population 6-14 Years of Age Attending School in Carchi Province by Cantbn and Parish AREA TOTAL ATTENDING PERCENT Carchi 30,639 22.927 74.8 Urban 9,958 8,389 84.2 Rural 20,681 14,583 70.3 Cant6n*Tulcan 13,305 10,153 76.3 Tulcan City 8,031 6,512 81.1 Urban Center 6,333 5,320 84.0 Rural Area 5,274 3,641 69.0 Cantbn Montufar 10,699 7,975 74.5 San Gabriel City 4,541 3,519 77.5 Urban Center 2,673 2,258 84.5 Rural Area 6,158 4,456 72.4 Cantbn Espejo 6,643 4,799 72.2 El Angel City 1,468 1.195 81.4 Urban Center 952 811 85.1 Rural Area 5,691 3,988 70.1 Parish of Mira 1,230 940 76.4 Cabercera** 471 414 87.9 Outlying Area 759 526 69.3 Parish of San Isidro 733 553 75.4 Cabecera 513 397 77.4 Outlying Area 220 156 70.9 Parish of La Libertéd 789 526 66.7 Cabecera 150 123 82.0 Outlying Area 639 403 62.1 Parish of La Concepcién 1,081 683 63.2 Cabecera 164 122 78.2 Outlying Area 917 561 61.1 Parish of Juan Montalvo 393 269 63.2 Cabecera 156 122 78.2 Outlying Area 237 147 62.0 Parish of man y Caamaho 734 480 65.4 Cabecera 41 30 73.2 Outlying Area 693 450 64.9 Parish of Goaltil 215 153 71.2 Cabecera 5 5 100.0 Outlying Area 210 108 51.4 Source: Tables 5 and 23 of the 1974 Carchi Census *Cantbn - County MCabecera - County or Parish 26 Table 8 School Attendance in Canton Espejo, Carchi Province Rural and Urban Sector 1974 Description Total Age Attending Age Group of Population Population School Percent 6 years 771 290 37.6 7 years 809 595 73.5 8 years 809 704 87.0 9 years 741 680 91.7 10 years 778 711 91.4 11 years 659 556 . - 84.4 12 years 761 598 78.6 13 years 692 392 56.6 14 years 623 273 43.8 15-19 years 2426 ' 582 24.0 20-24 years 1821 125 6.9 Total Population 6-12 years 5328 4143 77.6 Rural Population 6-12 years 4589 3505 76.4 Urban Population 6-12 years 739 629 85.1 Adapted from 1974 Census Table 5 p. 227 27 School attendance in Cant6n Espejo by age is reported in Table 8. From a low of 37.6 percent for six year olds, the attendance rate rises to 91.7 percent for eight year olds and then declines to 43 percent for the 14 year old age group and 24 percent for the 15 to 19 year olds. Parents do not send six year olds if they seem too young to begin school or if they have to walk a considerable distance, as is often the case in rural areas. But some children started at age five, thereby stretching the school years (Mira teachers and parents). Lack of secondary school explains the sharp decline beginning at age 13. Even though Cant6n Espejo is ovenwhelmingly rural (86 percent of the six to 12 year old age group were rural) one third of the population 13 to 19 years old attended school in Cant6n Espejo compared to the national average of nine percent. This is because there were some secondary schools available in the rural sector and the value of education had been impressed upon people. The Parish of Mira - Its Village Center and Rural Area Within the rural sector of Cant6n Espejo lies the village of Mira and the nine outlying settlements which together make up the parish. Each settlement had its own school at the time of the 1974 census. The teachers were, in each case, responsible for taking the census under the direction of the county supervisor, Sr. Leapoldo Padilla. The data in Table 9 are categorized by urban and rural sectors to indicate some of the inter-relationships between the two sectors regarding school enrollment and attendance. According to the 1974 census only 4.3 percent of the total population over age 50, in the village, were illiterate, in the rural sector 11.2 percent were illiterate in that 28 Acomw>cma=m poocum zgmswsm choucmu we mucoummv m.opp pmm pme em mam osp.P eno.~ eeu.~ u o_am=¢ e.mo~ om mm m up map mop ~_m mmpmucma web m.~m om mm Np , we on me mNF o_:ou:< cum m.~m mm em up me mmp cup mom was; com F.¢m «up map me on new emu Nmm can: Fm «.mm mp mm o_ m mm mm po_ mupzco " mcmgzmmpm cow“ Go “smegma umcwumwmmm «pie mpmcmuwppH :Lom mpmsom ope: -mpzaoa pcmswpuumm camp ;m_caa new: to coaaa_=aoa a a_aae 29 age group (Comision Rural, 1980:12). Past migration varies as well. In the urban area, 24 percent of the population had been born other than in the parish of Mira (1979 census by the Gladharts); in the rural areas, 20 percent of the total population was born elsewhere. The level of migration in both instances reflects the fact that in the parish, extensive tracts of agricultural land have become available by dividing old haciendas. Government land has also been available for colonization since 1952 in four parishes to the west. In 1980, none of the western parishes had yet a complete six year secondary school program, although there were two colegios which offered the three year basic cycle which became "compulsory" in January of 1980. Registered in the nine rural schools of the parish were 452 children of the 526 children reportedly attending school somewhere, according to the 1974 census. Within Mira, 557 children were attending the two village schools, although there were only 414 residents, according to the census. The differences in both areas was due to persons coming into Mira for schooling from the rural sector of the parish and from other parishes. Primary graduates were most often 11 or 12 years old. Data collected in Mira indicate that Mira schools are more likely to have a disproportionate number of older children who have lost a year due to illness, failure in school or other cause than children in rural schools. Children drop out and migrate to the larger system. In 1979, 46 percent of the girls and 34 percent of the boys graduating from sixth grade were over 12. Those under 12 accounted for 10 percent of the girls and about nine percent of the boys. Forty-four percent of 30 the graduating girls were 12 years old and 57 percent of the boys were 12 (Table 10). The central facilities were described by interviewees as more tolerant of age gaps and over-age children felt less self conscious about completing the primary cycle. Besides the larger group of children in any one class, other recreational and employment options supported and encouraged those who had dropped out to complete the primary cycle. The availability of evening colegio from 1971 through 1978 was especially important. Older students were frequently given special dispensation to attend regular secondary school in rural Mira whereas in urban Ibarra overcrowdedness made receiving a dispensation difficult (Interview with student). Secondary programs were an incentive to many to take advantage of the primary school equivalency course which was offered for the first time in Mira in 1979-80 (See Chapter 6). Land availability earlier encouraged migration into the rural areas from Mira and neighboring towns and villages, and recently those same colonists and other rural residents are resettling or moving to Mira, seeking to educate their children. The choice of where to resettle depends upon educational facilities sought and employment options (Interviews with parents). Many women in the outlying areas are already employed in the Mira sweater knitting industry, established in 1965, so find the transition an easy one. For other people the improved transportation throughout the area permitted various arrangements to be made to continue farming. Those without ready local employment options were less likely to settle in Mira and continued to the larger urban centers, particularly 31 Table 10 Birth Year of Students Graduating from Mira Primary Schools in 1979 Policarpa Salvarietta Rafael Arrellano (girls) (boys) Year of Birth Number Percent Number Percent 1965 6 15.4 1 2.8 1966 12 30.8 11 31.4 1967 17 43.6 20 57.1 1968 4 10.2 3 8.6 TOTAL 39 100.0 35 100.0 32 Quito, the capital, which was experiencing a construction boom (Interview with primary teacher). In either case children previously not attending school became participants in the national education system. Summary The overall population structures of Africa, Asia and Latin America are very similar among those people of school age or between six and 17 years of age but the proportion of the school age population attending school varies greatly among regions for both males and females. The Latin American-African difference is greatest. Thirty- two to 124 percent more Latin Americans are enrolled in school depending on age and sex category. The Latin American-Asian difference varies between seven to 93 percent. The reasons for these differences lie in historical patterns of colonization and independence, and current policies toward education, as well as geographical land patterns and the population densities they support. Within the Latin American region there is also considerable variation in the enrollment of children in school and the degree of social significance given the education of persons in various social sectors. Temperate South America and Middle America have the highest attendance and tropical South America the lowest. The percent enrolled in school in Ecuador is high in comparison to other countries in tropical South America, though lower than Peru. It has increased rapidly since 1968. Males and females are educated in proportionately equal numbers by comparison to other countries at both the elementary and secondary levels. The urban population is more 33 likely to be enrolled than the rural because schools are more accessible. Within each major region of the country there is variation which reflects general development levels within those areas. Within Carchi Province there is a direct relationship between the degree of population concentration and school attendance rates for the province as a whole, for each canton, and for the parishes within the canton. By using the 1974 census age categories the level of attendance in elementary school is minimized because the categories used do not coincide with the primary school program and the secondary school program is still under-developed in the rural areas. Whether or not the migration has changed significantly in recent years is unknown, but schools in Carchi play an important role recording migrations. Schooling options and employment alternatives are the critical factors which encourage migration; the later frequently cause people to bypass rural schools in favor of urban centers which offer more employment possibilities. In all cases children are increasingly likely to be enrolled in schools at the primary level because of the availability of facilities. CHAPTER III THE HISTORY OF LAND REFORM AND SCHOOLING IN MIRA Description of Mira Since an awareness of historical precedence evolves in the present and reflects attitudes towards the past by those writing history, this chapter begins with a brief description of Mira in 1979, when the fieldwork for this research began. The town of Mira and its farm land lie on the lower bench of a long sloping ridge of Mt. Iguan at an elevation of 7,800 feet or 2400 meters. The town faces south over fields of corn and sugar cane, and the desolate canyon of the River Mira. Beyond this, the vista encompasses the entire rich basin of Imbabura whose limits are the twin ranges of the Andean cordillera, dominated on the west by Mt. Cotacachi and on the east by the snow covered mass of Mt. Cayambe. The climate of Mira is warm and dry; the daytime temperature rarely exceeds 85 degrees Fahrenheit nor does the night-time temperature fall below 60 degrees Fahrenheit. The village is on the alternate route of the Pan American Highway just over halfway between Quito and the Colombian border. Public transportation both north and south was available throughout the 7 daytime hours in 1979 and it was supplemented by the private trucks which pick up passengers. Villagers pride themselves in having two modern primary schools, one for boys, built in 1971 and one for girls, built in 1959, which replaced older schools. Unlike any other rural parish seat in Carchi Province, Mira boasts both Catholic and public coeducational secondary 34 35 schools since 1971. This achievement required a combination of cooperative effort among villagers, benefactors and public resources. The children attending the primary and secondary schools are from the village and the outlying settlements in the parish (See Appendix Table C, 1-4). The village church dominates the plaza as it has done since it was built about 1584 (Comisibn de Cultura Rural, 1980:21). The plaza hosts a lovely formal garden planted with trees and flowers and interlaced with cement sidewalks and benches. Children ride bicycles and tricycles there, older folk gather and visit. Men sit and visit around the outer wall facing the stores and municipal offices which flank three sides. Most mornings several women move their produce from less advantageously located stores onto the cobbled sidewalks around the plaza. The Catholic secondary school does not face the plaza but provides a bare windowless wall in front of which the women lay out their produce without interfering with the traffic in and out of the permanent shops which sell primarily non-perishable goods of Ecuadorian and Colombian origin. The municipal building is also located on the plaza. It was enlarged and remodeled in 1978 with plans drawn up by a university architecture student from Mira. It houses the office of the teniente politico, who is the highest law enforcement officer in the parish, the zonal office of the Ministry of Agriculture, the public library reading room, the post office and the telephone and telegraph office. The local transportation cooperative, made up of licensed chauffeurs, rents space and so does the National Development Bank when it opens a weekly office during planting season. A large meeting room on the second 36 floor is available for a variety of meetings. Most people work out of sight of everyone else in their own homes and fields, and see others only when they venture out to shop, do errands and listen to village news. The village seems quiet and peaceful to passersby, but people tired long ago of it being characterized as "tranquilo" by outsiders. For those who live there it is not tranquil but fraught with the tensions and struggles of poor people. Most traffic is pedestrian but occasionally a vehicle passes. Local buses leave from the plaza at dawn, but during the day buses are flagged down along the Pan American Highway which skirts the upper edges of the village. Here and there a small pickup truck is parked in front of a doorway and on cold days people sit in the cabs to warm in the sun. The only local women who drive are the primary school supervisor's daughters, all three of whom have driver's licenses. About 50 vehicles are owned by people in Mira, all of them pickup trucks, passenger buses and vans, with the exception of one Volkswagon bought in 1980 by the local dentist who owns no land. He teaches in two colegios which are 45 minutes apart so a passenger car most adequately serves his needs. Most trucks were bought secondhand (Interview with villager). Scattered about town are offices of the provincial credit union branch, the civil registrar, the municipal sanitation supervisor and the public health clinic. The clinic is open weekdays and is staffed by dental assistants and medical nurses from Mira, trained in Quito, and dental and medical interns who are required to serve a year in a rural clinic prior to final licensing when they usually establish 37 private practice in urban areas. In 1980 a new medical office was added. A woman married to a Mirého opened a weekend practice for women and children though her main office was in Ibarra. Most of the various service offices are staffed by local people who have completed primary school. None of these services are offered elsewhere in the parish so each encourages a certain amount of intra-parish travel. In 1975, a potable water system was installed replacing an old piped water system. It is carefully maintained under local supervision and an employee of the municipality of El Angel (See Figure 2). In February of 1979, another long sought after convenience of modern living was added to the services available in Mira, adequate electricity. Plans were four years in the making and were dependent upon local initiative and the offer to the institutional dignitaries to take the responsibility of installing the required electrical poles and literally hand-carrying the cable 17 kilometers to the next village and on through when residents there refused to cooperate. The local secondary students carried the cable, women provided, prepared and served the needed food for over 300 people. The communal work was accomplished on three consecutive Sundays. The local priest spent much of 1978 negotiating the final plans with EMEL Norte (Northern Electric Enterprise) with a commission of villagers and was credited with being instrumental in completing the work within the period of time in which it was accomplished (Interview with school supervisor). Most afternoons men gather to play, or bet on those playing, soccer or volleyball at the village stadium, named for President Galo Plaza on land donated by villagers who benefited from an early land 38 expropriation to be described in detail later in this chapter. Secondary school students play basketball on courts at their schools, frequently in competition with other schools. There are teams for both girls and boys at both schools. The primary school boys play soccer in the streets in the afternoon because their school is locked up and their teachers will not allow them into the village stadium when there are men there. Beginning in the early evening, lots of girls and boys play tag and hide and seek in the streets close to their homes. Evenings are a favorite playtime. One villager likened getting electricity and street lights to having a full time professor in the stimulation it gives children, because without electricity they can do nothing but go to bed in the evening, but with it they can play and socialize (Villager from El Hato). On Sundays the recreational options broaden somewhat. The market is much enlarged in the very early morning hours; many non-villagers come to town to shop, attend Mass and do errands. Villagers frequently step out purposely to socialize. Boys and girls take young children for walks. Men fight cocks or play volleyball. Frequent tournaments are organized in Mira and in the surrounding towns. Players and spectators pile into a truck or bus and travel. Married women go visiting, oftentimes to their parents or family, unmarried women arrange small outings. A favorite pastime of young girls is gathering to make taffy in one another's garden on an open fire. If there is a vehicle which can be commandeered, a ride somewhere is generally included. The important thing is to rest on Sunday if only in the doorway of one's store or house and do something not done during the work week. The only non-market or shopkeeping activity is sweater 39 dealing in the marketplace and in the homes of many women who give out materials for sweaters to be knit as piecework. These are brought in on Sunday and new work is given out. Sunday always seems short. After mid-afternoon coffee, preparations are begun for Monday. School teachers and university students go back to their posts, visitors and the many people who have come in from the countryside do their last minute shopping and return home before dark. While the predawn hours are part of the work and play schedule, in the evening after dark most men and women prefer not to travel. Television is a favorite activity either in one's own home or at the closest friend or relative who owns a set. There is a lot of social prestige involved in knowing how to 'spend' one's Sunday. It requires giving attention to social responsibilities. It means setting aside the ever present chores and replacing or taking on some community activity (Interview with villagers). It is part of being "cultured," modern and educated. Education and the Study of Culture In 1971 sociologist John Useem addressed the relationship of the study of culture to sociology: ...To envision any culture as just the transmitted heritage from the past to the present in a contemporary society screens from our perception some of the most critical things which are happening from a sociological point of view. If there is anything which stands out on the landscape of societies, it is the differentiated responses of the oncoming generations to their social heritage. Nowhere is the social heritage intact...The conflicting experiences of adjacent generations, the cultural innovations made, and the total impact of changes of the heritage gn the institutions of a society invite our attention (Useem, 971:10 . Useem went on to describe the framework which encouraged culture change 40 since the 1950's in the developing world: A major part of the agenda for nation building, supported by both national elites and foreigners from the West, has been the emphasis upon development and modernization, the generating of cultures which might unify and integrate all who belong to the country (Useem, 1971:10). In this study of schooling it is necessary to look more closely at the transmitted heritage of formal schoOling in Mira in order to distinguish what Clifford Geertz calls the symbolic cultural meaning from the social structure that incorporates it, if the purpose of cultural analysis is to facilitate social discourse (Geertz, 1973:144). Spanish Colonization of Mira The territory of northern Ecuador was not associated, except peripherally, with the famous aboriginal cultures of South America. It seems somewhat astonishing since there was gold in the rivers and mountains, the land was more fertile than that of Peru, and the coast was less impenetrable than the jungles and marshlands of Colombia where the Cara and Pasto cultures flourished. The northernmost battle of the Inca empire was fought at Yaguarcocha which lies just to the south of the Mira Valley on the outskirts of the present city of Ibarra. Mira does have an authentic colonial heritage, however, because it lies along the early exploratory route the Spanish took from Quito in search of the gold they believed they would find in Colombia. The Spanish Crown developed the land by distributing huge grants of land, called encomiendas, to the conquerors or conquistadores it wished to distinguish. It christianized the inhabitants by admonishing the encomenderos, the grantees of the land, to convert the indigenous people. And it educated the people by equating formal education 41 with churchly instruction steeped in Spanish history. Finally, the Crown socialized the indigenous people to expect no protection from the Crown be being politically incapable of protecting them from the ravages of either the Church or the encomenderos via letters on their behalf from Spain (Linke, 1960:19). The ecomiendas left the people landless, the Church failed to educate them and together the encomenderos and the Jesuits condemned them to brutal servitude (Comisi6n Rural de Cultura, 1980:27). The encomienda names and territorial boundaries remain: Pisquer, Huaquer, Pueblo Viejo, El Tambo, San Nicolés, Cabuyél, Mascarilla and Itazan. The colonial church remains on the plaza with its baptismal font, the altar, the paintings, even the statue of the Virgin of Charity. What also remains is a deep allegiance to the land that had supported the people prior to the conquest and continued to support those that survived thereafter.2 Each encomienda extended over territory characterized by harsh contrasts of elevation and climate in the northern sierra and the indigenous people were moved indiscriminantly to areas in which they were unaccustomed to work. The southern limits of the territory extended into the Mira Valley, 1500 feet lower in elevation than the town, to Pampahacienda, Mascarilla and Itazan. The whole valley, including water for irrigation, was deeded to the Jesuits as an encomienda. They cultivated cotton, grapes, sugar cane and fruit trees. They installed sugar cane presses for the manufacture of 2Christina VanHagen describes the native category of "mi tierra" or 'my earth' in a children's book set in southern Ecuador near Cuenca. 42 alcohol and sugar, and set up textile mills to manufacture cotton and wool from the sheep the Spaniards introduced at the higher elevations. The Jesuits secured the necessary laborers by taking contingents of workers from throughout the area. The majority of these people died in the harsh desert climate of the valley from disease, brutal treatment or the unaccustomed climate. The name, Valley of Blood, was used by later defenders of the indigenous laborers to summarize the conditions (Comisibn Rural de Cultura, 1980:27). While sympathetic clergy sent communications to King Phillip III in 1576, which elicited sympathetic responses and a mandate to stop the practices, the King was in fact unable to protect the serfs. Continuing cries on their behalf only changed the victims; the Jesuits brought the first contingents of black slaves into the Audiencia of Quito3 by the late 17th Century and justified the brutal treatment they gave the blacks by the very condition of slavery (Comisibn Rural de Cultura 1980:28). \ The northern limit of the territory extended to Popayén, Colombia, and again the labor requirements of the conquerors put a heavy burden on the indigenous people. The riches of Bolivia, Peru, and Ecuador were carried on the backs of untold people as they passed through Mira on their way to Popayén and Spain because the sea route by way of Panama was almost closed by English and French raiders in the second 3The Royal Audiencia of Quito was established by the Spanish Crown to govern the agricultural lands which lay in the territory north of what came to be known as Peru. Through the Audiencia, land was distributed in huge grants called encomiendas to those Spanish conquistadores the Crown wished to distinguish. It was in the Audiencia that records of colonial times were kept. 43 half of the 16th Century (Whiteford, 1977:24). As a protective measure the people adopted the Spanish language which in turn increased their mobility (Bustamante, 1978:160). Mira and Independence from Spain For Mirehos, Independence in 1822 meant little change; serfdom continued. Encomiendas were replaced by haciendas but the landless laborers still had no voice in government. On the hacienda there were no free laborers but rather dependent ones. In exchange for their labor of up to six days a week they were given a tiny plot of land for their own use and some access to pasture and wood lots. The raral laborer was obligated not only to the landowner but in his or her absence to the administrators of the haciendas. It was a paternalistic system in which the landowner was the employer, legislator, judge and police. It gained added strength from its collaborators in the Church and the national government (Hurtado, 1978:167). While black slavery, under which the laborers in the valley below Mira suffered, was abolished in 1852, the institution of huasipungeros, as the hacienda serfs were called, remained until the Agrarian Reform Act of 1964 was implemented. 0n Hacienda Pueblo Viejo, just outside Mira, huasipungeros were given title to the small plots of land that they had farmed for many generations as severance pay in 1967 (Ruales et.al., 1977:71). Perhaps the most important development after Independence for the village was that a provincial system of government replaced the colonial Royal Audiencia. Until 1851 the Province of Carchi was but a parish in the Province of Imbabura, isolated and ignored on the 44 northern border with Colombia. In 1884 the National Assembly in Quito finalized the establishment of the Province of Carchi and by 1934 it had been further subdivided into three cantons. It remained thus until 1980 (Padilla, 1967:4). Each cantbn was further subdivided into parishes for administrative purposes. Mira was one of eight parishes in Cant6n Espejo. The establishment of the provincial government was important because it provided more direct communication with the national government. Regionalism in the country has meant that at various times the center of power rested in Quito and at other times in Guayaquil on the coast, but a central bureaucracy remains a dominant feature of national politics. By 1939, the direct communication would become important to villagers as they attempted to compete with landowners in order to wrest from them land needed for agricultural production. Education and the Church at Independence Education, like government, was centered in Quito. By the late 16th Century the Jesuits had founded a seminary and the University of San Gregorio Magno which were attracting students from various parts of the New World. The Dominicans had also opened their own seminary and had estblished the University of St. Thomas Aquinas by the late 17th Century. After the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish colonies in 1767, the Dominicans absorbed the Jesuit university and this later became the secularized Central University of Quito (Linke, 1960:106). At the time of Independence in 1822, Quito had a total population of forty thousand and only 11 schools, all within convents and 45 monasteries, with a total of 316 students. Of these, 136 paid tuition and 180 were supported by the Curch orders.4 Seventy-five of the students were girls. All students paid according to their social position (Descalzi, l980:4). After Independence, the Church was initially in a stronger position because it no longer shared authority with the Spanish Crown. In the person of President Garcia Moreno (1861-1865; 1869-1875), the Church found its strongest backer for he tried to unite the Church and the State. While previously the Church had encouraged encomenderos to christianize the indigenous people, under Garcia Moreno, citizenship became dependent upon Church membership. The Church's overt influence in national politics changed with the rise of Eloy Alfaro to the presidency in 1896. He was committed to permanently separating the Church and State but the Church's influence on education remained strong in all social groups and in the three principal regions of the country. Public education was first only concerned with elementary education, and even it was indebted to private Catholic schooling. In 1873 Brother Yon-Jose, supervisor of Christian schools, made a compilation of regulations concerning primary education which were adopted for all schools by the national government (Hart, n.d.:4). The ratification of the Constitution of 1906 established literacy as a requirement of citizenship, but fulfilling the requirement was dependent upon teachers who were willing to cope with the rigors and uncertainties of rural life. Most teachers were missionaries of the 4For the most part it was more costly to educate girls because of the expenses of the "trabajos femeninos" or handwork used to decorate the Church altars and the homes of the wealthy. 46 Catholic Church as they had been since the conquest (Linke, 1960: 105-106). The national system of education was introduced, not to supplant the private system but to remedy the social and political problems caused by regionalism, political instability and uneven distribution of economic resources, according to Emilio Uzcategui, ex-Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Letters of Quito University (Linke, 1960:98). Private education had a great advantage over public education in Ecuador. Its goals never suffered from the same sense of generality but were those of a particular social group, desiring a particular education at a cost the family agreed to pay. Catholic education had access to inexpensive teachers from within the teaching orders to accomplish its goals and these were supplemented by persons willing to accept meager wages in order to participate in the particular social setting. This continued until the minimum wage legislation incorporated private school teachers in 1980 (Interviews with Mirefios teaching in Quito). Because there were so few books, most of what Mirefios read about their colonial past is in two monographs written by elementary school teachers from Mira. The first was written by school director Sefior Leopoldo Padilla Vallejo in 1967. He wrote about local geography, history and agriculture; he included maps, illustrations and village plans; in particular he identified those people who had secured land, water and education for his townspeople; he identified colonial relics in the village church and references to Mira in an old encomienda records such as those by the surveyor of the Geodesic Mission from France in 1736 which extolled the tranquil village, beautifully 47 situated in the mountains. The copy was typed on a typewriter left by departing Peace Corps Volunteer and reproduced on a secondhand mimeograph machine donated by the Rotary Club of Spokane Valley, USA. It arrived in Mira because Padilla himself traveled to Guayaquil to guide it through the complexities of customs on behalf of rural education. The second was written in 1980 by the Rural Cultural Commission made up of primary teachers and it was published by the National House 5 While Sr. Padilla of Culture, a politically important institution. was uncritical of the colonial past in 1967, the Commission wrote a more critical account of the conquest and the colonial period, noting especially the violence suffered under the conquerors. One of the principal authors is a university student from Mira who teaches in the rural hinterland. He is Sr. Padilla's nephew. And so from Independence until the late 1930's very little changed in Mira. In 1868, Hacendado José Galarraga established the first school in Mira. The first girls‘school was founded in 1870 (Padilla, 1967:4). Most villagers remained landless farm laborers in the 1930's. Those who were trained artisans were saddlemakers, blacksmiths, tailors and seamstresses, and weavers, crafts directly related to the hacienda system. Some boys became hacienda bookkeepers and some men and women became shopkeepers. Each year four to eight 5The Casa de la Cultura Ecuatoriana was established in 1945 to foster all branches of Ecuadorian literature by purchasing a certain number of copies of important works by Ecuadorian authors published abroad, issuing several magazines and acquiring publication rights of books, both literary and scientific. Founded by Government decree, it is an autonomous institution. Its funds are derived from a share in export duties and therefore subject to variation (Linke, 1960:102). 48 students completed "formacion primaria," as the primary school cycle is known. Then, in the early 1940's a series of events coincided which began a process of change, some locally initiated, some nationally supported and some at least influenced by international events. The Beginning of Land Reform in Mira The first attempt to alter the land tenure system began soon after Cant6n Espejo was formed in 1934. In 1937 work was so scarce on the haciendas and so poorly paid that young men were emigrating in search of other work. A railroad was being opened up to the coast by a French company and working on it seemed attractive to young men. This event brought the older people together to make an attempt to buy the small Hacienda San José de Mira to slow down emigration. It failed because the owners of the hacienda had connections in government which protected them from forced sale of even underutilized land (Padilla, n.d.:1). And again, in 1945, the efforts of another group of villagers were thwarted when they formed a Local Improvement Council, a Junta de Mejores Locales, to solicit the government to expropriate the Hacienda San Nicolas, owned by the Galarraga Cabezas family. The family owned more than 12,000 hectares of arable land surrounding Mira but again Ecuadorian law, strictly interpreted, did not force the sale without a decree to expropriate "in benefit of the public." Populist President, Dr. José Maria Velasco Ibarra refused to collaborate. 6 Only after Sefior Galo Plaza Lasso was inaugurated as president 6Galo Plaza Lasso, candidate of the Independent Citizens party and son of former President Leonidas Plaza Gutierrez. Galo Plaza was born and educated in the United States and served as his country's ambassador to Washington during World War 11. His announced goal was to raise the 49 in 1949 was the decree forthcoming, much to the surprise of Mirehos because he was a large landowner himself. Although stoned on a neighboring hacienda during his campaign, he nevertheless sympathized with the villagers and ordered the expropriation. It was the first expropriation decree in Ecuador designed to put unused agricultural land into agricultural production. After the decree was signed, villagers immediately set about raising the necessary capital; women sold their animals, bronze cooking pots, jewelry, anything of value which they might haver inherited or earned. Men were less likely to have any valuable tools except some had a horse and saddle; plows were carved of wood and landless people did not own oxen. Teachers could, however, sign over six months advance wages. But the expropriation was fer three million sucres and a farm laborer's daily wage was 60 centavos of a sucre. The eighty thousand sucres which they raised was far from the required amount. Suddenly, even that was lost to the lawyers entrusted by the villagers to finalize the settlement; the lawyers presented false bills, took the money and bought land for themselves elsewhere (Padilla, n.d.:2). Only with much encouragement from the informant's uncle, who came to Mira from Monte Olivo in Cant6n Montufar, did a small group muster the willingness to try again (Interview with villager). Though successfully accomplished, even the decree had to be reworded because lack of confidence and wasted resources made the original amount an improbable goal. For even this lesser amount, standard of living in Ecuador through the improvement of agriculture. His support came from the northern Sierra (Worcester and Schaeffer, 1971: 927). Because the land reformrwas successful in Mira and because he was held in such high-esteem there, he went to Mira to begin his second. campaign fer president. 50 President Galo Plaza was willing to maneuver and the landowner was brought to terms. The new decree read that an area of land equal in value to the amount which could be raised would be sold; this was 360 hectares of arable land and 500 hectares of wasteland for a total of 950.000 sucres. Law required that 50 percent be paid in two years at two percent interest to the National Development Bank which assumed the mortgage. Under the circumstances. people outside the village were sought who put up the initial quota and a small group of 116 villagers committed themselves to paying in two years for one. two or three hectares at prices which varied according to location and availability of water (Padilla, n.d.:2). When the transaction was complete the “parceleros.” or new land owners, set about plowing the old pastures. Some used picks. some used oxen and the Spanish plow as they did on the haciendas. A few hired the land plowed by tractor upon advice of the bank's agronomist. The former owner did not immediately accept the transaction even after it was legally finalized. He sent peones, or day laborers, and employees from his various haciendas to prohibit Mirehos coming onto the land. He said that they had robbed it, that it was not theirs to farm. The villagers requested an appointed commission, un consejo del estado, to resolve the problem. Thereafter the villagers rounded up and drove from the land the cattle the former owner still pastured on their land; the herders' houses were emptied and locked and the herders told not to set foot on the land again (Interview with villager). While the provincial branch of the National Development Bank offered credit, few people accepted. not understanding banking laws and fearing inability to make their land payments. Only the bank's 51 offer to provide comprehensive technical advice and credit to implement it. convinced some to accept. At the higher elevations potatoes were to be grown and yet no one knew anything about potato growing or the diseases of the potato. Advice was needed. It was accepted and brought high returns. Sr. Padilla wrote of that harvest, Sixty percent of those famous lands were planted with potatoes. The first harvest was so abundant that the full amount due on the land was paid off one year ahead of schedule. Twenty thousand quintal (hundred weight) of potatoes were harvested. The early harvest was sold for 130 sucres a quintal. the last for 40 sucres; the markets of Tulcan, Ibarra and Ouito were glutted by the abundant harvest. Later. in the second growing season of the year, wheat and corn were planted. The harvest could not have been better. The land had long laid fallow or been used as pasture: it was rich land, 'rested'. That parcelization became Pantry of Carchi, providing fresh corn, dry corn, pumpkins, squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, evervthing grew in abundance... (Padilla, n.d.:2). In 1980, peoole still recount with awe of seeing for the first. time a whole room full of potatoes, of having so many squash that they could be the ones to let the "poor," the gleaners, come onto their land and take away the excess. Food was not the onlv advantage of the new land, it also provided emolovment for laborers from far and near. Miréhos paid agricultural day wages from 2.50 to five sucres in 1951. People came to work from many of the other haciendas like Huaquer, Pisquer, Pueblo Viejo where huasipungeros still earned a daily wage of thirty centavos of a sucre (Padilla. n.d.:3). By 1980. successive landbuying ventures have yielded three thousand hectares of land for Mirefios. The average family holding is 5.6 hectares (Comisibn Rural de Cultura, 1980:12). Successive ventures have been paid for from the product of the land as the people learned what was possible with the first expropriation. It was the changing 52 of the land tenure structure which was crucial for the villagers to have the option of investing in their own future security, private and communal. In each case the land was surveyed and apportioned to each cooperative member on the basis of his contribution in cash and labor. To work the land communally was not feasible. given the conflicting responsibilities people engage in to survive. The land could be more intensely utilized in private segments. Women were members only if they were widowed after their husbands had joined. When that happened women continued the payments and reaularly attended all membership meetings for fear of losing their land (Interview with landowning widow). Even after the land was apportioned, cooperative meetings continued until individual titles could be secured. Land Tenure Changes and the Effect on Schooling The successful completion of the initial land tenure changes in 1949 set the stage for further changes in land ownership and in the increased option to establish networks to institutions and individuals beyond the parish. These, in turn, established investment alternatives which were land, agricultural-related businesses and education. The landowner was no longer the only employer, legislator, judge and police. The social position of hacienda administrators. who ruled in the landowners absence, was also threatened. Other rural people had established direct channels to the nation's president. And they had produced results. Furthermore. while the outsiders who bought the best land never became Mirehos, they did thereafter share business interests. The paternalistic system was permanently altered. 53 Sefior Padilla and the "Pedegogy of the Oppressed" School teacher Sr. Leopoldo Padilla was among the principle local instigators of the expropriation and his personal strategy was to maximize local access to the political structure as it existed. It required building up the self-worth of as many local people as possible in their own eyes and in the eyes of the national elite. It was believed that the means to this end was to educate the children so as to dispel the stereotypes of the campesino or rural peasant.7 Sr. Padilla used a process which was similar to that which Paulo Freire was later to call, "conscientizacao" -- learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality (Freire, 1970:19). It was the integration of non-formal education of adults with the formal education which could be utilized when and however useful in preparing, consolidating and continuing a concrete process of organized change (Martinez, 5., 1980:21. While in the process, the village has attained a literacy rate of 96 percent of adults over 50 (See again Table 9) there has not been an adult literacy campaign in Mira. Within the community, networks were established which were geared towards community development and "progress" rather than simple maintenance of the colonial heritage under the guise of new paternalistic arrangements. Prior to 1970, few people could acquire enough education so as to subsist solely from employment based on 7Article 171 of the Constitution of 1949 proclaimed that the education of children is the primary obligation and rioht of the parents. and that the state will see that this duty is being performed and offer the necessary facilities (Linke, 1960:108). 54 formal school learning. Land ownership legitimized the native concept of "mi tierra" because income was based on agricultural production; education was a fundamental requirement of citizenship and casting aside serfdom. This was true for school teachers and farmers alike (Interviews with teachers). The most obvious evidence of having produced a system of rural education which could be utilized when and however useful in preparing, consolidating and continuing a concrete process of organized change is the history of secondary schooling in Mira. The local benefactor of the boys'school, Luis Leon Ruales, respected and admired the willingness and determination of the villagers to work together in order to live more modern, progressive cultured lives. To this end he bequeathed several haciendas to the custody of the newly formed bishopric of Tulcan in 1963. While not free of ambiguity, the will stipulated that a substantial share of the income be used for the "education of the youth of Mira," and also provided for the completion of a modern school building begun by the donor. When the new bishop made his first official visit to Mira in 1966 and countered the request of the townspeople for a colegio with an offer of a Catholic girls'elementary school, the villagers simply walked out of the meeting en masse and hired a lawyer. The bishop subsequently sent envoys to say that he was pleased to accede to their requests for a colegio (Gladhart and Gladhart, 1967:41). The coeducational nature of the institution remained an unsolved problem even after the nuns arrived to open the institution in 1969. They refused to register boys much to the disgruntlement of Miréfios, even after the tentative agreement had been reached. It was to the 55 bishop's advantage to implement some plan because the Junta Militar ruling the country was actively engaged in land reform programs,8 and it was to the bishop's disadvantage that attention be drawn to his land by militant campesinos, rural peasants. Since the school was to be maintained by the proceeds of several large haciendas in the province, the prestige of the Church would be jeopardized if they were needlessly lost. The local priest who sided with the villagers was soon removed to a remote community (Interview with school supervisor). The difficulty provoked a counter proposal by those who were not adamant that secondary education be Catholic. National funds were becoming available for the construction of public secondary schools in the rural areas and these were sought to build a coeducational public school. A former provincial minister of education in Carchi known to the teachers in Mira, was a friend of the national Minister of Education. He made the necessary arrangements on behalf of his old Carchi friends though he then lived in Quito. Because some people desired a Catholic education for their boys, 'because the private school offered free board and room for those from outlying areas as stipulated by the benefactor, and because the villagers understood that it would certainly increase village prestige to have two secondary schools, a permanent division in the village was avoided. In 1969, the Catholic school opened with several boys included and in 1971 the public school opened, not in its own building 8The most important land transfer of the Agrarian Reform of 1964 affected estates belonging to the Ecuadorian government's Assistencia Publica (Public Assistance). During the early part of the 20th Century the government had expropriated many church-owned haciendas and turned them over to the Assistencia Publica. As of 1960, it accounted for fully 20 percent of all sierra hacienda land in units over 100 hectares (handelman, 1980:8). 56 but in the commons room of the municipal building. It was inaugurated with a large community-wide parade led by Sr. Padilla, his wife Elisa Ulloa and the loyal Carchi emigrant who had facilitated development. While rivalry continues between the schools, people believe the rivalry to be a positive factor, one which forces both schools to be competitive academically and extracurricularly. In addition, the Catholic colegio was able to provide the village with an evening course which served a group of older persons who had not had the secondary school opportunity. Upon graduation many benefitted from Sefibr Leopoldo's new position as primary supervisor in the cantbn for he was able to recommend many for jobs which were within the national school system and within a relatively close geographical area permitting the maintainance of family residences in Mira. At the same time the Catholic colegio benefitted from this opportunity for graduates because families in the outlying areas were encouraged to send their children to school in the hopes that they might gain similar employment. Séfior Padilla has no jurisdiction over secondary education, nor does any other official in Mira outside school directors. The measures which were taken, were completed through informal organization which was able to maintain its spontaneity and widespread commitment. It has minimized division between villagers because people were encouraged to cooperate and to imagine possible future benefits for their own families. 57 Economic Development: Schooling and Integration of the Parish In Table 11 the land tenure pattern among villagers in Mira in 1974 is broken down by categories of how residents describe their relationship to farm land. That 80 percent of the farming household are landowners does not imply the 80 percent work all their land themselves. They hire laborers and, when necessary, rent it or preferably sharecrop it, but continuing land reform has made some arrangements uncertain for the owner. Land is used to secure credit to buy trucks and buses, in which case the land is sharecropped and the owner is self-employed as a truck driver. Women might run a few cattle and sharecrop their land with someone who looks after the cattle if the land is distant from their homes (Interview with woman villager with these arrangements). Teachers tend to sharecrop their land and participate only in the harvest. Some non-arable land is planted to eucalyptus which increases its value over time. "Mixed forms" refers to people who rent one parcel of land and sharecrop another. And so 25 years after the first land expropriation for agricultural purposes, villagers continue to strategize access to land and the economic resources it produces. And so while schooling options have spread from the village as described in Chapter II, employment alternatives have too. Alternatives have increased the awareness of people in the parish of each other and of the centrality of the village. Mirefios have been the 'outsiders' in the rural areas and have provided some of the incentive needed to‘ actualize the formation of cooperatives, which simultaneously enhanced their own wellbeing. Campesinos were not disillusioned because each venture required a risk of personal property and some people benefitted 58 Table ll l974 Land Tenure Patterns in the Mira Parish Landowners ................................ 80 percent Renters ................................... 5 percent Sharecroppers ............................. l2 percent Huasipungeros ............................. 0 percent Colonists ................................. 0 percent Mixed Forms ............................... 3 percent Size of Land Parcels Less than l hectare ................................... l3.3 percent From l-4.9 hectares ................................... 40.0 percent From 5.0-9.9 hectares ........... I ...................... 32.7 percent From l0.0-l9.9 hectares ............................... 8.0 percent From 20.0-49.9 hectares ............................... 4.0 percent From 50.0-99.0 hectares ............................... l.5 percent More than l00 hectares ................................ 0.5 percent Adapted from Ruales et.al., l974z70 59 more than others. Instead an awareness grew that participation was a crucial criteria if there was to be any progress. When a project of common concern is proposed in l980, people were still willing to join hands in order to accomplish it. Sr. Padilla used the example of the electrical system inaugurated in February, l979 (Interview with school supervisor). In l952, a priest came to Mira to join the land reform movement, whose goal was to establish a cooperative spirit among villagers and parishioners. He left in l965 dissatisfied because he observed people fostering particular networks designed primarily to benefit the individual and contributing to general community progress only when in their personal interest (Interview with the priest in l979). The priest's contribution to land reform is still remembered by villagers, though not without some qualification by those who believe he prospered privately while contributing to community betterment, not unlike the villagers whom he criticized.9 The Goals of Land and Education Reform in Ecuador The land reform program has not sought to change the social structure in the rural areas in Ecuador, instead it has limited itself almost exclusively to readjusting traditional forms of land tenure (Herrera, l979:80). Regarding the increased opportunity to participate 9In 1980, the priest continued to work on behalf of Mirefios and other campesinos through the establishment of an institute for campesino women administered by Italian nuns in the nearby city of Ibarra. Women were given instruction in home arts, health and nutrition and religion. There were no registration fees and women were given diplomas upon completing the three year program. 60 in schooling as a result of land reform, Herrera makes two critical observations as Director of Special Studies for the Central Bank of Ecuador. He notes that structural modifications in curriculum are being made in the traditional education towards a more technical and scientific one. On the other hand, he observes that the rural school desertion rate is very high in rural areas and attributes it to dietary deficiencies which result in poor health attributes and to low rural incomes which require parents to utilize children's labor in subsistence agricultural production (Herrera, 1979:90). The question arises as to whether or not the educational program has sought to change the social structure in the rural areas as it is transferred from the National Ministry of Education in Quito. In light of the national controversy over rural education as an agent of change, the development of networks in the parish which influence both schooling and employment provides insight. If the educational program is not designed to alter the social structure, technical training by itself is more transportable for a rural person migrating to the urban sector in search of employment and it provides non-agricultural skills with which to supplement farm income in the rural sector. If the program is designed to alter the social structure, substituting limited technical skills for the cultural orientation currently emphasized does not confront the social issues involved. By contrast, a structural modification which the school supervisor brought to my attention as being detrimental to rural education was subsequently described as supportive of rural life by the parents interviewed. The measure under discussion was the changing of the school day schedule. Prior to l978, children attended school morning 61 and afternnon with a two hour lunch break. Insufficient resources to provide all school age children with classroom space predicated a decision to reschedule the day from 7:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., allowing for an afternoon session where necessary and at the secondary level in an evening session. Sefior Padilla believed that the old schedule was more conducive to learning; the day was longer and the children had a proper rest period. Furthermore, the new schedule disrupts the normal eating patterns. The children go to school before milk is available in town so the children drink either plain, sweetened coffee or gelatin, if anything at all, for breakfast. Normally lunch is eaten between ll and l2 in rural Ecuador so the children are now served separately, after others are back at work.~ Postponing lunch, Sr. Padilla said, cuts down on students' ability to concentrate. Teachers generally approved of the change from a personal standpoint because they were free to hold other jobs in the afternoon. Full employment as a teacher was a 24 hour work week by law. Secondary teachers regularly hold two positions, one full time and one part time. Parents, on the other hand, approved of the new schedule for reasons which relate to the points brought out by Herrera. The new schedule permitted children to accomplish better the only work that was available, the doing of chores. No one in the village considered children able to contribute significantly to farming before age 16. The context of the school day proved to be useful for discussino children's work contributions to the family. According to parents. what children can most efficiently do is run errands and the new schedule permits more errand running. Children come home, eat, rest 62 and do their homework. By late afternoon they are ready to tend to the larger animals, cut grass for the guinea pigs, lock up the chickens for the night and do such shopping as is required for afternoon coffee and supper. The older girls are able to help with the laundry, bread baking and childcare and boys will be available to help with the irrigation of fields close to town. During corn harvesting season both girls and boys husk and shell dry corn, help winnow wheat and prepare lupine. Failure to send children to school was blamed on parental ignorance of its value, not on the usefulness of a young child's contribution. Adults who had not been sent to school as children similarly blamed their parents for their stupidity. Young children are an economic burden, their value increases only as they grow and become "util," useful. The goal was to prepare the children to be socially and culturally useful to themselves. The question of household productivity of children frequently arises in discussions of schooling in rural areas. Cathy Jabara used cross-section household data analysis to examine the "Demand for Children's Education Among Samll Farmers in a Rural Area of Brazil" from the perspective of the human capital theory and the new household economics developed by Gary Becker. The two bodies of theory suggest that household demand for education is determined by the cost and returns to education, with the allocation of time and individual characteristics of family members entering into these cost-return calculations. She concluded that distance children live from school and social factors might well be more significant than the economic contribution children made in determining the demand for schooling (Jabara, l977:l7). Distance becomes important to parents in Mira 63 because it determines the time and effort adults have to expend on their children's education. This consideration determines the critical cost and returns to education. In Mira the goals of educational reform remain crucial in determining the demand. From the perspective of the parents, if education is culture, the costs of depriving a child of primary education are extremely high. The final consideration is one of the pervasiveness of the definition of education because the goals of reform reflect the definition of those initiating reform. Because community progress has moved on apace using a traditional cultural definition, it behooves one to consider Bridgit Jordan’s concern that in order to not devalue the traditional definition in the introduction of change, two conditions must be present. First, a pervasive definition of the altered form is required, and second, the necessary resources to make a complete transfer must be assured (Jordan, l978: 78-80).10 To characterize the mentality of the traditional system as being that of the last century (El Comercio, 24 May, 1980:Al7) makes it difficult to recognize the capacities of the present system under some conditions to accomplish new tasks. In Mira the traditional definition has maintained its integrity. To be educated is to be cultured; to be cultured has required providing the necessary resources through the informal exchange network. Traditionally, the landowner had been expected to periodically 10Jordan is concerned with the traditional birthing systems which are beginning to change under the influence of Western medicine. Yet the problem of definition is applicable to a consideration of education because of the mutual concern in social and cultural change as it impinges upon a specific aspect of community life. 64 recognize and reward trusted administrators because they were his or her personal representatives in the managing of the haciendas, villagers were obligated not only to the landowners but to the administrators. Therefore, to maintain the legitimacy of the administrators status, the landlord was required to authenticate it. Villagers were critical of the local landowner for not having educated - any of the children of his former administrator, in other words, he denied the administrator the ability to provide an "inheritance" different than his own position in life. In time several of the older sons became administrators themselves, but the now retired administrator and his wife have assumed the responsibility to educate the first grandson to go to colegio and the oldest son and his wife have assumed the responsibility to educate a niece since they have no children of their own. By making this special sacrifice, both parties have legitimized their own special status which was denied them by the landowners whom they served. The traditional definition has not been devalued but has been reinterpreted in terms of how the resources are accumulated. Social networks have been altered, as the informal exchange networks were altered, to support the traditional definition. Summary Mira is a progressive rural village whose development is based upon widespread participation which has been integrated into the development of the school system. In Mira, villagers educate their children as a strategy for improving life chances of individuals and of redistributing income toward the families of those children. The system developed as the villagers became landowners in a society in 65 which land ownership was synonymous from their perspective with wealth, culture and education. The primary formal educational system was congruent with the local informal educational system in preparing people to exploit the possibilities of rural life. The system was developed and maintained by the villagers which was congruent with Ecuadorian law. The national system did little more than offer recognition and certification. The meaning of education is summed up in the term used to describe elementary education - Vformacién primaria" or basic human development. The system was financed in large part through informal exchange. Teachers brought respectability and dignity; villagers housed and fed them to augment their meager wages. Villagers assumed that participation in formal schooling would insure integration into the national society and frequently it did. Ultimately, village-wide participation served to increase general social awareness and community development which authenticated further integration into the national system. I have described the cultural heritage of formal schooling, which was transferred by the conquistadores at the time of conquest from Spain. Schooling was the social structure identified by the King of Spain to transmit to the indigenous people their new "heritage" which incorporated the symbolic cultural meaning of Catholicism and citizenship. Denial of schooling implied lifelong bondage to serfdom. Because prior social structures were eliminated in Carchi, the transferred heritage became the traditional one. That heritage has been modified in contemporary Mira under the leadership of a native school teacher who sparked the imagination of 66 other teachers and the villagers to perceive education as the system most universally able to prepare individuals and groups for consolidating and continuing a concrete process of organized change within the community. This system has gone beyond primary school to include secondary schooling and for some graduates, teaching in the primary system and going on for post-secondary education. Villagers have had as much input in the evolution of their school system as the national system , into which they wished to be integrated, would permit. In the process of development, villagers have observed that compliance with the system in power has brought change in the land tenure system. Consequently, villagers have observed the limits of change and have altered their strategies to incorporate new possibilities. Had they not understood the cultural significance of education, it is less likely that they would have been able to implement change since there was no national consensus to alter the social structure. To have analyzed schooling in Mira without distinguishing its symbolic cultural meaning from the social structure that incorporates it, would have kept hidden the most critical aspects of what happened in Mira. Equally important, without the distinction the relative modernity and integration of the village into the national system would have remained out of awareness. Having done so, cultural analysis has facilitated social discourse. The conflicting experiences of adjacent generations, the total impact of the cultural heritage on the institutions of the society can be more adequately considered. The traditional definition of ecucation was not devalued but rather adequate resources were provided the schools through informal exchange. Traditional values were strengthened because a pattern of 67 comparison was established which identified villagers to be more "cultured" in their social interactions than the landowner who devalued his status by ignoring his social responsibilities in the minds of the villagers. In Chapter IV the school system will be more carefully scrutinized so as to understand its evolution in the Mira environment. CHAPTER IV SCHOOLS IN MIRA, THE TEACHERS AND THE ADMINISTRATORS In l967 the National Council of Planning and Economic Integration published a report on its diagnostical investigation of Carchi concerning the possibilities for integrating the rural segment of the province socially and economically with the urban segment. The study focused on three areas. These were the access to basic economic resources -- land tenure practices and opportunities for change; access to possibilities for social and political advancement; and access to those services characteristic of modern life -- adequate housing, electricity, water systems, sewage systems and year round roads. The national board's statement was unequivocal: "The level of instruction and its medium —- i.e. schooling, consitutes the major opportunity for social advancement" (JUNAPLA, l967:8).n The investigation stated that in the rural sector 25 percent of the population l0 years old and older were illiterate, by contrast to ll percent in the urban sectors. The rate of illiteracy was one and a half times as high for women as for men or 3l percent versus l9 percent. And, most significantly, the rate of attendance in school depended upon its availability. 0f the total rural population between six and l4 years of age, 58 percent had access to primary schools and 55 to 59 percent of that population were enrolled (JUNAPLA, l967:9). The study observed that there was no resistance to education in nJUNAPLA - Junta Nacional de Planificacion y Coordinacion Economico (National Council for Planning and Economic Coordination). 68 69 the province and while school availability was higher than in most other parts of rural Ecuador it was insufficient to meet the local demand. It was especially obvious at the secondary level because facilities were exclusively in the urban sector but yet up to 80 percent of the student population was from the surrounding rural sector. Most parents of these students had not had formacién primaria, indicating a jump of two levels of education between generations (JUNAPLA, l967:2l-22). The authors of the report further observed the inconsistency between local training opportunities and local employment opportunities at the secondary level, especially in agriculture. It was impossible to contemplate that 430 boys studying in the two agricultural institutes in El Angel and San Gabriel could even hope for a job in public administration for which the curriculum was designed. The large landowners had always preferred the less expensively trained and more farm-oriented youth who were trained by other hacienda bookkeepers (JUNAPLA, l967:22). Those underwriting education were landless rural agricultural laborers who saw no future in the rural area from which they came but neither did they imagine non-agricultural alternatives. Those with more economic resources sent their children to the urban centers of Tulcan, Ibarra and Quito to a variety of schools and in the company of more socially mobile students (JUNAPLA, l967:23). 70 Primary Schools in Mira in l966 Before describing the socially integrative programs characteristic of Mira primary schools in l978-80, I would like to review the historical antecedants. In Chapter III I distinguished the symbolic cultural meaning of schooling from the social structure that incorporates it. Using land tenure changes which began in l949 I moved into the present. National and international events of the l960's directly affected the development of the school system in Mira. On July ll, l963 a four-man military junta took over the government in Ecuador, determined to carry forward a policy of modernization in keeping with the objectives of the Alliance for Progress of which the extension of the educational system was one. While the United States, the United Nations and the Inter-American Development Bank contributed substantial amounts of economic aid, the junta had no national mandate from the people and depended primarily upon support from the armed forces to stay in power. In l966 they were deposed from office after a brutal attack on students at Central University in Quito (Worcester and Schaeffer, l97l:lO7l-lD73). Nevertheless, the processes of social change were set in motion and awareness of national and international resources for development began to grow at the local level. The schools in Mira were the primary institution upon which to focus development projects. Teachers were the only persons with a steady income source which permitted seeking out community projects which might be viable in the community. More important, school teachers were the only people whose social networks went beyond the paternalistic relationships directly related to the Church and the 7l remnants of the hacienda system. These networks would permit modernization while maintaining the cultural traditions of the Spanish heritage. As a result of the centrality of the schools, the Ministry of Agriculture's extension agent, home economist and cooperating Peace Corps Volunteers funneled their limited resources through the schools to establish an experimental garden, school lunch program, 4-H Club and animal husbandry projects. Though these people made only weekly visits prior to l964, the projects served to greatly increase the visibility of the schools while providing technical assistance to the general populace. These efforts were perceived by teachers and villagers as supportive of their own goals and aspirations of 'progress' and to becoming integrated into Ecuadorian society. The effect of these programs on school participation was to increase the value of education and the cost of non-participation. General participation was made increasingly obvious in the community by the institution of new social events such as school parades, exhibitions within the schools and the 4-H Club program. James Sexton fit formal education into a broader theory of innovation in Central America. His criterion is the standard requirement of the United Nations Economic and Social Council for functional literacy of fbur years of formal education. He concluded that those who made the greatest commitment to education by adopting Protestantism were most likely to realize permanent change in their lives due to education (Sexton, l972:ll). Singling out only individual change is consistent with modernization theory, but not with the pervasive definition of education in Mira. General progress in Mira 72 brought about changes in living standards at the community level which were impossible for individuals to realize privately. Furthermore, education as culture is a public process though cultural modifications are less obvious. To imagine beccming integrated into an existing culture at a different level is a much more complex process than adopting an existing, though foreign culture. The origins of the land reform movement in Mira required restructuring social networks to accomplish the goals of providing more local employment thereby limiting likely migration. The same phenomenon was part of the process by which the extension of schooling was imagined by a broad segment of the population. While migration among landless peasants in Carchi is not well documented, villagers express longterm concern with the process of migration and the effect upon those who remain in the village. Educating students through secondary school in l979 is justified by reasoning that though the education does not prepare them to work in Mira, they are being 'sent' forth as educated, responsible persons. The expressed hope is that they will not forget their families under those circumstances. All families were skeptical about financial help from married children. Because of the absence of migration data on Carchi, I mention an intriguing study done in the Peruvian highlands by Bradfield Stillman, "Migration from Huaylas, A Study of Brothers." By examining patterns of geographical mobility of Huaylinos in relation to the relative firmness of their decision to become permanent migrants, he found that it was the variety, or diversity, of experience that seemed to be the best predictor. The greater the inability to escape from the ranks of 73 laborer, the less decisive the migration pattern (Stillman, l963z40-42). Should the same be true of Mira, the most educated would be least likely to return, but might instilling a sense of the cultural integrity of the community complement a sense of one's own priveleged position to create a sense of responsibility to maintain cultural ties? The institutions to be described are premised on the notion. The significance of progress in Mira is not that migration has been halted or that the village has become a modern town because neither is wholly true, but that new social networks have evolved through the schooling of children in a publicly maintained institution. The breadth of understanding of social complexity of certain local leaders has permitted a wide range of adaptations to emerge and be experimented with. Networkingand the Community Dance Community dances to raise money for the schools were begun after the boys‘school was built. There is a history of work parties in Mira which have been traditionally organized to complete a labor intensive task, such as road building, irrigation ditch digging or school building. Usually the poor provide the labor and non-participants provide the alcohol. It served to tax the poor but in recent times, willingness to organize 'mingas' increases access to municipal equipment which is lent for the occasion, and to publicly employed engineers who are able to design water systems, electrical plants and other needed services. A "kermesse bailable" is a public dance to which admission is charged; everyone dances and drinks to live music. Organizing such a 74 function is considered a public service in Mira, because it provides public entertainment where otherwise there would be none. But because there is no tradition of such entertainment, participation is not to be taken for granted and success depends upon legitimizing the event. The institution has gained respectability in Mira because the school teachers have exploited its possibilities for the benefit of the schools. Many people are called upon by the teachers to participate and to make donations, people from the center and from the district's periphery.12 It is the teachers' responsibility to organize and be present and to have arranged for music which will meet the increasingly diversified tastes of Mirefios and the many guests it is hoped will be encouraged to come. The dances are held outside in the school yard. Tables and chairs are set up. Donated food and drink are sold. It is local people hosting the landowners' traditional party. The participants are rural campesinos, university students, medical doctors, dentists, lawyers and primary and secondary school teachers, local grain buyers and “comerciantes.” The importance of the dances is their public visibility. While a modernizing tradition, they are based upon traditional ferms of social interaction and so encourage broader participation under new auspices. Many people who have emigrated are encouraged to come back to visit, to spend money and to reacquaint themselves with the village. 12Local geography varies so from area to area, that lemons and sugar cane are grown by some persons while others raise only potatoes. As a result, most of the ingredients of a traditional fiesta can be donated by local people. 75 Because they are held at the primary school and are a joint effort of both the girls‘and boys'schools, no one in the community, and very few people in the parish, are in a position to not support the "cultural event." All have family members in the schools. It is significant to observe that local girls also have new opportunities to socialize within their communities and so are included in the new networks as they emerge in new social groupings. The alternatives to community festivities are private parties at which attendance is strictly limited to family and close relatives. Everyone dances, young people l2 to l5 invite their aunts and uncles to dance, adults dance with little children who show an inclination to step out onto the floor. Brothers and sisters dance, cousins do likewise. Established social networks are strengthened and consolidated. The Social Implications of Schooling in Mira The cultural aspect of primary schooling is to be recognized as educated and cultured individually and as part of a“cultured”community. Certification transfers a measure of social status but integrating new forms of socializing, which are far more accessible to the whole populace than the traditional'forms, have served to alter the process of education in Mira. In doing so the process of "conscientizacao“ (Freire, l970:l9) was developed and not the private educational system which dominates in more entrenched, socially stratified communities where it is necessary to choose the social environment in which to educate children. Without the new forms of socializing, education would not be the dynamic institution that it is. 76 Clifford Geertz wrote that the failure of the social scientist to treat sociological and cultural processes on equal terms is to presume that one is the "mirror image" of the other (Geertz, l973zl43). In Mira, the cultural significance of education has not changed. The social options in the community have been altered extensively by the development of a widely participated in process of education. To institutionalize the cultural significance of education has required the evolution of social networks within Mira. In turn these legitimize new patterns of community interaction in Mira and beyond the village. Within these new networks are incorporated the criteria local pe0ple use to learn to perceive social, political and economic contradictions and to take action against the oppressive elements of reality (Freire, l970:l9). Not all villagers perceive these contradictions equally. The traditional pervasive definition of education as culture can keep people within known social networks if education is restricted to literacy, computation and technical skills. There is, then, no mechanism by which a person who attends school can alter his or her social status or understanding of another person's status. If the social analyst seeks to understand modifications within an existing system, it is unlikely that people will conclude, as Sexton did, that permanent change depends upon adopting a whole new cultural framework. Primary Teachers in Mira - The Promotor When I first went to Mira in 1965, Sefior Leopoldo Padilla was studying in Quito and on leave from his job as director of the boys‘ school. He had just begun a two year program in which he hOped to 77 complete the requirements for teaching certification. He aspired to becoming the cantonal supervisor of primary education. In order to be given leave of absence, he had to aSsume half of the cost of his substitute's wages in order to be assured of having the option of being reinstated upon his return. Upon completion, he was not immediately able to work in Mira, but was asked to assume a supervisor's position in the isolated parish of Rio Blanco for two years before assuming the supervisor's position in Mira. During this period of four years, his wife remained in Mira with the six youngest children and the older children attended colegio in Quito. Born in Mira, Sefior Padilla graduated from elementary school there in l928. He repeated sixth grade for the next two years because his parents hoped he might add to his knowledge. He was then sent to the hacienda next to Mira, Pueblo Viejo, to learn farm bookkeeping before taking his first job on the Hacienda Pisquer. After he started working, his former sixth grade teacher advised his parents that a normal school was opening in San Gabriel and that scholarships were available to cover tuition and lodging. His parents were pleased that their compadre advised them of the opportunity and sent their son to school for four years. Upon graduation in l942, he started teaching at Hacienda Huaquer for l40 sucres ($l0.00) a month.13 In l947, he returned to teach in Mira (Interview with Sr. Padilla). Séfior Padilla in his official capacity, and his wife, Elisa Ulloa, have been staunch supporters of every opportunity to make education 13In l943 the official rate of exchange was l4.lO sucres to the U.S. dollar (Linke, 1960:l66). 78 useful in the village. Sr. Padilla is an advocate of rural technical training for students, but he is adamant that it is unrealistic to avoid educating the populace just to keep them in the rural sector. "What happened in Mira is that everyone became a landowner. It's not the fault of the people but of educational policy to develop colegios of modern humanities and not technical ones. They (the Ministry) simply have to change them" (Interview with Sr. Padilla). His attitude towards primary education had been the same. He perceived it his obligation to educate the villagers given the social criteria established by the policy makers; he would augment at the local level, enhance and embellish with technical training but understanding the principle of education, his first commitment was to extend to all the self respect which came from being educated, "culto,'I and respectable. The Padilla's are sending their two youngest sons to secondary schools in Mira. They separately observed to me, that students graduating from Mira schools do just as well at the university as those graduating elsewhere. So their sons attend local schools now that Mira has them. They are sorry that their older sons and daughters were not able to benefit from the experience. Having succeeded in developing the Mira school system to the point it is now, Sr. Padilla hopes to see the full cycle of education easily accessible in Mira. To this end he publicly commended those parents who were struggling to establish a local kindergarten program and compared their efforts to those of parents attempting to establish a university in the city of Ibarra which will be accessible to students from Mira who wish to commute. 79 The Director of the School for Girls The present director of the Mira girls‘school, Sehora Guadelupe Villagomez de Arboleda, came to Mira in 1952. She was a recent graduate of the municipal colegio in Tulcan. She was the oldest of five children, the only girl and first in the family to acquire secondary education. Upon hearing that there was a job available in Mira, she convinced her father to accompany her to explore the possibilities. There were no roads into the village and the last part of the journey was on foot. In the girls'school, housed in an old building on the plaza, there were four teachers: two from Tulcan, one from Mira and one from El Angel. Sr. Julian Caserez, an 0tavalan Indian who had come to town as a wandering butcher some years before, rented rooms to all the teachers in his two-storied, tile roofed house on the plaza. Srta. Guadelupe noted that his was the only tile-roofed house on the plaza at that time, all the others were thatched (Interview with director). His children told me with pride that their father and the school teachers were the only people who knew enough to provide their children with secondary education in the early days. It was his concern for education which caused him to provide the rooms which were suitable for a teacher. Srta. Guadelupe said that the villagers welcomed her when she arrived, shared generously the product of their new land. She went so far as to say, as did other teachers, that it seemed the teachers were better paid before the salary increases of recent years because the people were so generous. All the teachers were almost smug about their recent economic gains; it seemed a windfall. 80 While Srta. Guadelupe married and settled in Mira, she has maintained strong links with Tulcan, where her family educated three of her children. Two of her brothers are shoemakers, two are municipal employees in Tulcan. Her husband is a pensioned telegraph retiree as of l979. He had only one year of secondary school. The Arboledas, like others of the generation with university age students, have bought a house in Quito. In l968 entrance exams at Central University were abolished and since tuition had never been charged, the only requirement which remained was to have completed secondary school. Rural people who previously struggled to give children a secondary education, saw the opening up of the university as an Opportunity to alter the costs-return calculations. The stumbling block was housing, and the solution was buying a house, some portion of which could be rented to pay for the space the students occupied. Only in l979 did the family remodel the house in Mira they live in. It is not theirs because it is part of an inheritance which has not yet been divided among the heirs. Inheritance problems are network problems which are difficult to solve in Mira and an understanding of the ensuing complexities has come with more formal awareness of the intricacies of record keeping. Srta. Guadelupe told me that her daughter expressed a desire to teach but that she told her daughter that she must first earn a better title. If she then wished to teach in a high status colegio, that would be acceptable. Her youngest daughter attends colegio in Tulcan with her full encouragement. She lives with her unmarried uncles since her grandmother's death. Girls' education in Mira has been fashioned in line with Srta. 81 Guadelupe's perception of what an education should be. Even the President of the Padres de Familia could not dampen her desire to see the children march through Mira several times a year in different uniforms, even though he explained to her that nowadays people have many educational expenses to plan for (Interview with president). Her own embroidery hobby is partly responsible for the continuing emphasis on manual arts in the school (Interviews with men teachers) because while some manual arts are required in the curriculum, the projects in the elementary school far exceed those in secondary school in Mira in complexity and size. Her former students, mothers of girls in sixth grade, felt obligated to help make bedspreads and tablecloths for their daughters' class projects, projects in which the students expressed little interest. The women feared retaliation if sufficiently elaborate projects were not dutifully produced for the end of school exhibition (Interviews with parents). The director was very critical about the influence immigrants had upon the village environment, especially upon the social standards she set for the school in terms of cleanliness, dress and social manners. She viewed herself as a role model for her students and former students. Her acknowledged approval of a girl and her parents carried considerable weight, as evidence particularly by the respect accorded her by parents planning to send their children to secondary school. Her social skills were demonstrated in her use of correct and graciously spoken Spanish. Her evaluations of people were also clearly delineated in her interactions with parents and students. Because she tried to make school,and especially sixth grade, a highpoint in the lives of her students, it was an expensive undertaking, 82 one which many had to forego in former times. The solution earlier was to take a girl out of school after she had learned the basic skills taught. Now some parents are known to be more generous than others and their daughters participate in more or fewer events. At year's end the parents expressed their gratitude to the Director by having a surprise party for her; considerable pressure was put on each parent to contribute to the gift. Some, however, did not. The president of the parents group was asked to travel two and a half hours, up to Colombia to bring back a contraband electrical light fixture for the front hallway in the director's newly-remodeled house. In addition, five guinea pigs and a bottle of wine were donated to help offset the costs of the party they presumed the family would have for the daughter finishing colegio. It was suggested by one of the parent organizers, that the accompanying card read, “From the mothers of the sixth grade girls." This brought hearty disapproval because most wanted personal recognition. The woman who was to read a short statement of appreciation was then asked to write the name of each woman who made a contribution. She was chosen because she was the most educated, a close relative, and a recent colegio graduate who teaches nearby. After the presentation, Srta. Guadelupe made a response in which she thanked the women for having entrusted their daughters to her care for several years. She expressed her very real concern for their safety as they left childhood and went out into the world as young women. The mothers wept as she lamented that soon some would be violated and abused. She made no mention of the further education the girls aspired to. Then while Srta. Guadelupe served each a glass of 83 wine and cookies, several of the women sang duets and recited poetry before some of the girls present did likewise. It was not a traditional evening, but an indication that the community was changing. Earlier as we had left the house where we organized the party, before preceeding to the director's home, women wondered aloud what people might think seeing the group out on the street at night. The suggestion was made that people would think that a child had died. Improbable, it was decided, only because children are not buried in the dark. Other Teachers in Mira The graduating boys' teacher was a native Mirefio married to a woman from Ibarra. Having taught the class since first grade he knew each student quite well. Men and women resoected his teaching ability and the care with which he impressed upon his students the responsibility that comes with becoming educated. His final admonitions to the boys were to remember that as "colegiales" they were but beginning a long period of study, that while teachers would begin to call them Senor... it would be some years before they would merit the title (Classroom observation). The formal recognition given him for having taught the boys was less elaborate than what was done for Srta. Guadelupe. A collection was taken up among the parents present at the school closing ceremonies and a gift was quickly bought by the man organizing the event. It was a traditional gift, shot glasses so the whiskey given could be properly shared. These were presented to him in the classroom before the beginning of the all school program. He thanked them, excused himself 84 and continued working. In response to the teacher's altered workday, which gave him a free afternoon, he registered for a two-year correspondence course in“ radio and television repair which he was near completing. In addition to serving on many community councils, he ran a repair shopcnu:of his new home. His wife was a primary school graduate from Ibarra and a very articulate observer of life within the village. Having but one child, she planned to send her to colegio in Ibarra where the girl could live with her grandmother and walk to school with her cousins. Both parents expressed a willingness to send her to school and to the universitv if she so desired. but neither had any firm idea of where she was likely to live and work as an adult. To whether or not her daughter would work outside the home, if she married, this woman who had never worked herself answered that it would depend upon whether or not the girl was able to hold at least the same level of employment as her husband. This woman occasionally knit sweaters for sale. The other primary teachers were from the province, some from Mira and others from El Angel and San Gabriel. Teaching experiences and family status are summarized on Table l2. All are married, several are married to other teachers. Every teacher said they expected to send their children to colegio and to the university. Should that come to be, it would involve a jump of one or two levels of education between generations when both parents are considered. TWo women are teaching at the boys'school. The reason was, said the director, that men no longer wanted to teach primary school. Until January l980, primary school teachers earned less than secondary 85 Table l2 Description of School Teachers in Mira Schools Policarpa Salvarietta School Teachers AGE SEX SCHOOLING PRIOR TEACHING YRS MIRA CHILDREN ASSIGNMENT TEACHING NO. AGE SPAN 46 F normalista none 29 5 l4-20 45 F normalista 8 yrs. Las Parcelas 8 4 8-24 33 F normalista none 8 2 6-8 28 F normalista none 8 l 2 29 F Ibarra-sewing Guayaquil 3 4 4-l2 26 F normalista none 3 4 l-6 Rafael Arellano School Teachers AGE SEX SCHOOLING PRIOR TEACHING YRS MIRA CHILDREN ASSIGNMENT TEACHING NO. AGE SPAN 55 M INACAPED* none 3l 8 9-28 38 M normalista Oriente l7 l ll 37 M agronomo none l8 2 6-8 bachiller normalista 34 normalista none 8 4 2-l0 35 F normalista 4 yrs. Pueblo Viejo 2 4 2-l0 (50 students, 6 grades) 3l F normalista 2 yrs. El Milagro l l 2 (50 students, 6 grades) 1% yrs. Huaquer (50 students, 6 grades) lg yrs. Las Parcelas (38 students, 5 grades) *INACAPED - Instituto Nacional de Capacitacion y Perfeccionamiento Docente (National Teacher Training Institute Equivalency) 86 teachers regardless of their qualifications, therefore, by investing three years in university training, the equivalent of normal school certification. the opportunity existed to find a higher paying job. With the equalizing of wages and an increased emphasis on rural education, there might be some change. Because university education is free and normal school charges tuition, university students have a double advantage, however. Even failing to complete their training they have the option to teach in the rural hinterlands. Several Mirefios and Quitehos are doing so. For women primary teaching, with a normal school certificate, provides better security. Women with a secure job do not quit when they have children. Social security benefits and cultural benefits accrue only to the person working, with the exception of death benefits. Inflation is such that it is necessary for people to seek employment if they do not live in the rural area and have some agriculturally-related contribution that they can make. Hiring certified women, rather than less fully trained men, maintained the prestige of the school and the salary scale for the teachers. It was hoped that some of the men who had teaching jobs in the outlying areas would complete their credentials and apply. In the meantime women taught in the lower grades. Although inflation has been high, as Ecuador has become ever more influenced by world economics, the increases in teaching salaries over the past 20 years have meant real gains. 0n Table l3 the salary scales are summarized. The base pay is more than eight times the 1957 rate and there are almost four times as many teaching jobs. 87 Table l3 Expansion of the Educational System l957-l979 l957-l958 l978-l979 3,594 Schools ll,884 Schools l,636 private 2,l05 private l,958 public 9,779 public 579,933 Students l,836,597 Students 17,807 Teachers 66,868 Teachers (l955)* (l980)** Base pay with teaching certificate Base pay with teaching certificate S/. 600 monthly (U.S. $20.00) S/. 5,000 monthly (U.S. $l92.3l Category l0 (urban colegio Category l0 (urban colegio director) S/. 3,500 monthly director) S/. 12,000 monthly (U.S. $233.33) ($U.S. $46l.53) *Linke 1960:94-95 **Ayllon and Tores l979:Al 88 The Director of the School for Boys This man was teaching fifth grade in 1978. He had been teaching in Mira for 3l years and became director when Sr. Padilla went to Quito to study in l965. In l970, he and his wife bought a house in Quito so she could set up housekeeping there for the sons and daughters studying in the capital. While they had paid boarding school costs for the oldest daughter it seemed more cost efficient to set up housekeeping. The daughter started teaching in Mira in l970 and overseeing the household in Mira which she does to this day. Renting out half of the Quito house at the going rates of rental property, the family is able to afford the other half. Expenses are shared between the daughters working in Quito and the sons who work and study. One son is now a practicing M.D. The living arrangements of this family were similar to accommodations made by other families of teachers. Instead of extended families, households divide to satisfy the requirements of various family members. The important social condition to be met, is that no one live alone. When the daughter married, her husbnad moved into the family house, where the young family continues to live with their own son. In this instance, the director's youngest daughter stayed in Mira too, attending her father's first grade class that he was starting when she was of age. It was only upon completing fourth grade that her mother decided it was time to take her to Quito and place her in a Catholic girls'school because she was becoming a "tomboy" (Parent interview). 89 Mira Students in Sixth Grade The preceding description evolved as I discussed educational aspirations with teachers and parents of sixth grade students. In Tables 14 and 15 the flow of Mira residents who were registered in the 1979 primary school graduating classes at some point from time of first registration in 1973-74 is described. The information is taken from school registration records. For both girls and boys the uninterrupted enrollment increased likelihood of primary school completion. When segregated by sex, 96.6 percent of the girls and 96.8 percent of the boys were finishing or had finished primary school. In 1978-79, seven girls still enrolled were in fifth grade, four were in fourth and one was in third grade. Nine of the 12 boys were expected_to complete sixth grade in the 1979-80 school year, one was enrolled in fifth grade and two were enrolled in fourth grade that year. Of the girls who had moved into the village and joined the class, 79 percent completed school in 1979 and 21 percent had become involved in other activities. 0f the boys who migrated and joined the class, 50 percent graduated and 42 percent remained enrolled in school. Four of the boys still enrolled were in sixth grade in 1979-80, one was in fifth grade and one was in fourth. Most children living in Mira attend school. Of the 94 children from Mira, 78 or about 83 percent of the combined class of boys and girls would likely have completed school by the close of the 1980 school year. The seven and half percent of the children not enrolled had been accommodated in employment alternatives within the households to which they belonged or had hired out as domestic servants. Their employment was described to me as a necessary compromise given 90 Table 14 Policarpa Salvarietta Girls School Enrollment Flow of 1979 Mira Residents in Class of 1978-1979 Registered Students in First Grade 1973-74 Resident in Mira l979 Commuters, emigrants, non-residents Entered system and became residents 1979 Description of 29 Residents of Mira Graduated from 6th grade 1978-79 Enrolled in school 1978-791 Not enrolled in school in Mira 1979 Description of 19 Immigrants Graduated from 6th grade 1978-79 Enrolled in school 1978-79 Not enrolled in school2 1978-79 6th Grade Graduates Residents who entered Policarpa Sal. 1973 Enrolled in secondary school Alternate activity Immigrants Enrolled in secondary school Alternate activity Total Mira 6th grade graduates Enrolled in secondary school Alternate activity3 ILL. 46 29 17 19 16 12 16 14 15 13 33 27 l and one in third grade. Percent 63.0% 37.0% 55.2% 41.4% 3.4% 78.9% 21.1% 87.5% 12.5% 86.7% 13.3% 81.8% 18.2% In 1978-79 seven girls were enrolled in fifth grade, four in fourth 2One girl is two years older and knits sweaters, two suffered long illnesses and were discouraged from reentering by puberty, one was mentally retarded. 3 and two help farm and knit. Two are housemaids, one in Mira and one in Quito, two knit sweaters, 91 Table 15 Rafael Arellano Boys School Enrollment Flow of 1979 Mira Residents Class of 1978-1979 Registered Students in First Grade 1973-74 Residents in Mira l979 Commuters, emigrants, non-residents Entered System and Became Residents in Mira 1979 Description of 31 Residents of Mira Graduated from 6th grade 1978—79 Graduated from 6th grade l977-78 Enrolled in school 1979-80] Not enrolled in school 1979 Description of 14 Innfigrantssince 1973-74 Graduated from 6th grade 1978—79 Enrolled in grades 4-6 1979-802 Not enrolled in school 1978-79 6th Grade Graduates Residents who entered in 1973 Enrolled in secondary school Alternate activity Immigrants Enrolled in secondary school Alternate activity Total graduates Enrolled in secondary school Alternate activity3 No. 47 31 16 14 17 12 18 16 25 20 1 2 3 Nine boys in 6th grade, One in 5th grade and two in 4th grade. Four boys in 6th grade, One in 5th grade and one in 4th grade. One entering father's carpentry shop, four entering farming. Percent 66.0% 34.0% 58.1% 3.2% 38.7% 3.2% 50.0% 42.7% 7.1% 88.9% 11.1% 57.1% 42.9% 80.0% 20.0% 92 physical and mental limitations of the children concerned (See Tables 14 and 15). - The level of school attendance is attributable to the costs of non-participation in a small town with fewer than 500 households and an aggressive policy of educating its citizes as an overall strategy towards community development. Mirefios were skilled participant observers of life within the community, strategizing, creating linkages whenever possible. There are two kinds of resources in Mira, social and agricultural, and both are dependent upon linkages to the world beyond. Schooling determines what kind of linkages a particular child will evolve. In Mira children do not go to school but rather their families send them. To deny a child primary education places a permanent burden on the child. Families send children who do not wish to go and have failed in school repeatedly and call them lazy. Mentally retarded children are kept home and are called "enferma" meaning ill. The only deaf person encountered had been kept at home until a younger sister was ready to go to school and then the two were sent together so the younger could help her "as she did at home." Immigrant girls were somewhat less likely to persevere, due in part to the director's unwillingness to welcome them. Still 79 percent graduated. Immigrant boys complete at the Mira rate. The Sixth Grade Girls Class Including Non-Mira Residents In addition to the students from Mira, others joined the class as it progressed through the primary cycle. In total, 84 students were registered. Of those, 17 or 20 percent started in 1973-74 and 93 progressed through to graduation or about 45 percent of the 1979 class which started in 1973. Over the course of years, 20 students who started elsewhere joined the class and graduated, which means that 44 percent of the total class graduated and 18 percent were still enrolled in school. The Sixth Grade Boys Class Including Non-Mira Residents The total number of boys who registered in the class is lower than the girls, but the number of boys graduating in the six year period is similar to that of the girls. Registered were 74 and graduating 19, or 26 percent. These students were 54 percent of the 1979 graduating class. Over the years 14 students joined the class and graduated, which means that the same percentage of boys graduated as did girls. The significant differences were in the number of students still enrolled which was 12 percentage points higher for boys than girls and the number of students who left school and could not be accounted for in the village. The girls were 13 percentage points above the boys in this last category. It is assumed many work as domestics elsewhere. The similarities in the enrollment patterns substantiate the reported willingness of parents to educate both girls and boys and for parent women to take for granted that it is as important to educate girls as it is boys. That more boys were still enrolled suggests that perhaps boys from the outlying areas are encouraged to complete school in town longer than are girls. Men find young boys less useful to them in their work than women find young girls to them in their work, so that if a girl shows no special interest in going to school in Mira, 94 she will be welcomed home (Parent interviews). Keeping boys in school who show little talent or interest is in part a preventive step taken in the hope that the boy's attitude will change. To be a productive farmhand requires that a person be physically mature or able to complete adult tasks. However, an adolescent boy who is unwilling to work hard on the farm is likely to be a net cost to the family (Interview with parent). These are reasons why rural children might go back to their homes or stay in town, but the degree of movement of rural people which is recorded in school records is not recorded elsewhere. Births and deaths are recorded at the civil registry but only one registry exists in each parish. Where a birth takes place in a parish is not recorded. Similarly, Church records illustrate little movement because the sacraments are usually given in the main parish church and records are all kept in there. If a person wishes to marry outside, he or she must be granted special dispensation by the local priest which states that the person has been baptized and confirmed. Alternatives exist only in the schools within the parish and recognizing rural mobility as a general fact, provisions have been made to deal with transfer of records which will be described in Chapter V. Secondary School Enrollments in l979 While 80 percent of both girls and boys from Mira proceeded on to secondary school in the fall of 1979, the percentage fell to 73 percent for the entire class of girls including non-residents and rose to 85 percent for the entire class of boys indicating that the 95 decision to send boys might be made earlier. The incoming colegio classes in 1979 totaled 101 students, 50 girls and 51 boys. Just over half were graduates of Mira schools, the others came from other settlements within and beyond the parish. The Graduating Colegio Classes of 1979 By comparison to the incoming classes, the graduating secondary classes were never equally attended by girls and boys, but the ratio remained the same throughout (See Appendix 0, Tables 3 and 4). In total 129 students enrolled of which 43 percent graduated in six years, 12 percent remained enrolled in Mira and 45 percent had quit for one reason or another. A large group of those who did not remain in school, 34 percent, left after their first year ( Registration records). While it is unlikely that many were enrolled in schools elsewhere if they left either school in Mira, parents regularly considered the possibility of transferring students after third course. The government move to make three years of colegio mandatory in 1980 will probably serve to encourage people to complete the basic cycle if possible. Because failure in any one subject results in the loss of credit for the whole academic year, many are discouraged from attempting to redo failures. 0f the 56 graduates, 55 percent went on to some kind of tertiary education (See Table 16). Adults discussed options in terms of length of time required tp complete a program. The shortest course was the three year teaching insitute which led to an elementary certificate and assured employment arranged by the institute. The cost was 15,000 96 mmocz smumwm cmwgsme m mcwzcmasooum mew: zone .ommmpou oum¢u< chwugmz mopcmu c? mcvgummu non umsmmeo mo: mgm Levee smemcmeu coacmsm coma «o: to; vcmnmac .oumas< Eosw new: on mucmsmwssw zgmganmhs o_ e e. e o e e e o_ zzczxza o N N o sN N o o o oeeosq on eoeeooe _ _ N o _ _ _ o F eeceeH ..= oepoeeeu e N e m N m P o _ eeceeH .oeeoz Foo ooeeooe N _ m N _ m o o o Obese .eoeeooexpea _ o _ o o o P o _ obese ..= oepoeeeu o 8 NF N N m e m N obese ..= Peceeou N o N N o N o o o Neooeo< Neeoe_ez N _ m P o _ _ P N .pmeH aeeeoeoe oeeee eem N_ m. _m OF N N_ N e NP wzH>osem o N N o o o o N N eoeeeez F o m P o P o N N meexcoz F N m o F P P F N Nooeom neweoeoe P o N _ o _ F o N None Neeeepez P o _ _ o _ o o o oopeea ceo> meeeeoeom mm NN om N_ OP NN up NP NN Ammumzumsm omv Ammumaumsm mNV cm: case: Page» cw: nose: Pouch cm: cmsoz Pouch Pouch 53m camou< chwugmz moFsmu owmmpou mmpmzm com; owmm—ou mmmru mmczou xwm asap mo mmwuw>muu< zgmucoumm “mom 0— mFQmF 97 sucres for three years, because it was highly subsidized by the government. If a student failed, a loan in the amount of 5,000 sucres a year became due immediately. The first year of military academy cost 14,000 sucres plus uniforms and was likewise a three year program (Discussion with students and parents). University living expenses in Quito averaged about 5,000 sucres a month according to several informants. The university in Ibarra was not yet a formally recognized university and being new, expenses were unclear. The three people who started teaching, started at a base salary of S/.3,500 a month because they had not completed teacher's training. The Ministry of Education provided vacation courses which teachers could use to augment qualifications and so become eligible for increases in rank. While the night school which operated for some years trained many of the teachers now working, opportunities have been fewer the last few years. Besides many do not wish to be committed to teaching and imagine other possibilities. Summary The National Council for Planning and Economic Coordination was unequivocal in its 1967 study of Carchi Province that the level of instruction and its medium -- i.e. schooling, constitute the major opportunity for social advancement. It was also clear that the rural sector sought educational opportunities as did the urban sector. In Mira, the school programs developed not only for students but also to serve to develop the community. School leaders accomplished this by funneling national resources through the schools which increased the school visibility and encouraged wider participation. 98 Certain social functions evolved to elaborate traditional entertainment modes, most specifically the "kermesse bailable." These community dances paved the way for more and more complex social linkages to arise under the guise of respectability. It was argued that these social institutions strengthened existing social and cultural structures and that the purpose was to create linkages wehre few in fact existed which served the changing community needs. Creating institutional linkages served to limit disruption of the traditional understanding of the significance of education. Instead it encouraged participation among people because the cost of non—participation increased according to the new resources funneled through the schools into the community. Short case studies of several teachers who worked with the sixth grade class were presented to describe a variety of interpretations teachers made of the existing social milieu in Mira. These distinctions affected enrollment patterns not of residents but of those whose social linkages into the community were less defined. School record analysis demonstrated the extent of local participation in schooling and the extent to which outsiders migrate into the village for schooling. Schools were seen to increase awareness of regional migration because records were being kept in places other than the village which was not true of the Church or the State. In each instance I have explained how the changing institutions have altered the character of the village so that while the cultural value of education has been maintained and encouraged, the new social structures are not simply a "mirror image" of the traditional ones. 99 Instead villagers have a new sense of the village which is expressed in the variety of options colegio graduates are choosing to pursue. CHAPTER V PARTICIPATION OF FAMILIES IN THE SCHOOLING OF CHILDREN This chapter deals with a series of occasions which required parental or guardian participation in the schooling of their children. Since education was the responsibility of the parents, there were accepted formalities by which parental awareness of their duties were socially expressed. Both men and women participated in these events. School registration was a yearly event for which two days were set aside in the national school calendar. These formalities were placed into a cultural context on the first day of school when parents, grandparents and siblings accompanied children to school. The school year ends with a program reminiscent of the opening ceremonies and again parents and relatives assist each year. Public examinations are given and school projects are exhibited and teachers of graduating students are usually thanked in a more substantial way. During 1979-80 several events occurred which were not regular events but which provided additional evidence for the conceptual franework being developed. A kindergarten was organized and the first primary school equivalency program for adults was sponsored by the Ministry of Education. How families participated in these events suggests the options villagers identified for their children and how these correlated with the perceptions of village teachers in the elementary and secondary schools. 100 101 School Registration in Mira Teachers conduct school registration on the appointed days prior to the beginning of classes each year at each school in the village and in the parish. These are official work days for teachers but the nature of registration is such that the duty is rotated so that only one teacher tends to be present. I observed registration at the school for girls in Mira, discussed it with the director of the school for boys and several teachers who work in Mira and elsewhere. Adults register children, both men and women come to school unaccompanied by children. The registrar on duty recorded name, age and school last attended on the page in the ledger book corresponding to the grade the child was to enter. She requested to see the child's school record book in which all previous records are certified with the official stamp. This is the only transcript a student has; it is proof that a child has been duly registered with the civil registrar before starting school and in it are recorded grades and achievements. Though the books were required at the time of registration I observed two different parents assure the registrar that they had the books but had not realized that they must bring them. They were allowed to register the children. The teacher on duty did not know by name the people who registered, perhaps the neighborhood in which a family lived was known. Throughout this study I observed that Mira residents do not know many people by name. Names are an abstraction; the school directors at both schools remarked, "The people in Mira schools aren't from Mira anymore. The names have changed since I first came. We didn't have names like... 102 before."14 The reference was to the immigration from the rural areas. Names presented a problem at registration if a book was not presented because the registrar was unlikely to make more than a superficial search of the prior year's list. It is likely that a child's registration would not be duly marked on her or his transcript, if during the year the child moved. Having followed the progression of the 1979 class through the records, I discovered several problems which come to bear upon the problem of reissuing student books. School records are dependent upon teachers completing them consistently. If the records of the previous school year have not been completed, the new ones cannot take them into account; new names are simply enrolled or the same child is enrolled by a different name. It was only by recording all information given each year that I was able to assure myself that I was following the same child. Each child has two first names and will use them as their principal names at various times. Addresses of parents were frequently omitted, especially if the people were not from the village or were temporarily staying there. Occupations were listed most often for a parent who had a bureaucratic job, and never were agricultural or domestic work elaborated upon for those who had small shops in their homes, knit sweaters or raised animals for sale. Prior to 1974, records were kept neither alphabetically nor by class, but by order of enrollment in a consecutive list of 250 handwritten names. 14Most common form of address is Sefior, Sefiora or Sefiorita without any name used. Working women are always addressed Senorita regardless of marital state. Because the study required being able to build case studies, I consistently addressed people with title and first name. 103 A birth certificate is required when a parent wishes to register a child for the first time in school. All children born in the parish of Mira have certificates which describe Mira as their birthplace although they might live in any one of the settlements with schools. Any child can easily register in Mira for first grade; to transfer is more difficult depending upon a particular school director. The director of the girls' school told me that people in the settlements had to register in those schools, that is why they were built. Besides, she said, the children from those other places ruin the environment for the village girls; they were not clean enough, not socially acceptable, cultured people. The director of the boys' school told me that parents could register their children wherever they wished because the parents had to know what was best to do. Both directors were concerned that migration was a problem because the village schools were overcrowded; supply rooms had been turned into classrooms and still children were coming (See again Table 14 and 15 and Appendix C, Table l and 2). This problem of migration involves not only yearly registration records but also rural school desertion records. Two girls registered mid year in the class of 1979; the records in their prior schools recorded no explanation but "deserted." Abrupt entrances and exits complicate the endeavors of anyone who would attempt to reestablish the school book of a student who moved or lost it, nor is anyone responsible for doing so. The impersonal aspect of registration is set aside on the first day of class. Amidst much excitement parents accompanied children of all ages. Teachers made opening remarks in the classrooms directed to 104 the parents, instructing them on the obligations of parents to provide the necessary school supplies, assure regular prompt attendance and oversee the completion of schoolwork. The importance of good grooming and behavior befitting a responsible schoolchild were also stressed. Afterwards parents pushed their way forward to personally request the teacher to accept his or her child into the class and to teach them the necessary skills to become a useful person. In general, men were observed to speak for their sons and women for their daughters, however, there were many exceptions for children living with only one parent. Among the several Otavalan Indian families, tactics varied. The young woman in sixth grade was several years older than her classmates and accepted responsibility for herself and for her younger sister in fifth grade. In another family with youngsters in first and second grade, the father spoke Spanish more fluently and spoke to teachers on behalf of both his son and 15 He was particularly proud of the progress his daughter daughter. was making and the whole family most often accompanied him to emphasize the value the family placed on education. The music teacher was also present on the first day and helped especially the first and second grades where some children felt overwhelmed and frightened. He walked into each room with his familiar accordian and taught children a song or sang familiar ones with them. 15Several times during the year students in the village needed Indian dress for costumes. The family was known to be very generous on such occasions. Not only did they lend out their good clothes freshly laundered but helped children dress properly in the unfamiliar styles. 105 Public School Examinations and Parental Participation I talked to the director of the boys school about the meaning of the public examinations administered at the end of the school year. He assured me that while it was traditional and parents expected to see and hear their children perform, the examinations were no longer academically required. When I observed, I found every room at school packed with parents, older siblings and young children who had come to observe. Examinations were held in the separate classrooms. Not knowing all the families, the director asked his fifth graders to tell whether their parents were present so as to opportunely call on them. He also asked parents who their children were, to make sure their expectations were met. The boys waved their hands wildly begging attention while he carefully attempted to call on each in turn by name. No one failed. Boys who asked to be addressed but who did not know the correct answer, did not seem concerned when another was duly called upon to try. The festive atmosphere pervaded all the classes and the manual arts exhibits. The exhibit was more elaborate and consumed much more attention at the girls' than at the boys' school but the academic classes covered the same mathematics, grammar, music and geography. Parents milled about the corridors entering and leaving classrooms. Many whom I had seen at the boys' school, I saw at the girls' school. Others told me they planned to visit both schools. About equal numbers of women and men attended. The excitement reflected the generally favorable attitude towards education, the pride people had in their schools and the involvement the schools elicited from the community. Several days afterwards, I was offered the opportunity to hear 106 Mirefios' sense of superiority expressed in relationship to another group of people. Examination day fell on the day many in Mira travel ‘6 Mirefios to a community of Otavalan Indians to buy hand spun wool. usually talk about Indians disparagingly, as irresponsible and quite likely to be drunk even in the early morning. Mirefios had noted that the Indians were buiding large, often two-story homes with money earned spinning wool for Mira sweaters and begrudged them this prosperity; they wanted more for themselves. Asking Mirefios about the desires of Indians to educate their children always brought a shrug and occasionally a snicker. Mirefios told me that the Indians did not - go to school and had no interest in doing so. They could not tell me whether or not there was a school in the village of Carabuela or whether the children actually attended school. Those Mirefios who went on school examination day came back truly astounded; they simply had not encountered anyone in the village except for the very young children left to "protect" the houses. Mirefios said they asked the children if everyone was off drinking and were surprised to be told that no, they were across the highway in the village of Illuman for the school examinations. Mirefios observed to each other and to me, "Sometimes you go and you don't find anyone home, but yesterday there just wasn't anybody at all! I've never seen it like that! And imagine they were all at the school exams!" (Visit with parent). The situation indicated how important social networks are for 16About three quarters of the artisans questioned had visited Carabuela, whether or not they regularly bought wool there. 107 including and alternatively for providing structures for ignoring others involved in the same kinds of "development strategies.“ The principal topic of conversation and gossip had been the examinations for some time prior to their happening. Indians come to town regularly to do business and the need arises frequently for Mirefias and Indians to make conversation with each other. The topics of conversation generally related to the wool processing business or agriculture. The Indians were instructed not to learn to knit but to busy themselves with spinning cleaner, higher quality wool or villagers and Indians lamented the agricultural consequences of the continuing drought throughout the sierra. Most of what Indians learned in Mira they learned by careful observation. There was considerable impressionistic evidence that Mirefios are not aware that they are "egoistic" about their awareness that education was important for social mobility. Because to be educated is to be cultured, did not mean that it was obvious to people in Mira that as they redefined "cultured" to include people from a progressive rural village of campesinos, so might Indians reinterpret culture to include educated Indians. Neither the Mirefios nor the Indians were aware that both groups were using the same development strategies as they both aspired to become part of the dominant culture. The Continuation and Elaboration of a Tradition In 1979 a new opportunity to gain social recognition presented itself to the people of Mira, especially to that group who had children betweenthe ages of four and five. Preschool education is being incorporated into the public school system in Ecuador slowly and 108 selectively and some members identified a possible addition to the cultural environment of Mira. The supervisor of primary education applauded their efforts and in general people expressed interest and support. As plans were formalized they were transmitted in a letter to the provincial director of education. Encouraged that he would recognize local efforts and institutionalize the kindergarten, local plans proceeded. The parents took upon themselves the responsibility to provide, according to the specifications of the ministry, an adequate space for the school equipped with a chair for each child, and a table for each four children, cleaning materials, blackboards, and a desk and chair for the teacher. The necessary resources were collected by requesting donations which were given voluntarily and spontaneously (Letter to the Minister written by President of the Parents Committee). It was decided that the school would be housed in the townhall, in a room which had been renovated and enlarged a year earlier for the local Ministry of Agriculture office. This Ministry was moved into two small store rooms behind the main building when villagers refused to permit them to move out of town to the nursery in La Portada which would have been too inaccessible to those without private transportation. The parents were adamant that the children should not lose a year of school; the Ministry was asked to cope with a less than satisfactory physical setting until something else could be arranged. It helped that the man in charge of the office of the Ministry of Agriculture had a daughter who would benefit from the program. At local meetings in Mira the committee encouraged all supporters to encourage families with five year olds to register the children. 109 The Ministry insisted no four year olds could be included though some people fervently hoped to give their children an extra lead. The stipulation forced the organizers to encourage all eligible children to be registered. Given the strong support of Sr. Padilla, the Ministry of Education promised to hire two teachers if a minimum of 50 children registered. Registration was not free, however. Parents committed themselves to a 50 sucre registration fee and to whatever else was necessary. And so six weeks later, parents of 50 children had paid S/.150 for a table, chair and supplies, bought uniforms, helped organize another community dance for the support of education and moved the available play equipment onto the school site. The parents committee compiled a list of 200 persons who were likely contributors to the cause of education in Mira and sent out written requests for donations. These people reside in the colonies of Mirefios in Quito and Ibarra. Finally, a recent graduate of Colegio Leon Ruales registered for a two week course in Tulcan to qualify as a teaching assistant so she and a certified teacher could be hired by the Ministry ahead of the scheduled October first deadline. Preschool was described as the most neglected, the most difficult to provide on the front page of the national newspaper, El Comercio (El Comercio, 28 Fevruary:Al). It also stated that that was where the need was greatest. Two schools were recognized by the Ministry of Education in Carchi in 1979, chosen on the basis of which communities offered to make the greatest sacrifice in equipping them (Interviews with parents). 110 Primary School Equivalency In anticipation of a widespread literacy campaign, the Ministry of Education began offering primary school equivalency programs (Curso de Educaci6n Extraescolar) in select rural areas. The requirement for registration in the three month course was prior schooling experience up to at least third grade and literacy and computation skills. Completion of the course offered sixth grade certification. The first such program was held in Mira between December and March, 1980. Twenty-two women and 26 men enrolled. Of the total enrollment, 35 percent were from outside the village, 36 percent of the women and 34 percent of the men. Homemaking and agriculture were given as occupations in only 60 percent of the cases. Half of the women were less than eight years.older than the sixth grade graduates, the majority of the men were between 26 and 35 years old (Table 17). The cost of non-participation in formal schooling is most apparent to this group of young people. The incorporation of this group into the social fabric is a challenge to village leaders if they do not already have employment. Without such courses, their very existence goes unrecorded. Attending the closing ceremonies I observed that students, teachers, and official visitors emphasized the cultural aspects of becoming a primary school graduate. Men and women volunteered responses during the public examination enthusiastically, just as the children had done. They expressed their gratitude to all who attended this important event in their lives. In his speech to the graduates, the school director emphasized that from that day forward they would be full citizens of Ecuador with 111 Table 17 Students Enrolled in Primary School Equivalency Program in Mira by Age Categories, 1978-1980 Age Classification Women Men 19-25 11 26-35 6 13 36-45 46-55 2 TOTAL 22 26 112 all the rights and obligations that citizenship involved. Following speeches by provincial representatives of the Ministry of Education, a program was presented by the graduates which included poetry readings, musical ensembles and opportunities for the graduates to toast their guests and each other. While the director explained to me that it was a question of national efficiency to certify this category of literate people before attempting the bigger problem of eradicating illiteracy, local interest depends on the interpretation of the pervasive definition of education. If education is culture, then the role of education is to facilitate social networking and social restructuring. It is then a social stigma to be formally uneducated. It is difficult to conceptualize social restructuring on an individual basis because culture is public and not private. Summary While the school modernizes through a number of processes such as reward and punishment, modeling and exemplification, and generalization it is not to be taken for granted that these processes occur in altered form. Formal schooling might only institutionalize preconceived notions of how other groups interact in society. The social nature of school registration and final examinations was clear. To establish the rites of participation was an important element of schooling. Each instance served to demonstrate personal involvement in the local conmunity by teachers and parents and allowed for contact between participants. Mirefios reacted to the Otavalan Indians participating in the 113 examinations of their children in the Indian villages with a great deal of surprise. Formal schooling in Mira had not altered villagers preconceived notions of how Otavalans live in their villages though all Otavalan children living in Mira were in school, and doing well in school according to their teachers. Moreover the Otavalan parents participated in school functions. As long ago as 1952, the director of the girls'school had roomed at an Indian's home in Mira along with the other school teachers who were not from Mira because the man had built housing appropriate for teachers to encourage them to come to Mira and educate his children. School equivalency programs provided a mechanism for adults to redefine their linkage into the national society, though literacy and computation skills were a prerequisite for registration. The purpose of the program was not to learn or teach new academic skills, but to alter the citizenship status of participants. While the requirement for citizenship was to be literate, the completion of primary school was evidence of having formally satisfied the requirement. Several of the older men and women had children already enrolled in colegio; several of the younger participants indicated an interest in attending evening school themselves. One young woman said her parents would send her to day school in the fall as they were already sending a younger sister. When asked why she had not completed the primary cycle in sequence, she answered that her parents had not sent her, now they would. Establishing a kindergarten in 1980, when so few were available in the rural sector, was understood by many villagers to be evidence of the increasingly urban-like character of the village. It was necessary 114 to acquire fairly broad support in order to finance the undertaking and demonstrate sufficient enrollment. The actual organizing was done by the men and women whose children would benefit during the first year of the programs's existence. In each instance the social restructuring which took place was a public, not a private, occasion. If to be educated is to be cultured, education must be a public affair because culture is public. At the school opening ceremonies, parents were pbulicly accepted into the process of their children's education. In the primary school equivalency program, it was public recognition that the men and women sought for their literacy skills. Finally, by being able to extend the schooling process to the preschool years, the villagers sought to publicly demonstrate again their awareness that education was the critical variable in social mobility. Some Confirminngvidence Mirefios support of schooling and active participation in the process has been presented as the outgrowth of a conscious choice to build upon the implications of the meaning of education as culture and to use schooling to foster local development. Had this not been so, the school system would be more like that in the neighboring township seat of San Isidro, 20 kilometers away. The county supervisor, Leopoldo Padilla, made the comparison with San Isidro spontaneously when asked about the willingness to cooperate in other parts of Cant6n Espejo. He explained that in contrast to the generosity with which Mira residents confront educational needs, residents of San Isidro do not make voluntary contributions, in fact, 115 they quote the regulations which prohibit or at least discourage informal taxation (Interview with supervisor). He explained that the development of San Isidro contrasted with that of Mira in several important ways. San Isidro villagers have not sought out opportunities to develop their village, instead offers have come to them. A dominating influence has been the establishment of the agricultural technology experiment station developed in the 1960's under the auspices of the German government. The station was built on the outskirts of San Isidro and attempted to teach pesticide use and fertilization. Given the agricultural base of the community the station was a comprehensible, even laudable undertaking, surely from Sr. Padilla's point of view as a strong advocate of rural technical training. But the problem, he said, lay in the fact that the director of the station paid people for their participation in food corrmodi ties and used clothing donated by Catholic Relief. He described the people as having very bad habits, always expecting someone else to do for them. The German government has transferred the station to the Ecuadorian Ministry of Agriculture. Many of those who have permanent employment at the station are from Mira, they travel to and from their work in public and private vehicles. They include university trained agronomists, machinists, chauffeurs and the caretaker. The bad habits learned in the 1960's are still blocking progress, said Sr. Padilla. The effort somehow failed to be integrated into the community, neither community participation, cooperation nor imagination were sparked. It is a cultural artifact, not of San Isidro, but of the Ministry of Agriculture. Sr. Padilla would suggest that much the same might be said of the San Isidro schools. CHAPTER VI OBSERVATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS The processes of education have served to facilitate community progress and modernization. Participation in schooling provided the political base which permitted local people to plan, seek additional resources and implement programs which encouraged more integrated participation in community develOpment. While this study did not propose to tabulate cost/benefit analysis for various communities, there was strong impressionistic evidence that Mira had cornered a significant share of the public expenditure because of its activist educational system which acknowledged the pervasive definition of education and strategized accordingly. Institutionalizing education extended the social impact of participation in the community to the villagers generally and provided a mechanism for capturing local incentive and imagination. This mechanism or strategy became the basis of rural development in Mira; it provided the infrastructure for channeling other development strategies into the parish. And finally it led to a campaign to cantonize which was successful in September of 1980 after I left the village (Villaroel, l980:9). In so doing local access to the actual increases in the educational budgets were improved considerably during the petroleum boom of the 1970's. Schools were built in the outlying areas which lessened overcrowding in the central facilities. secondary schools were built, and teaching salaries were increased substantially. Within the Ministry of Education's budget, primary education was to account 116 117 for about 36 percent of the 1979 budget but in terms of real annual growth rate of spending, a modest 3.8 percent was made between 1970 and 1979. Spending for secondary education by contrast increased at a real annual rate of 4.6 percent; the rise in spending for higher education was greater still or 8.9 percent a year in real terms. Less than half of one percent of the total budget was devoted to literacy and adult education (Luzuriaga and Zuvekas, 1980:284-287). In each instance Mirefios benefitted from some portion of those funds. There were six branches of the library of the National House of Culture in rural areas in 1979; one was located in Mira. Most communities still lacked secondary school facilities (Knowles, 1977: 1353); Mira had two complete colegios. In Carchi only two kindergartens were publicly established within the Ministry of Education in that year; one was in Mira. There were in 1977 already 130 students from Mira who were benefitting from some form of higher education (Villaroel, 1977:5). Having an established primary system Mirefios could gain access to other opportunities not only because outside institutions recognized their achievements but Mirefios recognized their own. It was the widespread participation of the populace which characterized the village as progressive. The new Pan American Highway was to have bypassed the village according to plans, and construction on the alternate route was begun, but villagers managed to pressure the authorities until the highway was rerouted to serve not only Mira but also the other towns along the former route. A potable water system was built under the auspices of the national institution, a modern electrical plant served first Mira and was being extended beyond to 118 villages which had had no access before. Perhaps of greatest significance for the Mirefios' perception of their own progress is the high level of employment within various branches of government by residents of Mira. Education is the most obvious institution. Twenty-four Mira colegio graduates have ministerial appointments. The other services rendered in the village also provided employment opportunities. The attempt to cantonize the parish was popular because it too promised increased employment options. Proponents of the project also saw the opportunity to gain control over a larger portion of locally collected taxes and nationally distributed resources (Interview with teniente politico). These achievements have been made without strong evidence of income redistribution objectiveS-at the national level within Ministry of Education poliqy (Luzuriaga and Zuvekas, 1980:2871. Had there been such it would argue that national policy had been designed to implement a redefinition of education. Because this was not the case, the process of education remained dependent upon reciprocity and informal exchange. .Having cooperated to obtain services has kept the cost of living lower and more closely aligned with community resources. The standard of living is high by comparison to the cost of living. Villagers commented that in Mira one could save just a little while building houses, something that was impossible in the cities. The Transferring of the Process to Neighboring Areas Schooling provided a base which could be exploited for the creation of social and political networks that served community needs. In doing so the evolving social structures were not a "mirror image" 119 of Spanish colonial heritage, but a reinterpretation of what it means if education is culture. It was never supposed that villagers were a homogeneous group of people but neither was there a clear definition of which faction would not be included. Social restructuring was not left to the next generation but was confronted as new social structures were evolving. The question that arises is can the restructuring continue as Mirefios become more mobile and increasing numbers of people from the rural areas move into the village temporarily or permanently. The benefits from education began to accrue as networks adapted. Because the resources developed through education are human resources. villagers had to perceive schooling as the system most able to prepare individuals or groups for consolidating and continuing concrete process of organized change within the communitv. As awareness developed of the nature of change, human resources were required to enhance potential linkages into the surrounding areas. In Mira this happened first through the labor requirements of land reform. Mirenos needed to establish new networks throughout the parish in order to secure labor. Certain responsibilities had to be assumed. Sometimes children were boarded in town, or transportation was provided to them or their families. The usefulness of school skills became more evident as more people had the opportunity to enter into a land buying cooperative which required them to assume the responsibilitv for account keeping. At another level, colegio classes were begun in a special night school program in 1971. Older students were attracted to the possibilities such might provide. When this group graduated they were better prepared psychologically and experientially to teach in the 12D outlying areas than most 18 year old graduates. In 1979, six of the 13 who graduated in 1977 were teaching in the hamlets. This core of persons are liaisons through which other linkages to those rural areas in which they are teaching are likely to develop. For example, a chauffeur has a regular Friday afternoon and dawn Monday arrangement with one set of teachers to bring them into Mira and other towns and to take them out again. At the same time the driver provides transportation on the alternate trips, especially to other people. He has also become acquainted with the agricultural producers in the area and arranges market transportation. Residents are provided the opportunity through increased interaction to use services in Mira: doctors, dentists, professionals in the Church and the Ministry of Agriculture. Teachers also encourage their families to take trips and come visit them on location which provides another series of opportunities to establish social networks. Networks become somewhat more flexible. Education as culture accepts the importance of informal exchange as a fundamental economic strategy. Gifts are given and received. Information is selectively shared. Without informal exchange the Mira school system would not be the complex system of community development that it is. The Status of Women and Education as Culture Maintaining the pervasive definition of education has important implications for the status of women. Traditionally women have extensive experience working with both men and women in all areas which effect their lives in Mira. This experience is based upon the processes of education inherent in the local culture of modeling, 121 reward and punishment, exemplification and generalization. The breadth of experience lends itself to understanding political and economic strategies which are critical in the development process. It has facilitated women's ability to perceive specific opportunities they can exploit. Because women have inheritance rights and own property, women are traditionally business people, as are men, and continue to be so in Mira. The sweater industry which has developed in Mira is only an example of the employment schemes women can evolve with an elaboration of traditional social networks when they have committed themselves to greater participation in the cash market so as to educate their children (Gladhart and Gladhart, 1980:16). It is also true as land tenure patterns have changed, new entrepreneurial options have required reinterpreting the traditional social networking schemes to be successful in the new political environment. The employer and employee relationships is not a "mirror image" of the patrona and huasipungera relationship. Instead, the local business woman has had to assume new responsibilities which maintain the informal exchange as an eocnomic strategy. As she educates her own children she also extends credit so others can educate theirs, knowing full well that hers will have but marginal advantage. Curriculum and Education as Culture Education as culture incorporates a breadth in the curriculum which facilitates the processes of education just described. This breadth has permitted the inclusion of parents of students in the 122 educational process. They are included in the process by facilitating the participation of their children and relatives. In doing so they benefit from modeling, exemplification and generalization as do the children. Their involvement has been institutionalized in various social structures; the dance, the examinations and the organizing of the kindergarten were examples. This level of inclusion called forth the spontaneous joy expressed by literate people at being permitted to take the oral examinations themselves in the equivalency program, and by parents on the first and last days of school. Awareness of the need for teachers to have access to land on which to construct homes if they were to become integrated into the community was another example of the level of sensitivity leaders expressed to the complexities involved in development. .Modern living arrangements are an expression of culture and social networking; home owning is an important traditional value. Mechanisms which permit such investments are a necessary feature of village life if the socially mobile are to be made residents. Finally, exploiting the formal system of education provided an opportunity to integrate into all levels of the national society to the extent possible from the rural areas. Options and alternatives were left for communities to elaborate but the political and social networks were not previously determined. In much development theory there is instead an explicit modernizing role assigned to schooling. Schooling in Mira provides a mechanism for social change and often determines the degree and direction of social mobility permitted to different groups. To the extent that political choices remain open, schooling enhances local development options. 123 Implications for Development Bridgit Jordan has two criteria for not devaluing the traditional definition of a basic social process; a pervasive definition of the new social process and adequate resources to implement its transfer (Jordan, 1978:78-80). Assuming the validity of the criteria, the implications for coping with change in the educational process are far reaching. Modernization theory has assumed that the required resources for development would in large part be the product of development itself. Avoiding the devaluation of the traditional social processes has not been a concern because it is believed that their loss is a necessary part of the process of development. The basic reason why functional theory has been unable to cone with change, according to Clifford Geertz, lies in its failure to cope with the social complexities which are the product of modernization, development and social change. Instead it has assumed that sociological and cultural processes of the modern world would be "mirrored" in the evolving societies of the developing countries. The consequences of this has made collaboration between national societies (and within nation states intent upon development) extremely difficult and socially disorganizing. The processes of change become ever more complex as a result of the differentiated responses of the oncoming generations to their social heritage. The implications for expanding access to education become most critical, reflecting upon Durkheim's observation that education does not change society but simplv mirrors it (Durkheim, 1951:213). In the 1970's and 1980's, societies everywhere are characterized by change, therefore, the utility of seeking means for expanding an existing pervasive definition of education becomes an 124 attempt to conserve resources which are either non-existent or not forthcoming at national and international levels. This maximizes the efficiency of alternative strategies by which decision makers at all levels can create and devise to accommodate the demand for education and progress. Not only have individuals at the local level benefitted from the continuous process of change which has characterized life in Mira since 1939. National goals to improve life in the rural sector have also been moved ahead which gives credit to national and international planners and practitioners who have been involved in distributing available resources. Locally initiated and planned projects facilitated social restructuring at the most difficult level, among people not differentiated by extension agents, Peace Corps Volunteers and other international change agents. Villagers have become part of the producers as well as recipients of the national tax structure as they became educated and have sought ministerial employment and as they sought tax revenues for community development projects. They have thus assumed the political responsibilites of citizenship without devaluing the national system while nevertheless insisting upon its adaptation to changing conditions. If the extensive informal exchange system of work parties which has been critical in the implementing of community projects is recognized by national decision makers as an informal tax structure equivalent in value to cash contributions from other sectors of the economy, a complex political structure has evolved and is awaiting recognition. National goals and prioriteis, embedded in the formal school svstem have influenced the evolution, but the local school and political 125 system have maintained a degree of local autonomy which permitted adequate resources to be produced locally to support the changes desired by locals because the traditional system was not devalued. As villagers, through education, become more sophisticated in their understanding of national and international policies which impinge upon local development, the representatives of the national society must become more sensitive to the consequences of the contributions of local pe0ple to social restructuring and development. The creative role which the adaptive strategies have played, will also have to be accepted by those who have become educated as part of the process. The social heritage of villagers employed in the dependencies of the national and provincial governments is not that of their parents, nor is that of small landowners the same as that of people who began life as feudal serfs. The conceptual framework which has been developed in this thesis explained how villagers have become able to do more than learn literaey skills through schooling but how they have been culturally and socially shaped to become members of the existing national society. The awareness of their own contributions to the process is required for the process to maintain its momentum because it has led to migration into Mira by people searching for similar opportunities and to the emigration of many who have succeeded individually in securing the benefits of schooling. The processes through which schooling modernizes will be everywhere distinct in their significance for social mobility. There is no way to avoid the challenges of social restructuring in today's world, development cannot proceed nor can political structures contain the pressure of those demanding access to 126 social identities. The essential requirement for developers is to be aware of the implications of the strategies which are adapted and transferred. The challenge will be to maintain an awareness of the changing role education plays if it continues to mirror changing societies because literacy and computation skills are no longer perceived to be sufficient in a society in which to be educated is to be cultured. BIBLIOGRAPHY 127 BIBLIOGRAPHY Ayllon, Eliodoro and Patricio Torres l979 "Educacion debe ser reorientada." Quito, Ecuador: El Comercio, 21 December, A1. Arnold, Fred 1975 The Value of Children: A Cross-National Study. Honolulu: Population Institute, East-West Center. Barreno, Maria Isabel, Maria Teresa Horta, Maria Velho daCosta 1975 The Three Marias: New Portuguese Letters. 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Oxford University Press: New York. Worcester, Donald and Wendell G. Schaeffer 1971 The Growth and Cultures of Latin America. 2nd edition. Texas Christian University. New York: Oxford University Press. Yost, Jaime A. 1979 El Desarrollo Comunitario y la Supervivencia Etnica. El Caso de los Huaorani, Amazonia Ecuatoriana. Cuadernos Etnolinguisticos No. 6. Quito, Ecuador. APPENDICES 133 Appendix A Inter-American Foundation, Fulbright Commission and the National Planning Board Part I. Investigation of Artisan Industry in the Rural Zones Questionnaire No. 1: PRELIMINARY CENSUS OF POPULATION AND EMPLOYMENT Place Date Interviewer Identification Number Supervisor Street Number Location or Identification I would first like to know something about your family. 1. Name of the family: (first name) 7(Surname)’ 2. Respondent's name: 3. How many people live in this house? (sleep and eat with the family) 4. For each person I need to know the sex, age, level of education attained and employment or profession. Let us start with the adults and then go to the children starting with the oldest. (Mark the respondent ****) SEX YEAR GRADE/ ‘OCCUPATION/ NAME SURNAME M/F AGE BORN LEVEL PROFESSION l. 2. 3. etc. 5. Are there unmarried sons and daughters who live or study in other places? NO YES (If 'yes', ASK FOR THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION.) SEX YEAR OCCUPATION/ PLACE/ NAME M/F AGE BORN PROFESSION CITY 01-wa 134 Appendix B Teacher Questionnaire 1. 2. 3. 10. 11. How do you think a secondary education helps Mirenos to live better? What are the advantages of a secondary education? (If he or she has no children) If you had children, would you want them to attend secondary school here in Mira? Why? (If the children are not yet of secondary age) 00 you want your children to go to secondary school in Mira? All of them? or which ones? Why? (Whichever appropriate) Why do you sent (name) to (name) high school? 00 you plan to send to the same school? Will you send all the boys to the same school? Will you send all the girls to the same school? What would you like ‘to work at later? Where do you hope he or she will work? Do you expect to send to the university? To another institu- tion for special preparation? Where? (Repeat appropriate questions for each child where answers indicate it) Do you like living in Mira? Do you want to live here? Are there social status groups here or is everyone of the same social group? What groups are there? In almost all communities some people are more important than others. Is that true here? Who are the most important people? Who are the least important people? How does a person come to be important? Why is it important that there be secondary schools in Mira? 135 Teacher Questionnaire (cont'd) 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. Who benefits most from this? Who else? Other persons or other groups? 00 you know the parents of you students? How did you meet them? Do you know all of them? DO you visit the homes of all of your students? What are the advantages of sending children elsewhere to study? 00 those who go to secondary school in Mira have the same advantages? Is it true that one's high school friends are important in acquiring a job or advancing in ones career? How did you learn of this job? How did you get this job? Have you ever helped a friend get a job? How did you do it? 9 Are there others in your family with the same level of education as yours? Your parents? Your brothers? Your sisters? If you wished to establish yourself in a particular city would it be advisable to go to secondary school there or would any comparable school be as good? Is there anything else you wish to tell me about? Thank you very much for your help. Comments regarding how interviewee seemed to perceive the interview: My reactions to the interview: 136 Appendix C Table l Policarpa Salvarietta Girls School Enrollment Flow — Class of 1979 First Grade - 1973-74 46 girls 37 in l974, grade 2 Graduated 1978-79 17 36.76% Enrolled in grades 3-6, 1980 13 28.26% Non residents, not located 16 34.78% - 5 after lst, 5 after 2nd, and 4 after 4th grade. - 9 were born between 1964-66 Observations not exclusive instead of 1967-68. - 8 were born outside Mira township _ _ . 37 from previous year Second Grade 1974 75 46 reglstered 32 in 1975, grade 3 9 new students 4 1979 Mira residents 1 La Portada l Pueblo Viejo graduated in Mira - 2 continued to secondary enrolled in 5th grade hamlet schools helping mother with knitting business de w non-resident, not located . _ . 32 from previous year Third Grade - 1975 76 37 registered 32 in 1976, grade 4 5 new students 3 1979 Mira residents 1 Pueblo Viejo 1 La Comunidad - older student when she came, stayed one year and left 2 graduate l979 - 1 continued to secondary l enrolled in Pueblo Viejo l quit school because of illness 137 Policarpa Salvarietta (cont'd) 32 from previous year Fourth Grade - 1976-77 42 registered 3] in 1977, grade 5 10 new students 5 1979 Mira residents 4 La Portada (2 came and went) 1 Construction workers daughter 5 graduated 1979 4 enrolled in secondary l housemaid in Quito l knits in Mira 31 from previous year Fifth Grade - 1977-78 39 registered 34 registered, grade 5 8 new students 4 1979 Mira residents 1 La Portada 1 San Luis de Mira 1 Las Parcelas 1 Pisquer 7 graduated 1979 4 enrolled in local secondary 34 from previous year Sixth Grade - 1978-79 38 registered 37 graduated 3 1979 Mira residents 1 La Libertad 3 graduated 1 continued to secondary 1 went back to Santiquillo 1 went back to El Hato and knits 1 deserted Analysis of sixth grade class: 38 students registered 1978-79 37 graduated l deserted 17 graduated from 197 74 class 44.73% 27 registered for colegio in 1979 71.00% 13 non-residents in class 138 Appendix C Table 2 Rafael Arellano Boys School Enrollment Flow - Class of 1979 12 repeated grade 1 First Grade - 1973-74 47 boys in 1974 27 registered in l974, grade 2 Graduated 1978—79 18 38.30% Graduated 1977-78 1 2.12% Graduated 1978-79 1 2.12% Enrolled in grade 4-6 15 31.91% Accounted for in School 1978-79 35 74.46% 18 of 20 registering in 1973 and completing in 1979 were Mirenos Non residents, not located 10 21.28% - 5 born outside parish and only 1-3 year residents - 5 born in Mira but probably outside cabecera 27 in 1973-73, grade 1 Second Grade - 1974-75 35 registered 29 in 1975-75, grade 3 10 new students 8 1979 Mira residents 1 from La Portada 1 missing student born in Quito - He was 2 years older than most classmates and failed grade 3 before droping out. In 1979 3 graduated, 2 continued to secondary, CMA & LR 4 registered for grade 6 1 registered for grade 5 1 registered for grade 4 . . 29 in 1974-75, grade 2 Third Grade - 1975-76 34 registered 30 in 1976-77, grade 4 4 new students 0-1979 Mira residents In 1979 2 graduate, 1 continued, CMA 1 left after grade 4 1 left after grade 5 139 Rafael Arellano (cont'd) _ _ . 31 in 1975-76, grade 3 Fourth Grade 1976 77 35 registered 29 in 1977-78, grade 5 5 new students, 1 continued to secondary, LR 0-1979 Mira residents In 1979 2 graduated, 1 continued, LR l repeated grade 4 l father died and left to help mother. 1 came and went in grade 4 . . 28 in 1976-77, grade 4 Fifth Grade - 1977-78 36 registered 3] in 1978-79, grade 6 7 new students 0 mira residents In 1979 6 graduated, 3 continued into secondary, CMA 1 came and went in grade 5 Sixth Grade - 1978-79 38 registered 2 new students 1 Mira resident, mother moved from Tulcan to open cafe 1 commuted from San Luis de Mira In 1979 ’ 2 graduated, both continued on, CMA Analysis of sixth grade class: 33 students registered in 1978-79 32 graduated l desserted 6.0% migrated from urban centers 1 - father radio technician in Guayaquil l - father shoemaker, mother business woman, Quito 36.5% migrated from surrounding rural areas 28 in l979, secondary school - 84.8% of graduates Appendix C Table 3 140 Carlos Martinez Acosta Colegio - Class of 1978-79 Registered Total Percent Girls Percent Boys Percent Course 1 1973-74 29 100 11 37.9 18 62.0 Graduated 11 37.9 5 45.5 6 33.3 Still Enrolled 6 20.7 1 9.0 5 27.8 Quit/Failed 12 41.4 5 45.5 7 38.9 100.0 100.0 100.0 Course 2 1974-75 24 100 10 41.7 14 58.3 Graduated 12 50.0 6 60.0 6 42.9 Still Enrolled 3 12.5 0 00.0 3 21.4 Quit/Failed 9 37.5 4 40.0 5 35.7 100.0 100.0 100.0 Course 3 1975-76 24 100 11 45.8 13 54.2 Graduated 12 50.0 6 54.5 6 46.0 Still Enrolled 3 12 5 O 00.0 3 23.1 Quit/Failed 9 37.5 5 45.5 4 30.8 100.0 100.0 100.0 Course 4 1976-77 25 100 8 32.0 17 68.0 Graduated 16 64.0 7 87.5 9 52.9 Still Enrolled 3 12.0 0 00.0 3 17.6 Quit/Failed 6 24.0 1 12.5 5 29.4 100.0 100.0 99.9* Course 5 1977-78 29 100 10 34.5 19 65.5 Graduated 23 79.3 8 80.0 15 78.9 Still Enrolled 1 3.4 1 10.0 0 00.0 Quit/Failed 5 17.2 1 10.0 4 21.1 99.9* 100.0 100.0 Course 6 1978-79 27 100 10 37.0 17 63.0 Graduated 26 96.3 10 100.0 16 94.1 Still Enrolled 0 00.0 0 00.0 0 00.0 Quit/Failed l 3.7 O 00.0 1 5.9 00.00 100.0 100.0 Enrollment and completion by sex and course year *Due to rounding might not sum. 141 Appendix C Table 4 Leon Ruales Colegio - Class of 1978-79 Enrollment and Completion based on Location of Elementary School. Students Graduating Still Enrolled No % No. % No. % Total Registered Students in Course 1, 1973-74 Mira Girls School 17 33.33 8 47.06 4 23.53 Mira Boys School 11 21.57 5 45.45 1 9.09 Girls from other schools 12 23.53 2 16.67 0 - Boys from other schools 10 19.61 5 50.00 1 10.00 School unknown _1_ 1.96 0 - O - Total 51 100.00 New Students in Course 2, 1974-75 Mira Girls School 1 11.11 1 - O - Mira Boys School 3 33.33 2 66.67 0 - Girls from other schools 3 33.33 2 66.67 0 - Boys from other schools 1 11.11 1 100.00 0 - School unknown ‘_1 11.11 0 - O - Total 9 100.00 Total Class Size - 48 students New Students in Course 4, 1976-77 Mira Girls School 1 10.00 1 100.00 O s Mira Boys School 5 50.00 2 40.00 0 - Girls from other schools 0 - 0 - 0 - Boys from other schools 2 20.00 1 50.00 1 50.00 School unknown _g, 20.00 0 - O - Total 10 100.00 Total Class Size - 42 students Summary: Total Girls 34 48.57 13 38.23 4 23.53 Mira Girls 17 24.28 9 52.94 4 11.76 Total Boys 32 45.71 16 50.00 3 9.37 Mira Boys 19 27.14 9 47;37 1 5.26 School Unknown 4 5.71 0 - 0 - Total Class '70 100.00 *The school changed registratibn record keeping during these years. Records of courses 3 and 5 were unavailable. The rector provided me with a list of 6 course graduates all of whom were included on the 4 course records. Because the program is divided into a basic cycle - courses 1-3 and a diversified eycle - it is reasonable to assume that no new students were added after course 4. 142 Appendix C Table 5 AVERAGE MONTHLY EARNINGS IN THE ECUADORIAN URBAN SECTOR Statistics released by the National Institute of Statistics and Census from the 1974 national census (INES - Instituto Nacional de Estadistica y Censo). Total Urban Population economically active equalled 938,319 persons. MONTHLY EARNINGS NO. OF WORKERS PERCENT OF TOTAL Less than S/. 1,000 206,430 22.0 S/. 1,000 - 3,000 403,477 43.0 S/. 25,000 and more 3,268 .4 Average earnings in the urban sector was S/. 2,960 The study done by INEC summarized here found direct correlation between level of schooling and monthly income. U.S. $1.00 = 26 Sucres in 1979 (El Comercio, 27 February, 1971:32). 143 Appendix D Research Questions: To what extent do villagers in Mira identify possible options and alternatives for children about 12 years Old or finishing public education at the sixth grade level? DO family perceptions correlate with the perceptions of village teachers of the elementary and secondary schools? Participation in secondary schools requires families to allocate resources. Do parents say that they would give resources - time, money, emotional support — to children so they can attend school after grade six? To what'extent does conscious decision making within the family determine the suitability of such allocation to specific children? Are male children given preference over female or vice versa? Are older given preference over younger? Decision making is dependent upon awareness of alternatives from which to select. Awareness is conscious but the process of becoming aware perhaps less so. Do families contemplate alternative possibilities for particular children when they finish school? Trade apprenticeships? School? Additional land purchases? llll' 4626 U" Vii Hm Slildl ““6 VIHIO mi3 Uuo Em iii Amg T"). lllllllllllll