"Fraternity and Educational Reform in Latin America"

Abstract: The author proposes that in a democratic society, education serves to establish fundamental relationships of fraternity, generating the “social capital” that bonds citizens together. Against this perspective, he examines the cultural values transmitted in the educational systems of six Latin American countries. He finds that following world-wide trends, the curricula have shifted from privileging nation as symbolic reference of community to human rights. He proposes fraternity, as presented in the Focolare charism of unity, as a fundamental value in national curricula by which greater social cohesion among students and therefore society as a whole can be generated.