This article examines why a group of elite students assured of their life-chances willfully engaged with stress-inducing school experiences. Unlike common portrayals of "stress culture" as being the result of economic uncertainty, I found that stress was viewed as a necessary prerequisite for students' understandings of moral worthiness.…

This paper seeks to further conceptualise participation in International Large-Scale Assessment (ILSA) as a global ritual of belonging and apply it to understand the appeal of PISA for Development (PISA-D) in Ecuador and Paraguay. The paper develops the theoretical underpinnings of the global ritual of belonging through policy borrowing and…

This article uses a case study approach to reimagine risk management in education abroad programming. It brings together a group of program partners to explore pre-COVID risk management decision-making during political unrest in Ecuador in 2019. Through continued dialogue and self-directed creative reflection techniques, the partners (a Dean of…

This study analyzes three textbooks that were used to teach English to eighth graders in Ecuadorian public secondary schools from 1993 to midyear of 2019. The textbooks in question included "Our World Through English" ('OWTE') 1," "Postcards 1A," and "Viewpoints English A1.1." This work provides a descriptive…

Higher education reform efforts in Ecuador during the last decade have been described as a process that has radically shaped local institutions. With the government at the forefront of mandating this reform, we examined the perspectives of stakeholders in the country who have been charged with enacting policies seeking to improve higher education.…

This article takes a linguistic anthropological approach to analyzing multilingualism in the linguistic landscape of the Amazonian city of Tena, Ecuador, a key locus of indigenous Kichwa language revitalization, identity formation, and politics. Following recent scholarly reconsiderations of multilingual linguistic landscapes as sites of…

This study analyses the use of English in the linguistic landscape (LL) of Azogues, Ecuador. A representative sample of fixed signs in the economic centre of the city was photographed by the author in the summer of 2017, consisting of 171 photographed signs. This study analyses what linguistic features are used and how other semiotic resources…

The policies of digital inclusion in Ecuador had a rebound since 2007, placing technology as a priority axis for government management. Despite this, there are still pending issues to be developed. This study is based on a qualitative approach that, through documentary research, bibliographic analysis and critical review of literature, can…

This article examines the future as a technique of government aimed at controlling young people's relationships to the present. It analyses the futures deemed feasible in a school located in a border area affected by the Colombian armed conflict. Based on ethnographic data collected primarily between 2013 and 2014, this study highlights the…

This interdisciplinary study aimed to explore the relationship between university students' participation in community development activities and their collaboration in the classroom. The students concerned form part of an ethnic diversity program in the Ecuadorian capital city, Quito. Findings demonstrate the potential for collaborative…

This article focuses on the policies by which social sciences that analyse unequal international relations are both shaped and diminished in the provincial universities of two developing countries. We examine key moments in the development and limitation of critical social sciences in Tanzania and Ecuador. In both these places, important…

The main goal of this article is to explain the transdisciplinary training model developed at the National University of Education (UNAE) in Ecuador, based on the ancestral worldviews of "Buen Vivir" (Good Living). "Good Living" is a philosophical and political concept of the Kichwa indigenous peoples in the Andean Region,…

Teenage pregnancy is a phenomenon that causes concern due to its consequences. In this context, sex education has been considered as a good means of prevention. However, while teenage pregnancy prevails, sex education perspectives from the voices of teenage fathers and mothers remain under-explored. This qualitative study aimed at exploring sex…

The aim of this article is to direct the social design debate to constructivist approaches to design education in the Global South. This article provides insight into the process of participatory user-centred design involving Ecuadorian third year graphic design students and cocoa cultivators of limited resources in Ecuador. The students and…

In 2012, Ecuador signed an agreement to introduce the International Baccalaureate into the country's public-schools. Once considered an emblematic policy of former president Correa's administration, the initiative is now questioned and its future uncertain. This ethnographic study strives to write against the commonly invoked deficit narratives…