Resumen

TRISTA PEREZ, Boris; GORT ALMEIDA, Amelia  y  INIGO BAJOS, Enrique. Equity in Cuban Higher Education: Achievements and Challenges. Rev. Lusófona de Educação [online]. 2013, n.24, pp.125-139. ISSN 1645-7250.

Social inclusion in education and, particularly in Higher Education is a relevant study field, because of its significant impact in social and economic growth.It is well known that universities in Latin America where exclusive institutions situation which could be associated with different factors such as the 300 years of colonialism, the black spot of slavery and the traditional gender discrimination. In the Cuban case, after 1959 Revolution, the Government proclaimed the right to education as one of its main policies and made remarkable efforts to promote social inclusion of traditionally vulnerable groups historically discriminated due to gender or skin color, instead of the uneasy economic conditions derived from the United States Government hostility to the revolutionary process. The problem is if the implemented programs to promote equity have been enough and if the new policies in Higher Education access could lead to new forms of vulnerability for different social groups. That is why the objective of the study presented is to identify the present trends in Cuban Higher Education equity by mean of the analysis of indicators such as: schooling rate, social and demographic characteristics of enrolment, educational funding and parents’ educational level, among others. The results show a strong trend to equity, however, there are others vulnerability factors which can be associated with the concept of accumulation of cultural capital presented by Bourdieu in different texts. The hypothesis is that those vulnerability factors will be reinforced in the next years because of the promulgation of a meritocratic access system that will make appear new exclusion factors at long and medium terms. Some of the factors linked to accumulation of cultural capital like parents educational level, quality of teaching in the pre-university level and community cultural environment must be under scrutiny in the next years and are considered in the present work.

Palabras clave : equity; inclusion; higher education; Cuba; cultural capital.

        · resumen en Español | Francés | Portugués     · texto en Español     · Español ( pdf )