Postgraduate studies in development in Latin America: origin and evolution

Abstract

The focus of this study is on postgraduate education in development in the Latin American context. The objective is to show how postgraduate courses of this type emerge in Latin America and their contents, as well as what they teach and how. A qualitative approach was used to develop the study, particularly a content analysis of written documents coupled with in-depth interviews of experts and professors. The principal findings show a strong emphasis on the teaching of development understood as economic growth, with special emphasis on the models necessary to encourage it. However, there also is evidence that the human development perspective has begun to gain importance. It is a view in which economic development is an aspect, but not the only one. Generally speaking, postgraduate courses in development place a priority on local-scale studies. However, it is essential to go beyond these analyses to other scales and in the direction of more multidimensional studies.