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Date of Award
2019
Document Type
Campus Access Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Rhetoric, Theory and Culture (MS)
Administrative Home Department
Department of Humanities
Advisor 1
Sue Collins
Committee Member 1
Marcelino Viera-Ramos
Committee Member 2
Scott Marratto
Abstract
This thesis explores the process of neoliberalization of the political Left in Uruguay through an interrogation of the Plan Ceibal, an educational public policy developed during the first left-wing government in order to achieve equality of access through technology and to improve education by giving each public school student a laptop. Through an engagement with political theorists and technology scholars, and a close reading of official documents, I argue that, despite being a policy launched by a left-wing government with the objective of guaranteeing equality and social justice, the policy itself ends up being functional to a neoliberal rationality. From its origins, that can be traced to the global American initiative One Laptop Per child founded by philanthropist Nicholas Negroponte, up to the beliefs in which the policy is based — technological determinism and the need for developing 21st century skills—. In short, this study will show a close relationship between Plan Ceibal and the premises and attitudes that neoliberalism promulgates.
Recommended Citation
Correa Pose, Federico, "The Plan Ceibal policy: Neoliberal rationality and the transformation of the political left in Uruguay", Campus Access Master's Thesis, Michigan Technological University, 2019.