NCJ Number
208141
Journal
Youth & Society Volume: 36 Issue: 2 Dated: December 2004 Pages: 163-182
Date Published
December 2004
Length
20 pages
Annotation
This case study of a rural community in Bolivia shows the ways in which the structural constraints of primary education influence youths' school-to-work transitions.
Abstract
This was an ethnographic study of the daily lives of rural children and adolescents in Churquiales, a community in Tarija, Bolivia. The fieldwork included semiparticipant observation and informal interviews with most members of a sample of 18 households over 3 months of observation and task-based methods on-site at the community school. The school-based research involved 37 school children ages 8 to 14, who wrote diaries, took photographs, drew pictures, and completed worksheets. Churquiales is a poor, relatively isolated agricultural community that lacks basic services such as electricity and drinking water. At the time of the study, only two girls and two boys between the ages of 13 and 19 had continued with secondary education. The remaining youth were working in the community for their own or other households. The study focused on the nature of primary education within the community in order to determine how it influenced youths' decision about whether to choose an educational path or a quicker pathway into work and migration. Based on the study's findings, this article argues that in rural Bolivia, youths' transitional decisions are largely influenced by their experiences of primary education, which are linked to a variety of external factors related to job opportunities and conditioned motivations and attitudes. 2 tables, 17 notes, and 21 references