Advanced Diploma in Youth: Inequalities, Cultures and Policies

Coordination: Dr. Pablo Vommaro

CLASS 1: Young, youth, youth and generations. Theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches.

Instructor: Dr. Pablo Vommaro

This class will present the main perspectives for studying, engaging with, and working with young people from the social sciences and humanities. Biological, socio-demographic, social and life moratorium, and life-cycle perspectives will be discussed. Furthermore, the contributions of generational perspectives and their relevance to addressing young people through recognition, listening, and visibility will be explored.

CLASS 2: Youth as an object of knowledge: approaches from 20th-century sociology and anthropology

Instructor: Dr. Mariana Chaves

The emergence of youth as a theme and social problem within the social and behavioral sciences is a product of modernity. From this process, different approaches and responses were explored regarding how to characterize youth. The first conceptualizations in the Northern Hemisphere came from psychology, which underpinned biological and universalist assumptions, later entering into controversy with the developments in anthropology from a relativist and particularist perspective. Studies of different cultures and societies focused on the organization by classes or age groups, revealing the sociocultural nature of the age concept through ethnographies from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. Sociology generated rich debates about the role of youth in history and social structure, becoming the discipline most concerned with the study of youth in the 20th century. It constructed interpretive frameworks that, on the one hand, praised social reproduction, and on the other, critiqued it and focused on the transformation of societies.

In this way, the importance of symbolic, cultural, historical, class, generational, and gender aspects was recognized in order to approach youth from different perspectives, thus broadening the perspective. Indeed, the incorporation of more and new dimensions into the analysis showed, on the one hand, that the multiple and complex nature of the object/subject of study meant abandoning references to youth as a homogeneous subject and, instead, embracing the importance of interpreting youth in the plural.

CLASS 3: Epistemological and methodological shifts in social science research and its lessons in the field of youth.

Instructor: Dr. Sara Victoria Alvarado

The problems regarding the work of the social sciences are different today. If fifty years ago the most important challenge was to overcome the dogmatism of a dominant and one-sided view of science, the current challenge consists of understanding and appropriating the diverse epistemological, gnoseological, methodological and practical approaches that philosophy, epistemology, the disciplines, art and the various forms of knowledge present in order to face the challenge of expanding the understandings of the social, cultural and political world we inhabit. This radical challenge demands that we subject our thinking and attitude in the practice of science to self-criticism. Reviewing and overcoming prejudices such as the belief in the single truth, or what Steiner calls the nostalgia for absolutes, which prevent us from having the capacity to listen from pluralism and inter and transdisciplinarity. The epistemological shifts in the Social Sciences recognize that the modern/colonial enterprise of the social sciences is part of a process structurally related to the expansion of the European world-economy in its quest to establish itself as a global world-system. This company focused and continues to focus its search on the order and control of the social structure. To that end, these social sciences developed different theories, concepts, methodologies, and disciplines that allowed them, on the one hand, to institutionalize the expert view of social life, and on the other hand, to assume the distancing between subjects and objects, in order to guarantee a more competent understanding of social phenomena. Furthermore, they enabled the establishment of a type of knowledge that naturalized and justified the relations of domination between Western Europe (incorporating the United States during the 20th century) and the rest of the world, and that generated and extended a universal and linear idea of ​​history, through which Europeans have imagined themselves and related to the rest of the world as if they were the beginning and the end of humanity, confining others to live in non-human zones, marginalized from any possibility of recognition and dialogue. According to the above, in this class, we assume that the constitution, development and expansion of the social sciences is related to the geopolitical contexts and changes of societies, as well as to the configuration of issues such as identities and subjectivities, among others. On the other hand, we accept that the alternatives for restructuring strategies for the production of an Other knowledge imply displacement and epistemological rupture as marks of creation and action. It is no longer just about sharing certain research methods or applying mixed quantitative and qualitative methods. Rather than accepting complexity, it is about breaking with the rigidity of paradigmatic epistemological positions: objectivism, subjectivism, and constructivism. In this sense, the class seeks two things: on the one hand, to understand the main epistemic shifts that have generated situated research practices, and on the other hand, to review what these shifts have meant in terms of learning for youth studies.

Coordination: Dr. María Isabel Domínguez

CLASS 4: Approaches to analyzing inequalities from an intersectional perspective. Generations, genders, and persistent forms of production and reproduction of inequalities

Instructor: Dr. María Isabel Domínguez

Inequalities and their impact on social inclusion manifest themselves differently across generations, with particularly severe effects on children and young people. Their expressions are multifaceted, encompassing not only economic disparities but also overlapping factors such as gender, sexual orientation, geographic location, ethnicity, culture, educational attainment, and migration, among other dimensions. The complexity of this problem challenges social research to address inter- and intragenerational inequality from an intersectional perspective. This approach aims to understand the processes of production and reproduction of inequalities in childhood and adolescence, their intersection with other social affiliations or conditions, and the spaces and policies that contribute to reducing or reinforcing these inequalities. Economic and social inequalities and the lack of real conditions for achieving equitable social inclusion are expressions of the structural problems plaguing the region. These problems have imploded in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has starkly highlighted the nature of these inequalities and the severity of their impact on various sectors of youth. For these young people, the conditions of the disease itself, the lockdowns, and their consequences in the educational, labor, and healthcare spheres have exacerbated their already precarious circumstances. This course aims to address the issue of inequalities affecting children and youth from different dimensions, using a variety of approaches and a multi-stakeholder perspective. This will contribute to conceptualizing the processes involved, not only to generate knowledge that allows for a better understanding of the phenomenon, but also to contribute to the formulation of public policies, social intervention strategies, and support for efforts aimed at ensuring that the rights of children and young people are not violated.

CLASS 5: Equality and inequality in school processes: production and reproduction in schools at the regional level

Instructor: Dr. Liliana Mayer

Since the 1990s, education systems in the region have undergone profound changes that have resulted in new educational legislation. These modifications were—and are—aimed at expanding the educational commitments of nation-states, particularly regarding the expansion of coverage and the extension of universal access to secondary education. These reforms have yielded mixed results, partly because the states started from very different starting points. Beyond the positive impacts, universalization and massification of schooling, centered on inclusion, have not managed to combat, much less eliminate, the role of education systems in the production and reproduction of inequalities. Instead, they have fostered the emergence of “new inequalities” linked to the formation of processes of educational fragmentation and/or segmentation (depending on the national context) and processes of exclusionary inclusion, often promoted by state agencies.

In this sense, the class aims to contribute to the debate on inequalities in Latin America and the Caribbean, the coexistence in the educational field of old and new ones: the expansion of secondary level coverage rates and the increase in the possibilities of accessing higher education alongside the persistence of inequalities that take on different forms, which refer, for example, to the different circuits and educational offers in diversified scenarios. 

CLASS 6 : Youth, the labor market and social inequality

Instructor: Dr. Juan Romero

In Latin America, the most unequal region in the world, the figures for the main expressions of inequality in the region's countries, besides their persistent nature, show a growing deepening that has been increasing decade after decade (López Segrera, 2016). Analyzing this problem requires considering, on the one hand, the dynamics of the production of such inequalities, and on the other hand, the consequences they generate, particularly for children and young people. Emphasis is placed on the processes that generate inequalities, reflecting on their forms and content, which shape the economic structure of our societies. On the other hand, this approach to analysis involves viewing inequalities as a constitutive process of society, in which their distribution across generations is not symmetrical but rather falls more heavily on younger people.

It is important to reflect on the transformations in the work and production-technological processes of agricultural production and their impacts on rural social space and employment conditions, especially among rural wage earners, from a generational perspective. To this end, the text by Romero, J. (2022), which proposes this line of analysis, is incorporated. In this sense, the text by Enrique de la Garza Toledo on labor studies in Latin America is included as a first reading to analyze the development of such studies and the configuration of the different conceptual frameworks on the continent.

Furthermore, and in a complementary manner, we will analyze the place and space of youth from some of the conceptual perspectives offered by the categories of urban and rural in relation to inequality in Latin America and the Caribbean. We refer to the anthropological idea that the place of an element constitutes an objective and unique position in relation to other elements situated in a given field (Duch, 2002). Spatiality, for its part, constitutes a dynamic geometry that is configured according to the interacting forces on issues of dispute. This dual perspective, from urban-rural interrelations, would contribute to the study of childhood and youth as objects situated in a specific historical moment, on the one hand, and as dynamic processes that are constantly being reconfigured as part of broader general processes, on the other.

This is linked to the analysis of the urban-rural transformations experienced by the triple articulation of the expansion of the urban into the rural, the new ruralities and the mixtures between the urban and the rural or processes of “rurbanization” (Unda Lara RL, 2013) in which not only does the urban permeate and reconfigure the rurality but this phenomenon also operates in reverse, making certain practices typical of the rural survive, even showing signs of change and readaptation.

In this vein, the class proposes a reflective examination of available information on the main forms of inequality that most directly affect urban and rural children and youth within the broader context of the global production of inequalities and their specificities in particular contexts. To this end, however, it is necessary to situate the production of inequalities within the general context of today's market society with its multiple and complex scenarios, with the clear aim of considering this issue from a structural, yet often undervalued, perspective on the relationship between inequality and economic growth. As José Sánchez-Parga points out in his text “Without (growing) inequality there is no economic growth”, published by the Peruvian magazine Socialismo y Participación in 2005, from a critical Marxist perspective, he shows the validity and relevance of this approach to explain and understand not only the expansive possibilities of economic growth that presupposes the existence of inequality, but also inequality itself as a product of economic growth in the context of the growing commodification of the economy, transformations in the labor market(s) and social relations in general.

It is therefore important to foster discussion on inequalities from the perspective of the social production of youth as categories that carry conceptions and representations enabling the understanding of various social asymmetries. In addition to the texts, two videos and the bibliography serve as "triggers" for reflection on the topic. This material is not intended to replace, but rather to complement, the analysis with conceptual tools. Participants should familiarize themselves with the theoretical frameworks from the texts before or after the session. Methodologically, this class is designed as a space for analysis, reflection, and proposals that each participant develops based on the selected readings. Therefore, the class's inherent diversity, embodied in its varied academic, professional, regional, and territorial backgrounds, offers a promising scenario for mutual enrichment.

Coordination: Dr. Silvia HS Borelli

CLASS 7: Youth activism, culture and resistance: aesthetics and the pandemic as observatories of the social.

Teachers: Dr. Silvia Helena Simões Borelli and Prof. Dr. Rose de Melo Rocha

The objective is to analyze Latin American youth activism, starting from some of its aesthetic experiences of resistance articulated to cultural and social issues, such as violence and gender markers. The theoretical framework is aligned with decolonial perspectives and linked to the tradition of Latin American research focused on the forms of presentation and presence led by young actors. Bibliographies related to the articulation between aesthetics and politics, as well as those produced by Latin American, African, and Afro-Caribbean gender dissidents, are also taken as a core framework for reflection. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic is also considered a reflective marker, as it highlights both the support of contemporary necropolitical regimes and the scale and visibility of the reconfigurations in the relationship between communication, culture, and politics today. As a specific contribution of this course, we explore the possible actions and reconfigurations of fields, institutions, and communication practices to act in a propositional and critical manner in extreme contexts.

While the pandemic presented itself as a threat to all human beings, we know that the way each government and each community organization seeks to address the crisis will accentuate—to a greater or lesser degree—existing mechanisms of inequality. How, for example, can we guarantee the protection of marginalized groups in countries like Brazil if so many inclusive public policies have been dismantled in the last year? How can we protect children, adolescents, young people, and the elderly? Black and Indigenous people? LGBTQI+ people? Immigrants and refugees? Families experiencing homelessness?

CLASS 8: Inequalities and violence against black and indigenous youth

Teachers: Rita de Cássia Oliveira and Lucia Helena Rangel

The Latin American context is the basis for understanding two social and cultural places for young people, which reserve a very important space for black and indigenous youth. Sometimes conceived as minorities, sometimes considered majorities, depending on the place and situation in which they are found; These populations are in common to sustain the colonial enterprise as escravas and, in no case, two indigenous people, accrecente-se as plundered and expropriated from their lands. This social condition is formed based on the violence that now afflicts them. In truth, the countries of the American continent have not been overcome by the colonial escravist mentality, and even by expropriatory practices. The promotion of hatred against these populations is supported in societies, and anger assumes forms of physical, moral, cultural, religious, economic violence in both rural and urban contexts. São populações treated como se tivessem culpa por sua condição. Or we will be poor, with less schooling, with our own religious beliefs, with foreign languages ​​or even with typical linguagens that make up despised beings. Even though over the course of decades (1960-2023) they have conquered rights and have become aprimorado in their cultural and intellectual expressions, they continue to be free from racism and contempt.

As young people from today's careers have their heritage and still need to protect themselves, even if they have achieved success. The fact is that more young black and indigenous people are still being killed, because they are still in the sights of open-ended weapons, of suspected crimes and of prison punishments. We intend to work in this class to work on these situations of violence from the concept of necropolitics and to address the forms of violence prevailing in specific social contexts. It will be analyzed as a starting point for Brazilian society and, to the extent possible, compared with other realities.

CLASS 9: Youth, migrations and displacements.

Instructors: Dr. Silvia HS Borelli and Ms. María Claudia S. Paiva

One of the fundamental pillars for defining the context of globalization (Appadurai, 2004) is anchored in the continuous and increasing migratory flows that cross continents, deterritorialize communities and population groups, create spatio-temporal dimensions, expand the ranks of the excluded, and become a priority issue on the contemporary agenda. Images and people circulate and are in motion; affections, power, and fears are shared; experiences are felt; worlds are imagined (Anderson, 2008) and recreated through intercultural meanings (García Canclini, 2004). The processes experienced during moments of displacement (Valenzuela Arce, 2019) permeate the lives of those who migrate and arrive at a destination, as well as impacting those already there. These are distinct yet shared social, cultural, and political experiences that intertwine in different corners and territories of the world. The proposal for this class is linked to the following objectives: a) To understand – based on historical, political, and cultural references – the ways in which young immigrants transform spaces, places, and territories and confront contexts of stigma, exclusion, and social inequality; b) To consider the ways in which these individuals experience the multiple facets that make up their experiences – personal and collective – in contexts of human displacement; c) To analyze the collective actions of young people and youth groups embedded in metropolitan life, as well as their ways of being, existing, and acting in the face of countless borders – material and symbolic – imposed on their daily lives; d) To identify, in migration agendas and guidelines, the struggles for recognition, representation, visibility, and equity in confronting xenophobia, racism, classism, generational and gender violence, femicides, youth murders, and hate crimes, homophobia, and transphobia. Based on the experience and actions of four groups of young immigrants in the city of São Paulo – Sarau das Américas, Visa Permanente, Equipo Base Warmis-Convergencia de Culturas and Muxima en la Diáspora – we propose a reflection on the living conditions of young migrants in different Latin American contexts.

Coordination: Dr. Melina Vázquez

CLASS 10: History of youth political participation (between the 50s and the present)

Instructor: Dr. Melina Vázquez

The purpose of this class is to trace the genealogy of political mobilization, exploring the sociological reasons why, starting in the 60s and 70s, different groups and collectives began to develop forms of participation defined as “youthful.” We begin by recognizing “youth” not as an attribute of the people who participate, but rather as a political category.

The proposal is to address a historical event that marks, internationally, the emergence of youth in political life: 1968. More than just a year, '68 can be interpreted as a milestone in politicization, marking the birth of social movements and processes of social change worldwide. The objective of this class is to reconstruct the effects of that milestone and the confirmation of the so-called "generation of '68" through the study of the relationship between youth and politics in Latin America and the Caribbean.

CLASS 11: Conceptions about social inclusion in social groups

Instructor: Dr. Olivia Cristina Perez

The proposed class will address contemporary social organizations that are called and understood as social collectives. We will explore the causes of these collectives, which generally revolve around the inclusion of groups most exposed to social oppression, such as youth, women, people of color, and the LGBTQIA+ population—both individually and intersectionally. These guidelines reveal new understandings of social inequalities that must be minimized through the inclusion of these groups in all collective decisions. In seeking this inclusion, collectives value horizontality and autonomy in their decision-making. The class will then reflect on contemporary social organizations that emerge from and contribute to mobilizations that generally express critiques of how politics is practiced in the political arena.

CLASS 12: Political Mobilization, the State, and Youth. Post-neoliberalism, post-progressivism, and the pandemic 

Instructor: Dr. René Unda Lara

At the dawn of the 21st century, Latin America witnessed a series of events that, among their most significant characteristics, placed at the heart of social conflict the multiple disputes between an increasingly challenged neoliberal model and the initial outlines of what, throughout that first decade, was termed progressivism. This term referred to a political cycle whose forms of government oriented their main proposals toward the recovery of the public sphere and the establishment of wealth redistribution as the cornerstone of their governance. The successive electoral victories of political organizations defined as progressive in Venezuela, Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, Ecuador, and Uruguay represented achievements that, to a large extent, resulted from the political mobilization of broad sectors of the population. The process of state reconfiguration in each of these countries entailed, among other things, a significant role for youth sectors in establishing this state of affairs, as well as a persistent conflict with those sectors that were displaced from the hegemonic leadership of the state. The sociopolitical conflict between progressive forces and opposition sectors resulted in the return of right-wing governments to power, as occurred in Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Chile, and Uruguay. During this period of renewed neoliberal policies, social mobilization intensified, and, except in Argentina—where progressivism returned to power after its electoral victory—protests became central to the dynamics of the political conflict, which was later curtailed by the onset of the pandemic. Broadly speaking, this represents the general scenario within which this class aims to analyze the overall dynamics of political mobilization in the region and the specific forms it takes in each country as an expression of its unique socio-state configurations. Within this network of relationships, it is important to examine the diverse forms of youth political participation in their attitudinal and behavioral dimensions, including forms of collective action deployed in the context of the pandemic.

Coordination: Dr. Melina Vázquez and Dr. Pablo Vommaro

CLASS 13: Youth and socio-state regulations in the pandemic

Instructors: Dr. Melina Vázquez and Dr. Pablo Vommaro

From the outset of the pandemic, the importance of nation-states in addressing the health crisis and its social, economic, and political effects became evident. However, the approaches taken in each country of Latin America and the Caribbean showed substantial differences. The objective of this course is to analyze the forms of socio-state intervention developed in different countries of the region, exploring the extent to which these actions incorporate a generational perspective in their design and implementation. In other words, we propose to analyze whether the forms of crisis regulation recognize, on the one hand, young people as a specific social group and, on the other hand, whether they address the heterogeneities that permeate this social group. 

CLASS 14: From Guardianship to the Right to the Future. Trajectories, Disputes, and Evanescence of Public Youth Policies

Instructor: Dr. José Antonio Pérez Islas

A historical and conceptual review will be conducted of the various conceptions of public policies in Latin American states and their consequences for youth populations. The transformation of challenges in the face of young people's demands and the disputes and possibilities of current political directions will be presented, highlighting the advantages of a conception based on the concept of public action. The discussion will conclude with the challenges emerging in the first half of the 21st century. The following themes will be explored: What is a youth policy?; From historical to current models ; Approaches and practices; The transformations of paradoxical youth worlds; The directions of public policies; Public action in the field of youth; The future of the right to a future.

CLASS 15: Youth issues on the public agenda: youth organizations and policies

Instructor: Diego Beretta, M.Sc.

Conceptual summary of the class  

This course aims to reconstruct and analyze the process of constructing youth issues within public policy, a process involving diverse actors who contribute their perspectives, interests, and resources. Within this framework, it will focus particularly on the positions taken by the State, the influence of international organizations, and the actors of civil society; their interactions, negotiations, struggles, and disputes surrounding youth issues. It also seeks to discuss and explore approaches, perspectives, and orientations for socio-state interventions with and by young people, based on a situated and contextual analysis of experiences from youth organizations and policies in Latin America and the Caribbean. Special attention will be given to policy implementation mechanisms from a multi-scalar, intergovernmental, and participatory perspective.

To participate, it is essential that you register using the online form.

Upon completion of the registration process, you will receive a confirmation in your email.

Classes will begin in June and will conclude in September 2024.

All registered participants will receive the necessary instructions to access the classes, bibliography and discussion forums through the CLACSO Virtual Training Space.

Accessing and navigating the Virtual Learning Environment is very simple and user-friendly. In any case, a technical and academic support team will always be available to you.

Exceptional Criteria: In exceptional cases, and within the first month of the start of the Advanced Diploma program, students may request to withdraw from the cohort and rejoin the following year. In all cases, the reasons for the request must be submitted in writing. After this initial period, no requests will be accepted.

Money paid will only be refunded in cases where the organizing institutions decide to cancel the activity. 

Payment can be made in one installment by credit card, bank deposit, or bank transfer. We also offer the option of paying in 3 installments.

Yes. There will be discounts for students belonging to CLACSO Member Centers and CLACSO Associated Centers, for CLACSO Associate Researchers, and for all those who pay within the discount period.