The Latin American Doctorate in Education: an experience of internationalization and academic migration in postgraduate studies

Abstract

This article presents the experience of exchange and migration of Latin American and Caribbean students in the field of the Latin American Doctorate in Education: Public Policies and Teaching Profession (DLA), developed at the Federal University of Minas Gerais. This experience is the result of an international agreement, signed in 2008 between 11 universities from 8 countries and with the intervention of UNESCO and the Kipus Network. The course was implemented in 2010 at UFMG, and has allowed the meeting of 61 students, 29 Brazilians and 32 from other countries of the South. The analysis was based on a documentary study and on the responses to questionnaires applied to graduates of the program and sought to understand the meanings of a high-level postgraduate degree in education, with a Latin American perspective. The DLA offers free and quality training, which guarantees that its students can develop their studies, connect with another language and culture and from there contribute new elements for research in public policies and education. The meetings fostered by this program have contributed to the training of researchers with a broad and critical regional vision of the educational issue, strengthening long-lasting ties of cooperation and work. In addition, this experience introduced in the Brazilian postgraduate program the need to establish solid relationships with Latin American scientific theoretical production in education, also leading the training of Brazilian teachers to the task of guiding thesis from comparative perspectives in Latin America.