Interactive Learning Spaces and Development Policies in Latin America

The emergent “learning economy” is truly global in the sense that it deeply affects the whole world. The emergence of “learning societies”, though, is a process that takes place only in some regions, the patterns followed by this highly complex social process being far from converging. The fact that some societies are becoming learning societies and others are hardly following that type of path is the new and most relevant feature of the development-underdevelopment divide: this is the “learning divide” which is studied in the paper. A main point at stake is that learning is bounded to having opportunities to learn, which are related with access to education and also with possibilities to apply knowledge creatively while interacting in problem solving activities.. The name “interactive learning spaces” is proposed to describe these opportunities. We study them from a Latin American point of view.