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The politics of rural school reform: Escuela Nueva in Colombia

This article explores the history and politics of rural school reform in Colombia, focusing on the Escuela Nueva programme. In particular, it assesses the motivations of the Colombian State in promoting a comprehensive reform of its rural schools. We argue that Colombia's unique political context was, in large part, responsible for its novel approach to school reform. As the political context shifted, however, so to did the State's posture to rural schooling. We track the Escuela Nueva programme through three phases (grassroots, formalized and decoupled) to demonstrate how social actors, their interests at a specific point in time, and the distribution of power among them, are crucial elements for understanding the motivation and outcomes of social policy making. In other words, this research portrays education reform as a dynamic process that is continuously shaped and reshaped as political actors and institutions compete for influence and scarce resources in a variable social arena.