Hitomi Kudo - Appointed in AY2025

My "encounter" with Latin America began in high school when I was interested in international cooperation and visited JICA as part of a school career day event. Listening to the JICA staff, I learned that Spanish is spoken in many Latin American countries. This led me to choose Spanish as my second foreign language in college. Also in high school, I read a series of articles in the education section of a newspaper written by a sociologist of education about Japan's education system, which sparked my interest in the field of education that questions education itself. Combining "Spanish (Latin America)" and "rethinking conventional wisdom on children and education," I majored in comparative education in college and wrote my graduation thesis on the movement in Peru "demanding the right for children to work."

Recently, I have been researching policies to correct disparities in educational opportunities in Chile. In Chile, the marketization and privatization of education have been advancing since the 1980s under the military regime. While the deregulation of the establishment of schools and universities quantitatively expanded educational opportunities, it has become a problem that the type of school or university one can attend is determined by their family's socioeconomic background. In response to this situation, policies were introduced in the 2010s, including a ban on schools charging fees and selecting students for admission, as well as a policy making higher education free for students up to the middle-income bracket. However, these policies alone do not seem to have had a significant impact on the situation where the school or university one attends is determined by their socioeconomic background.

Although a direct comparison cannot be made, I believe the case of Chile is also highly suggestive for Japan.

When you conduct fieldwork, you may notice things that you wouldn't have found on the internet or in books. Discoveries can be made in various situations—not just through formal interviews and school visits, but also from the titles of books sold in bookstores, the appearance of people on the street, the atmosphere of the city, and conversations with people you meet. I hope that all of you students, after gathering sufficient information from the internet and books, will encounter the "reality" that falls through the cracks of materials organized by others or by AI, and learn from unexpected events through your daily life, travels, and study abroad experiences.