Training of male and female directors, a factor (another) of inequality in Latin America

Abstract

Latin America is the most unequal region in the world, and that inequality is mirrored in the educational system and the unequal learning of the students. Moreover, it can be said that Latin American educational systems reproduce and legitimize the social differences, and even contribute to widening the gap of inequity.
Due to the increasing importance being given to school management and, thereby forming male and female directors, in this article we study if the initial and specialized training of these professionals is a factor of inequality, analysing their differences according to various socio-demographic factors that generate inequality. For this we have conducted a secondary exploitation of the latest available data from serce, analysing the differences in initial  and ongoing formation, and the experience of directors from 17 countries in Latin America, depending on the rural or urban environment, the socioeconomic and cultural status the student´s families and the percentage of students attending from indigenous population. The results show that directors working in rural schools, with families of lower socioeconomic and cultural level and most students of the indigenous population, have less initial and specialized training than their colleagues. All this points out to the need of a change in education policy based on the idea of giving more support and resources to schools that need it most, like the only way to reduce the gap of social inequality.