Higher Education Paradoxes in Nicaragua: Are Universities Fostering or Constraining Critical Thinking Space toward Development?

This research paper is about the political economy of education. In Nicaragua, universities historically represented important sites for revolutionary processes fostering critical thinking and action towards different systems of oppression. Nevertheless, the advances of neoliberalism since the 90ths, plus the comeback of the Sandinista party with a governance characterized by different human rights defenders as repressive and antidemocratic opens the question whether there is still space for critical thinking inside higher education. Using Critical Pedagogy as the analytical framework and an interpretative methodology, this research papers aims to explore how and why the space for critical thinking on development in Nicaraguan universities fluctuated in recent years. Some of the main findings illustrate an important historical shift about the role of public and private universities in Nicaragua. In addition, it shows the fundamental role that social movement and informal education plays on fostering a critical vision towards development.