Doctoral thesis defense

Today, Cecilia Inés Suárez, EDO member, defended the PhD dissertation “Indigenous Students’ Persistence in Latin American Higher Education Institutions”, co-directed by Dr. Joaquín Gairín and Dr. Diego Castro, both EDO members. The thesis court in charge to evaluate her thesis, which has the International recognition, has been presided by Dr. Fabio Dovigo (U. degli Studi di Bergamo, Italia), with Dr. Asunción Manzanares (U. de Castilla la Mancha) as spokesman and Patricia Olmos (U. Autónoma de Barcelona) as a secretary, who gave her an Excellent 'Cum Laude'. 

The Thesis defended has as a main purpose to contribute to improve indigenous students’ permanence in higher education institutions, assuming that this constitutes a central moment of the educational journey, not only in terms of academic achievement and graduation but also as a clear index of social justice. It’s been developed through a multiple case study, with qualitative and quantitative techniques, where 6 universities have participated (3 from Peruvian context and 3 from Mexican context).

As a main result, we designed a model for the persistence of indigenous students in Latin American universities based on the data collected in this study. Although it cannot be generalized, it is expected that this proposal offers a figure that illustrates the reality of the Indigenous students’ persistence per the findings of this study.

For further information: https://goo.gl/63fmsC