An expansive movement comprised of UN Millennium Development Goals, international banks, and hundreds of programs worldwide promotes access to the arts as a creative means of social change. Often grounded in cognitive science and inspired by the model of youth orchestras in Venezuela known as El Sistema, this movement contends that arts…

Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), we explored how educational leaders and policymakers in Mexico, Peru, Chile, and Argentina address complex issues while responding to -- and in fact, developing -- broader understandings (discourses) on the role of higher education in Latin America. Fairclough's (1993) theory of discourse underscores that…