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This dissertation offers a comprehensive account of the Círculos de Aprendizaje / Learning Circles program and the complexity of its implementation by exploring how the program responds to marginalized students' needs and how the students and staff understand their participation in the program. Círculos de Aprendizaje is an adaptation of the Escuela Nueva / New School model, a well-known program in Colombia and internationally; its novelty is that it reaches marginalized populations, especially internally displaced children, who have been out of the educational system for at least 6 months. Its general purpose is to re-integrate these children into the educational system by reestablishing their social and emotional stability and offering them a quality education.
This study was designed as a qualitative vertical case study (Bartlett & Vavrus, 2009) in order to address different levels of analysis while contrasting different cases. The macro level focused on connections between Círculos de Aprendizaje and Colombian educational policy, the meso level focused on the program's structure and the influence of program's operators and different contexts in its implementation, and the micro level focused on understanding staff and students' perspectives and classroom realities. Following a maximum variation criteria (Maxwell, 2005), the study included four different regions in Colombia.
The findings show important advances in terms of the Colombian educational policy but also a gap between policy intentions and the structure and implementation of the program. In addition, there is evidence of the need to rethink and restructure not only the way the program is implemented but the program in itself in order to maximize its resources and to reach its goals. Finally, findings also show that the program is a significant experience for people involved, particularly children. The role of the Ministry of Education in the program's implementation stood out as a critical one and the document includes specific recommendations for how to improve its involvement and also improve the program itself. The study offers information to policymakers and practitioners, grounded in the everyday experiences of the challenges and possibilities of a program aimed to restore the right to education of marginalized children.