Nicaragua: Youth Culture, Literacy, and Media

Explore Nicaragua a generation after the Revolution and investigate how today’s youth are creatively advocating for change.

A generation ago, the Nicaraguan Revolution ushered in new conversations about human rights, religion, politics, and gender roles. The National Literacy Campaign, launched in 1980, in particular, empowered underprivileged Nicaraguans to become knowledgeable about their rights and to imagine — and demand — a better world for themselves. Important movements in literature and the arts accompanied these changes, and new voices emerged as protest and hopes were expressed in myriad creative genres.

For today's youth, life is more peaceful, but these conversations — around literacy, rights, access, information, and expression — have only grown in complexity. With the advent of new forms of media, concepts of literacy have even broader implications and impacts.

In this 16-credit program, students will critically examine youth culture, advocacy, social change, and expression, across two generations in Nicaragua. All coursework is delivered in Spanish — see program syllabi.

Key topics of study:

How is Nicaragua — particularly its youth — grappling with issues of access, rights, and difference? How is youth culture considering questions of access (to education, healthcare, and digital media) and issues of difference (ethnic, sexual, class, and religious)?
How are today’s youth rewriting and re-imagining Nicaragua? How are youth expressions and articulations building upon the theme of literacy introduced during the revolution? What forms of new media are being employed?

Through the program’s advanced Spanish seminar — focused on reading and writing — students will immerse themselves in the politically charged poetry and literature of this fascinating country, dialoguing these with popular and political texts. Students will be completely immersed in Spanish throughout the program.

The Research Methods and Ethics Seminar will provide students with qualitative skills and introduce them to arts-based research techniques; the seminar will cover a range of digital media (visual and audio). Through an Independent Study Project, students will explore a specific issue related to youth culture and expression.

Throughout the program, students will engage with a wide range of Nicaraguan academics, historians, advocates, community members, and youth. Review program faculty and staff.

Browse this program's Independent Study Projects/Undergraduate Research

Spotlight on SIT Nicaragua alumni

Read fall 2012 student Briana Frenchmore's blog story titled Revolutionary Learning: Reflections on My Program's Excursion in Nicaragua and Beyond.

Learn how Oberlin student Mariella Castaldi (Fall 09) began speaking out on immigration, mining, worker compensation, and other pressing issues, following her semester in Nicaragua with SIT.

"What are we doing here?" a film co-created by SIT Study Abroad Alum, Daniel Klein, recently premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival. This controversial look at the international aid industry in Africa was also featured on CNN's Inside Africa - watch the video clip on YouTube.

Program alum Mindy Bridges (fall 2010) wins essay contest and $1000 prize for her ISP on a Culture of Peace in rural Nicaragua. Mindy tied for first place in CU-Boulder’s Dean Reed Peace Prize Essay Contest.