Logical positivism and its impact on contemporary traditional educational models in Latin American institutions

Abstract

Logical positivism ceased to function as a unified philosophical programme after the mid-twentieth century. Nevertheless, several of its epistemological assumptions—priority of verifiable observation, fact–value separation, search for general laws, operationalisation of variables, and preference for measurement—continue indirectly within traditional educational models in Latin America. This review critically examines how these traces appear in curriculum organisation, transmissive teaching, standardised assessment, teacher authority, and indicator-based governance. A structured documentary review was conducted of publications issued between 2021 and May 2026 and retrieved from UNESCO, OECD, World Bank, IDB, UNICEF repositories and Latin American academic journals. Twenty-five sources met criteria of thematic relevance, recency, traceability and regional coverage. Findings indicate an ambivalent impact: positivist rationality supports comparability, diagnosis and accountability, yet becomes reductive when indicators are mistaken for the whole of learning, knowledge is represented as neutral and finished, and cultural differences are treated as methodological noise. Persistence does not amount to simple doctrinal continuity; it is an institutional sedimentation reproduced through prescriptive curricula, examinations, bureaucracies and teacher education. The review concludes that overcoming these limits does not require abandoning quantitative evidence, but integrating it with formative assessment, dialogue, situated inquiry, interculturality and student participation.