Transition to School in Latin American Countries: Introducing some perspectives and experiences

In this chapter, we introduce a book on the transition to school in Latin American countries. This book showcases some of the quality work that researchers from Brazil, Chile, Cuba, and Mexico have done in this field, reflecting how the tran-sition to primary school is experienced and how Latin American educational pol-icies and cultural practices shape such an important process for stakeholders. The book offers the English-speaking world first-hand access to some Latin Ameri-can transitions research, practices, and policies. The chapters in the book are also framed by the COVID-19 pandemic which placed the world in a global health emergency. The authors of the chapters themselves faced a number of challenges as a result of the pandemic when writing this material. It is our hope that this book will trigger future international collaborations between researchers, policy makers, and practitioners interested in transitions which could help produce a wealth of empirical evidence to inform educational policies and transitions prac-tices across the world. This chapter introduces the reader to all the chapters in the book.