This research attempts to answer the question why the responses to the neoliberal legacy adopted by Evo Morales and Rafael Correa, in the field of education, were so different. These were two governments generally categorized with the same parameters, as examples of the 鈥減ink wave鈥�, a leftist current in Latin America in the 1990s (Alc谩ntara, 2008; Weyland, 2009; Moreira et al. 2008). And yet, whereas the project of Correa and his administration focused on modernization of schools, and on responding to demands for redistribution, in Bolivia, Morales focused on the demands of recognition. To address this topic, this study started with a historical exploration. State projects in the field of education in Ecuador, in spite of shifts in orientation, were constant in their attempts to increase access to education and to build universalist citizenship (Arcos, 2008 Ponce, 2006). In Bolivia the quest, rather, was to differentiate education, and have a different offer for the 鈥渕estizos鈥� and for the indigenous (Talavera, 2011). The two cases demonstrate its limits when it comes to doing justice in the redistributive, recognition and representation spheres. The empirical review of this research also shows us that the different demands of Latin American citizens – increasingly plural, diverse and complex – cannot be echoed in a weakened nation-state inserted in the global logics that make up its economic and social system.