Population education programs in Latin America and the Caribbean are traced from their first inception around 1970 and express the diversity of strategies that would be appropriate to the variety of cultures development styles climates and geography. In the early 1970s this region had the highest growth rates in the world. The thinking embodied the notion that large populations were a sign of progress and geopolitical power; size was relevant only to the physical space available. The connections between population and economic development were not being made explicitly in policy or sectoral planning. There was some contention surrounding urban growth and the ability to meet the needs and the imbalance in the age structure. Initially educational sectors did not take population into accounting; international agencies were responsible for promoting attention to demographics. It was the medical profession that mobilized the education sector to start sex and family education due to the increasing number of abortions and their consequences. By 1974 education departments were engaged in curricula that included sex and family life issues in teacher education and training staff to implement these programs. The demographic situation has changed over the past 20 years and not includes reduced mortality and the beginning of fertility decline. Growth rates are now 1.9% annually compared with 2.8% in 1970 and population increases by 9 million/year. Population education is described in terms of styles motivations human resources administrative awareness teacher training training strategies and research needs and future management. Population education has advanced but the need is still there to reduce fertility among large numbers of people who "leave procreation to chance and fate." Education serves the purpose of changing values attitudes and knowledge that entails a different view of the value of children the relations between the sexes and the adoption and practice of effective birth control. Education has already been shown to be effective in reducing infant mortality. The challenge ahead is to educate the poorer social and economic classes and Indian groups that lack knowledge of preventive hygiene and believe fatalistically that deaths are natural and unavoidable. Development models must accommodate population issues.