Curriculum Reform and 21st-Century Skills in Mexico: Are Standards and Teacher Training Materials Aligned?

• In Event: 46.047 - Education for the 21st Century: A Six-Country Examination of National Curricular Frameworks and Priorities

Abstract

Purpose
In a similar trend to other countries, Mexico recently introduced in their national curriculum a definition of 21st century skills. However, an open debate remains about how these skills were defined, and how this inclusion may result in changes in instructional practices and student learning. This paper aims to analyze how 21st century skills were defined and conceptualized in the new curriculum, prior to measuring the alignment between standards, learning goals, and teacher training materials.

Perspectives
In the debate about the redefinition of the goals of educational systems, and the new skills and competencies that students will need to survive in a global society, more reflections are needed about two aspects that may need further attention in the educational research agenda. In a first place, it is important to discuss how the redefinition of skills and the emphasis in 21st century skills in national curriculums in developing countries may result in new gaps and unintended effects in the operation of educational systems. In addition, it is necessary to learn more about the challenges this type of curriculum reform may create to educational systems with deep inequity problems. The recent implementation of this reform in Mexico opens a window to address both aspects.

Method and data
Data to be used in this paper is the new national curriculum for primary education level, the implementation guidelines, and teacher-training materials. Content analysis has been conducted, based on the identification of concepts associated with the classification of 21st century skills suggested by Pellegrino, et al. (2012). Once occurrence of concepts within these materials is observed, curriculum frameworks were coded and analyzed to investigate the alignment among standards, learning goals, and suggested instructional practices, based on an adapted version of the indices of alignment suggested by Porter (2002).

Results and conclusions
As it has been suggested in previous reports (Ananiadou and Claro, 2009), there are serious restrictions on how the 21st century skills are defined and understood among policymakers. Mexico is not an exception, and the definition of 21st century skills are mostly oriented towards a limited sample of competencies including cognitive (mostly information literacy), intrapersonal (artistic appreciation, appreciation for diversity), and inter-personal (communication, collaboration, and teamwork). In addition to this limited set of competencies considered as 21st century skills, a misalignment is found between learning goals and suggested instructional practices, pointing out some of the challenges in the implementation of the curriculum reform in the coming years.

Significance
This paper is a first step to evaluate the implementation of a curriculum reform including a definition of 21st century skills. Analysis of how these skills were defined and the estimation of alignment between standards, learning goals, and suggested instructional practices, provide additional evidence to understand some of the challenges this type of reforms may face.

Author

• Sergio Cardenas, Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas