Community-Based Indigenous Secondary Schools: Pluriversal Education From Practice to Policy

• In Event: Current Issues in Postcolonial Studies in Education

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a pluriversal education model is practiced and its integration in national education policy, through using Community-Based Indigenous Secondary Schools (Secundarias Comunitarias Indígenas - SECOIN) in Oaxaca as a case study. The model centers around the concept of comunalidad, that reflects the communal-centered cosmovision of Oaxacan Indigenous communities. Through ethnographic data, the article presents the following findings: first, SECOIN exemplifies how a pluriversal education is modeled reflecting the Oaxacan communities’ vision, through creating a space for epistemic pluralism. Second, the model’s accreditation process acts as a “political strategy for pluriversal transition” (Escobar 2020), where SECOIN negotiates the blurred lines of autonomy and political legitimacy, with the goal of a decolonial Mexican education system.

Author

• Madalina Ciocanu, Teachers College, Columbia University