Mexican Secondary Education Reform and Epistemologies of the South: Toward a Practice of Sustainable Democratic-Ecological Citizenship

• In Event: Latin America sustainable education: involving all the stakeholders

Proposal

This paper asks and answers the following research questions:

--What did the Mexican reform of Mexican secondary education in 2006-2009 hope to accomplish, especially in the way of creating a new policy process and new forms of democratic participation, and why did it largely fail to achieve its goals?
--How has Mexican secondary education policy changed in the 10 years since, and what are the prospects for democratic citizenship education?
--How can a more radically pluralistic, ecologically oriented citizenship education, based as much on epistemologies of the South as on Northern ideals of civic autonomy, be introduced into ongoing reforms?

The paper draws on my extensive fieldwork on the secondary education reform process in Mexico in 2007-2008 (The secundaria, as it is known, is the “lower secondary ” level, Grades 7-9, that completes the basic education cycle in Mexico). This fieldwork consisted of a reconstruction of the policy formation process at the federal level (2001-2006), and a comparison of how 2 different Mexican states were rolling out the reform that year (2007-08). Dozens of interviews were conducted in each state with policymakers, bureaucrats, administrators, and teachers, and observations were conducted at a range of some 6-8 different types of secundaria in each state, including small rural “technical” or agricultural secundarias and large urban ones. The research also included extensive interviews and documentary research with policymakers, bureaucrats, and teacher trainers at the federal level.

Methodologically, this work aligns with the “vertical case study” approach of L. Bartlett and F. Vavrus. Conceptually and theoretically, this work rests on a critical sociology and anthropology of education policy (Bradley Levinson et al; Stephen Ball; etc. ) to examine how power operates in the formation and “appropriation” of policies by differently situated actors. In this paper, I present some of my findings and diagnose theoretically the structural and cultural impediments to successful implementation of secondary education reform during the latter portion of the 2000 decade. The 2006 reform included a number of elements that made it unprecedentedly participatory and open to civil society input. (The language of democracy and democratic citizenship was used frequently in describing and enacting the reform.)

I then bring the audience up to date about subsequent generations of reform, which have focused much less on democracy and more on accountability, assessment, and meritocratic teacher training and hiring. Finally, and most importantly, I draw upon some of the lessons learned from the earlier failed reform; in light of a newly elected, progressive presidential administration taking power at the end of 2018, I reflect on the possibilities for returning to earlier emphases on democratic citizenship and policy formation, and building further upon participatory and deliberative modes of education. In particular, I draw upon new work acknowledging the importance of “epistemologies of the South” (B. de Sousa Santos, R.W. Connell) and the “arts of living on a damaged planet” (A.L. Tsing et al.) necessary to now include other living beings and even inanimate objects into the horizon of democratic citizenship. Given human-induced climate change, pollution, and growing global inequalities, now more than ever we need to bring citizenship education into dialogue with practices of ecological awareness and “sustainable development.” One important route for doing so is to recognize existing discourses, practices, and ways of knowing that have been forged historically through anti-colonial and anti-capitalist struggle in the Latin America. I draw upon recent Spanish-English translation work to bring forth some of the most powerful and relevant scholarly voices in Latin America, representing “Southern epistemologies,” and to suggest how such knowledge can and ought to be incorporated into educational curriculum and practices that bridge school and community democratic citizenship formation for the future.

Author

• Bradley Levinson, Indiana University