The OECD, the vehicularity of ideas, “wormholes,” and the 2018 initial teacher education curricular reform in Mexico

• In Event: Highlighted Session: Globalization and teacher education I: Ideologies, agents and policies

Proposal

Far too often emerging research concerning initial teacher education in Mexico is approached, framed, and studied through a lens which views its agents, structures, relationships, discourses, and their outcomes as nationally determined. However, as [Authors] (2021) and Ornelas (2018) have pointed out, this view is highly unlikely to exist in reality considering that since the mid-1980s this country has expanded and intensified its relationships with other nations and international organizations, giving rise to what can be best described as a complex set of global governance relationships and outcomes. Thus, there is a need for research underpinned by globalization theory that delves into what is occurring at different scales and settings in initial teacher education in this developing nation.
To this end, this paper examines the connections between the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the 2018 initial teacher education curricular reform in Mexico. In contrast to more top-down accounts of the influence of global ideas on national education systems and settings, we argue that McLennan and Osborne’s (2003) concept of “vehicular ideas” – by which they mean ideas on the move – provides us with a more nuanced understanding of the influence of the OECD in Mexico. By tracing the movement of ideational projects like PISA over time and space, we show the OECD’s influence: (i) can take circuitous routes including via other territorially located projects; (ii) is highly contingent on contexts; and (iii) is constitutive of an assemblage of policy that involves multiple scaled actors, interests, and projects.
To make our argument, we draw upon official policy documents and interview data with education policy actors from the 2012–2018 federal administration in Mexico. A series of distinct, yet related, initiatives are examined. First, in legislative terms, the rise of the 2018 teacher education curricular reform is linked to earlier broader 2012–2013 education reform. Second, against this backdrop, a new curriculum for teacher education was created to train teacher students to meet the needs of the curriculum for basic education that arose as part of the 2016 Education Model, whose provenance was rooted in developments in Singapore that incorporated responses to PISA. Singapore also served as a central reference for Mexico because of its prominent position in PISA league tables. In sum, our analysis of the vehicularity of the OECD’s ideas suggests they at times take surprising routes which, like “wormholes” enabling shortcuts between different universes, connect seemingly disparate and discrete initiatives over space and time.

Authors

• Israel Moreno Salto, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California

• Susan Lee Robertson, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge