Examples of Resistance and Struggle: Oaxaca’s Teachers Fighting for Justice

• In Event: Part One: Teachers’ Unions, Educator Organizing, and Global Struggles for Educational Justice

Proposal

For over 40 years, on May 15, Mexico’s Day of the Teacher, teachers in Oaxaca have gathered to strike in the state capital, taking over the central square in what has become a traditional and familiar part of life in this part of Mexico. Though each year the focus of the strike has changed and evolved, a common theme since the late 1970s is a demand for equality and justice. Drawing on a range of qualitative data, including over 50 interviews, ethnographic observations, and archival analysis from material over the last decade, this paper argues that teachers in Oaxaca view the fight for justice as central to their roles as educators, and in some cases as even more important than classroom pedagogy. While in the late 20th century, the movement’s focus was primarily on improving working conditions for teachers in the rural areas of southern Mexico, an increasingly global lens, along with critiques of capitalism and imperialism, expanded the teachers’ movement to focus on improving the living conditions of all peoples in Oaxaca, and Mexico more broadly.

In this century, teachers in Oaxaca have also expanded their focus to reject national education reforms that favor technical certifications, universal evaluation protocols, and funding models tied to privatization and achievement, arguing that such educational reforms are rooted in foreign practices or global norms that threaten Oaxaca’s professional and regional autonomy. Teachers in Oaxaca today view their local resistance as an existential need in the face of an authoritarian Mexican government that cannot be trusted, and offer an alternate vision in which citizens, civil society, and other organizations support one another through ongoing protest and mobilizations. This solidarity often galvanizes the teachers’ movements calls for justice and rejections of impunity for those they accuse of crimes against the public, such as former governors and state officials who used police force to violently disband protests or other manifestations.

As nations grapple with the effects and demands of global capitalism and international development models, this case demonstrates how teachers become essential as political and national actors, turning their political power against the state, in the name of protecting collective bargaining, the right to public education, or the freedoms of speech and assembly. The struggle of Oaxaca’s teachers also illustrates how teachers can assert professional autonomy and protect localized identities to resist the homogenizing effects of education reforms claiming to “improve” education. This paper thus offers important insights into the intersections of teacher professionalism and global educational policy, and amplifies the voices of teachers fighting for social justice, equity, and democratic rights.

Author

• Christian A Bracho