10. THE REACH AND POSSIBILITIES OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM FOR THE RURAL POOR IN MEXICO

Abstract

After Jomtien¹ under the goal of providing “education for all” a great number of countries made a strong commitment to extend the benefits of education to the poorest sectors of their population. Efforts have been made in the following years to fulfill this promise. But the issues associated with understanding and addressing disadvantaged populations are multiple and complex. Moreover the strategies followed by a number of countries have been framed under structural assumptions inherently limiting and undermining the intentions of the policies that gave them origin. Seeking to understand the challenges and complexities of change in these contexts, I analyze Mexico's assumptions framing educational policy toward the rural and indigenous poor.² I argue that a number of initiatives may fail to fully address the needs of these populations due to the assumptions underlying these policies which end up resting agency to the poor, their children, and to their teachers and schools. After describing the theoretical framework used in this chapter and providing a brief description of Mexico's political economy, I examine Mexico's past and current government policies toward the poor and look at the spaces that have opened up for innovation due to growing relationships with the global economy and the global community and to relationships between Mexico's central and local governments. I suggest that compulsory early childhood education is one obvious avenue (complementing policies such as Federalizacion and teacher education) to correct centuries of injustice and neglect. I discuss the implications of this analysis within the context of the current decentralization movement and the growing discontent among the rural poor.

Citation

Tatto, M.T. (2004), "10. THE REACH AND POSSIBILITIES OF EDUCATIONAL REFORM FOR THE RURAL POOR IN MEXICO", Camp Yeakey, C., Richardson, J. and Brooks Buck, J. (Ed.) Suffer The Little Children (Advances in Education in Diverse Communities, Vol. 4), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 231-252. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1479-358X(04)04010-0