Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
, in Anderson-Levitt, Kathryn
(ed). Mapping Anthropologies of Education. A Global Guide to Ethnographic
Studies of Learning and Schooling. Oxford, New York: Bergham Books. 362
pp. ISBN: 978-0-85745-273-3
The past two decades have seen considerable diversification and increase in anthropological
studies on education in Mexico.1 In this review, we privilege studies engaging concepts such as
culture, language, ethnicity, and power from an anthropological perspective, however we also
include ethnographic research on education informed by other disciplines insofar as it has
provided important references for anthropologists studying educational processes; in fact,
disciplinary boundaries are quite arbitrary. We include only research based in Mexico,
regrettably omitting studies done by Mexicans in other countries2 and reference to scholars from
other countries deeply involved in research in Mexico.
Anthropological engagement with education began in the 1930s in close contact with the
indigenista policies and practices for integrating indigenous peoples. In
the 1970s anthropologists challenged those policies, and in 1987 Guillermo Bonfil published his
controversial book (Mxico Profundo) arguing, against the ideology of mestizaje, that the
Mesoamerican heritage had strongly configured the nation. During these years, scholars initiated
research projects on education, primarily at CISINAH/CIESAS and at the DIE/Cinvestav in
Mexico City. Since then the field has expanded to other institutions, in dialogue with leading
anthropological trends in the country. Nevertheless, within institutional anthropology in Mexico
(associations, graduate programs, publications), the study of education is less consolidated than
topics such as ethnicity, migration, medicine, or religion; rather the field has developed in close
107
relation with other educational sciences. In this context, a significant interdisciplinary venue has
been the Interamerican Symposium on Ethnographic Research in Education inaugurated in 1990,
which has been held five times in Mxico (e.g., Calvo et al. 1998).
and
within rural and urban contexts of social, cultural and ethnic diversity. By emphasizing the
hegemonic and counter-hegemonic processes that take place in this arena, including the power
struggles of new political subjects, research has shown the constant negotiation, contestation, and
manipulation of diverse meanings of education. Anthropologists in Mexico continue to engage in
public debates surrounding educational policies that deepen the inequalities of the school system
and social structure. In doing so, they have given new import to the concepts of culture, power,
identity and indigenous rights, and increasingly approach education as a cultural process that
extends far beyond schooling.
Methodological Approaches
As in other countries, in Mexico, methodological and theoretical convergence marks the field,
making any clear delimitation between anthropological studies and other qualitative research
difficult. The fundamental approach in the studies reviewed has been ethnography, understood as
research that involves extended field work in one locale, engagement with local knowledge and
meaning, and theoretically grounded descriptions of socio-cultural processes. Books on the
ethnographic perspective in education have been published by Maria Bertely (2000) and Elsie
Rockwell (2009), and several articles by other scholars. Nevertheless, it is important to note that
109
this approach has been complemented by others: discourse analysis, in-depth interviews, public
policy studies, archival research and oral history all figure importantly in the work reviewed
below. Furthermore, an emerging trend stresses collaborative research and native authoring or
co-authoring. In this line it is noteworthy that a growing number of dissertations are written by
indigenous scholars, including Refugio Nava, Fernando Garca, Juan Julian, Lucas Ramrez, and
Rafael Cardoso.
Thematic Lines
Our review of 95 published books, 157 chapters and articles, 46 doctoral dissertations and 64
3
found in this field revealed nine thematic lines which we now summarize.4
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research on the dynamic and contradictory interplay of cultural resources and meanings on the
boundaries between schooling and other social contexts. Recent studies by her students describe
facets or this interface in different settings: Gilberto Prez (2005) detailed the co-construction of
non-formal courses on child-rearing practices for mothers, while Florencia Ortega (2006)
discovered
influences on imagined future careers, and Octavio Falconi (2003) articulated writing practices
111
elaboration of popular culture in the classroom. Valeria Rebolledo and Teresita Prez centered
their theses on the experiences of indigenous families and teachers with dominant language
schooling, and these studies all drew on alternative concepts of culture and learning in the
anthropological and socio-cultural traditions.
Studies on universities constitute a special category, where the lines between qualitative
and ethnographic research tend to be diffuse. While early research by Larisa Adler-Lomnitz and
her students drew on anthropological theory to characterize the transmission of the scientific
ethos in peripheral countries, later qualitative studies on higher education, reviewed by Mario
Rueda (2007), many focusing on instructional methods and personal trajectories, are informed
rather by sociological and curricular theory. The work of Eduardo Remedi (2008) and his
students has been significant, although he inscribes it in socio-psychology and institutional
analysis. An important exception to this trend is the anthropology study of Luis Arturo vila
(2003) which contrasted two private colleges, as alternative projects based on cultural selections
of regional values.
historically constructed nature of this work, to be understood on its own terms, rather than with
reference to prescriptive or evaluative models. In recent research, Ruth Mercado (2002) has
deepened her analysis of reflexive, multi-voiced saberes docentes (teaching knowledges) and the
continuous transformative appropriations of educational resources, and with her students
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reforms. Teacher training has been another theme of recent research, with studies of Normal
schools and training programs undertaken by Mercado (1997) and Patricia Medina (2000).
Inquiry on the multidimensional identity processes and organizational cultures of teachers
continues to occupy an important place. Susan Street (1996, 2000, 2001) and her students
(Jimnez L. 2003, Flor Bermdez) have worked on three successive teacher union movements
and their changing political positions and ideological frameworks, from trade-unionist identity to
use of trabajo docente as a political and cultural category. Street (2008) has stressed a gender
perspective in the study of teachers, as has Oresta Lpez, who is currently coordinating oral
histories on indigenous teachers. In Mexico, a particularly salient theme involves the
contradiction, tension and conflict within and around the teacher corps, which explain both the
reproduction and transformations of the system.
Classroom Ethnography
Researchers studying classroom interaction in Mexico have understood the need to integrate
discourse analysis with an anthropologically informed ethnographic approach. This has led to
novel studies, in which both student and teacher agency are situated in particular cultural
contexts and studied within classrooms characterized by historically constructed teaching
traditions. In this approach, knowledge of formal curricular contents is distinguished from
knowledge as represented in classrooms and co-constructed between teachers and students.
Antonia Candela has led this trend, through studies of science classes in which she stresses the
power of children to influence discourse (1999, 2005). She and her students (Naranjo and
Candela 2006) are currently using actor network and multimodal analyses to explore science
classes in elementary and university settings. Working from the related perspective of sociocultural psychology, Silvia Rojas (2000) and her colleagues have studied exploratory talk and
113
other discourse strategies in classrooms. Drawing on Bakhtin, Rockwell has contributed studies
on oral teaching genres (2000) and literacy practices (2006) in rural classrooms. Recent research
in this line is questioning the notion of classroom as a closed space
cultural, social, political and historical references influencing everyday dialogic teaching
processes.
formal schooling, Rockwell (2001) shows how indigenous adults have appropriated dominant
language literacy and used it for communal purposes. Judith Kalman (1999, 2004) has
contributed innovative studies on social literacies of Spanish speaking adults in several domains:
interaction with commercial scribes, domestic tasks, literacy classes and popular religion.
that
approaches learning as a process mediated by social and cultural factors that are not a direct
result of formal methods or modalities of teaching. It addresses socio-cultural aspects of
learning, in school, family and community contexts, and from interpretative traditions of cultural
anthropology and anthropological linguistics.
Ruth Paradise, initiator of this line in Mexico, has approached the socio-cultural styles of
learning of indigenous children using a concept of culture linked to non-verbal communication
and the practices of everyday life. Her work has analyzed various facets, such as observation,
autonomy, tacit collaboration (1996) and reciprocity (Paradise and de Haan 2009). Her students
have explored many aspects of indigenous education and school experience: Fernando Garca
(2007) studied the notion of respect in his own Quechua community, and Rafael Cardoso studied
the conception of learning in his Mixe community. Rosaura Galeana (2008) approached aspects
of intercultural learning among Mixtec migrant children, while Gabriela Czarny (2008) studied
the resignification of experiences schooling with three urban Triqui leaders. Other students
explored native uses of story-telling (Paloma Ramrez) and senses of time (Adriana Robles).
Pursuing a different lead, Cecilia Fierro (2005) privileged school cultures and the moral
115
discontinuities between family, community and school contexts, by stressing contrasting ways of
learning in and out of school (Paradise 1998, 2002).
Recent research by Lourdes de Len (2005), a noted linguist, is related to infant
socialization, and is located in the interdisciplinary dialogue between cultural anthropology,
sociolinguistics and developmental psychology. Her longitudinal study analyzes cultural
analyzed by Nancy Villanueva (2000), and by Ramos and Martnez and co-authors (2000).
However most worthy of note are the innovative collaborative and interpretative methodologies
used by Paloma Escalante in her study of identity processes of Guatemalan refugee children
(2006), and Rossana Podest (2006) in a collaborative study with children as co-authors. This
approach should appear more often in future research.
Youth Cultures
The salience of diverse youth cultures in the public domain has led to a number of
anthropological studies. Rossana Reguillo (2000) has used a variety of approaches to analyze the
construction of youth identities outside of school and their communicative and organizational
practices, documenting their counter-cultural potential as well as the socio-cultural and
ideologic
116
explores the sociocultural aspects involved in the gap in access to digital technology, the
cognitive mediation of the new technologies and their use in structured social contexts, and
Gladys Ortiz presented her thesis on the everyday appropriation of the internet by university
youth.
Studies conducted in this line by Eduardo Weiss and his students use hermeneutic
sociology in dialogue with ethnography and socio-cultural theory. While noting structural
elements, such as the fragmented character of knowledge and everyday school experience, Weiss
nevertheless sees high schools as a significant youth space
topic, but they are seen as youths, bearing special identities and giving meaning to their school
experience, which is considered not only in academic terms, but rather as an encounter and
exchange with peers and significant others (Weiss, et al. 2008). Dissertations in this line by
Irene
market, and ways in which youth re-signify the structural conditions that characterize their
school and their labor trajectories, including gender perspectives. The configuration of student
117
Adrian de Garay (2004) studied social identities and student experience as a complex, dynamic
and internally diverse social construct and Carlota Guzman (2007) used narratives to understand
the working lives of university students. Important collections of this research were edited by
Guzmn and Saucedo (2007) and Pia and Pontn (2002).
native communities. Bertely (2005, 2006a), who studied with de la Pea, analyzed ethnogenetic
processes surrounding the social history of schooling among Zapotecs of Yalalag, Oaxaca, and
their descendants in Mexico City, documenting the ethnic uses of Spanish and school knowledge
from different social positions. Dietz (1999) conceptualized the Purhpecha social movement as
an emerging social actor that reconstitutes itself through mythological temporalizations and uses
its symbolic resources to confront the modern liberal State and its educational policies.
Dissertations and publications in dialogue with this work approach various expressions of
ethnicity in and around educational spaces and policies. Benjamn Maldonado (2002) focused on
ethnic resistance and educational projects generated by ethno-political organization in Oaxaca.
Erika Gonzlez A. (2008) analyzed the landscape of intercultural education in the Mixe region of
Oaxaca as a political arena, and documented the roles of lobbying and political intermediation of
the Mixe professionals in ethnic appropriations of intercultural post-secondary education. The
practice and intermediation of bilingual teachers, professionals and native intellectuals, situated
between the state and indigenous schools, communities and organizations, has been further
documented in books on Mayo (P. Medina 2008), Mixtec (Ramos 1996), Tzotzil (Prez P. 2003)
and Zapotec communities (Jimnez N., 2009)
(Rosalba Prez V.), Mazahuas (Sergio Prez S.), Mixtec and Otom peoples (Mutsuo Nakamura),
Nahuas (Stefano Sartorello, Nelson Antequera), Purhpechas (Elizabeth Martnez B., Jerny
Gonzlez, Jaime Gonzlez), Tzotziles (Gloria Benavides) and Yaquis (Enriqueta Lerma).
Educational experiences designed from below as alternatives to official educational
policies, with participation of indigenous intellectuals, have been studied among Huicholes by
Anglica Rojas and Mixes by Gonzlez A. (2004). Theses by Kathia Nez, Ral Gutirrez and
Alicia Guerrero (directed by de Len and Podest) have addressed continuity between family
119
and school socialization, alternative educational practices and the confluence of indigenous
languages in the autonomous Zapatista communities and schools in Chiapas.
Some researchers used emergent perspectives based on the socio-cultural application of
communal learning, conceptualized as educational experiences structuring new identities. Mara
Ana Portal (1997) has approached different non-school contexts of socialization and education,
in relation to popular religiosity and urban identities in a barrio of Mexico City. Her student,
Rossana Podest (et al. 2009) used
representations of territory and their construction of residential identity, communal affiliation
and ethnic consciousness, either inside communities, or
do not express the same social representations of their territories, they do share similar topics and
manifest aspects of the same ethnic identity. Communal ethnogenesis has also been studied in
urban contexts by Bertely and her students, such as
urban
peoples
Finally, the multidisciplinary field of intercultural education and indigenous rights shows
emergent anthropological influence. A political-academic debate emerges between positions
which depart from essentialism and propose a transversal interculturalization of public schools
(Dietz 2003), and those that defend a strategic essentialism in the face of power relations, and
note the political and ethical relevance of using distinctive cultural types to inspire indigenous
educational projects (Bertely 2008). Under this approach, the systematization of educational
120
experiences with Chiapas Maya teachers (Bertely 2007), explored socio-cultural knowledge
implicit in communal practices, and articulated it with school knowledge and intercultural
juridical literacy (Bertely & UNEM 2007).
121
contemporary cultures of schooling reflect and refract sedimented educational reforms and
122
practices (2000, 2007). Finally, anthropological theory on power and ethnicity, particularly as
developed at El Colegio de Michoacn by Andrew Roth and colleagues (Roth et al. 2004)
informs historical studies done by anthropologists, including his student vila
ethnographic study of two private colleges, and the research of his colleague Marco Caldern
(2002) on indigenous education in the post-revolutionary context. These studies, among others,
help us understand the unfinished process of state-formation and consequences of neoliberal
policies and their relation to Mexican education.
(or praxis) of both traditional and emergent educational actors. The social interaction, discourse,
social representation, experience and subjectivity of these actors become relevant heuristic
categories in the effort to explain the diversity of cultural configurations present in classrooms
and schools, but also in families, barrios, communities and contexts of migration.
A second theoretical concern appears with making explicit the relationship between
culture and power that frames social action. Often conceived as control of material and symbolic
resources, the exercise of power is documented in interactions between local actors and
educational authorities. Appropriation of cultural resources, as shown in several studies, occurs
in both directions, and signals both the agency of collective social actors and the simultaneously
enabling and constraining nature of culture (Rockwell 1996). By approaching culture as
123
local, regional, national and supranational scales (Dietz 2003). Within this array, studies have
approached cultural diversity as a product of the permanent border-crossing of cultural and
identity boundaries, generally leaving behind essentialist categories of identity. Specific
processes, however, can be differentiated through the analysis of asymmetrical relationships. In
relation to ethnicity, for example, Bertely (2005) establishes a distinction between the
ethnogenetic processes that characterize historically strategic relationships of indigenous
populations with public education, linking it with long-term political struggles for indigenous
rights, and other emergent political identities (youth cultures, urban, feminist or migrant
identities) constituted strategically through the appropriation of cultural resources within and
beyond schooling.
The emphasis of much recent research on the analysis of culture, power, identity and
indigenous rights responds to the economic, political and educational changes of the past two
decades on the national scene, and to the challenge of international trends towards the
diversification, fragmentation and privatization of public education. In light of this reality,
Mexican scholars express a renewed concern with the need to defend an education of quality for
all. The call is put forth to honor the historical debts of public education in Mexico, by
responding equally to the needs that derive from diversified contexts, actors and realities. We
124
hope to have contributed to this task by offering an account of the current directions and issues
of anthropological research on education.
125
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Notes
Previous reviews include Bertely and Corestein 1998, Rockwell 1998, Bertely and Gonzlez A.
2003, Podest and Martnez B. 2003, Robles and Czarny 2003, Rueda 2007.
Some Mexican scholars have done work on Mexican migrants to the US, and two are currently
doing studies in Spain and France. Some Mexican students and Latin Americans working or
studying at Mexican institutions have also done studies in other countries (Peru, Guatemala,
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia).
3
References include only a selection of publications and unpublished doctoral dissertations of the
past fifteen years, although in the text we also name graduate students who produced significant
studies in each line but have not published. We thank Mara Elena Maruri and our students for
helping us locate and review the material.
In Mexico, anthropology as a discipline is strongly linked with the study of history, through the
National Institute of Anthropology and History, and its higher education institution, the National
School of Anthropology and History.
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