Indigenous Education in Mexico: Indigenous Students' Voices

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to investigate whether, despite a shift in political and educational discourses over the last decades that suggests that Indigenous cultures and languages are recognized, any real change has occurred in terms of Indigenous education in Mexico. It is possible that official bilingual intercultural education is still just a goal. Data presented include four Indigenous students' accounts of their educational experiences in monolingual and bilingual schools. The findings suggest that Indigenous education still has assimilationist tendencies, as far as the mestizo identity and the use of Spanish are concerned, and these tendencies are based on a (neo)liberal vision of multiculturalism that promotes ethnophagy. There is room for more changes to occur. Indigenous education has long been an important topic of discussion all over Latin America. In Mexico, after independence from Spain in 1821, attempts were made to integrate Indigenous peoples into the new ideal of a nation state. In Latin America, in general, and in Mexico, in particular, schools played a fundamental role in assimilating and acculturating Indigenous peoples in the homogenic mold of a unique identity and a unique language represented by the newly independent nation state (González, 2009; López, 2001). In Mexico, the official number of Indigenous peoples varies from one source to another. The Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (i.e., National Institute for Statistics and Geography) reported that 6.5% of the Mexican population in 2010 are Indigenous peoples (who spoke an Indigenous language), whereas the Comisión Nacional para el Desarrollo de los Pueblos Indígenas (CDI; i.e., National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples) published a national average of 10.5% for 2009 based on self-identification. Today, Indigenous peoples represent 68 linguistic groups (Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indígenas [National Institute of Indigenous Languages], 2008), and the amendment in 1992 to the Mexican Constitution declared the country as being officially multicultural and plurilingual. Although constitutional recognition seems promising, Indigenous peoples have consistently had the highest poverty rates in the country (Bello, 2008; Hall & Patrinos, 2005). According to the 2000 National Census on People and Households, illiteracy among non-Indigenous peoples was 7.54%, whereas among Indigenous peoples, it was 33.7%. Only 8.31% of non-Indigenous Mexicans did not get any official education, whereas 31.35% of Indigenous peoples were

Paradox of assimilation among indigenous higher education students in four central European countries

“…Indigenous groups can face discrimination in education when the language used in the classroom is not their language. To avoid "ethnophagy" (the absorption of minority peoples by the majority), it is essential that instruction is provided in a language they are familiar with (Despagne, 2013). Despite European integration, there is a "de facto inequality between individual members of the society belonging to communities different from the majority population" (Cordell et al, 2013, p. 237).…”

Rural school access and the agricultural transformation

“…This is consistent with the findings of De Janvry and Sadoulet (2001), who found that indigenous individuals from rural Mexico are less likely to work in the nonagricultural sector given any level of education. Indigenous minorities in Mexico often have been excluded from public benefits, including education (Despagne, 2013; Reinke, 2004; United Nations: Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean ( ECLAC), 2014). However, unlike De Janvry and Sadoulet (2001), we do not find significantly different effects of school construction on women's education or labor outcomes.…”

Los Alumnos Indígenas en México: Siete Hipótesis sobre el Rezago en los Aprendizajes de Nivel Primario / Indigenous Students in Mexico: Seven Hypothesis about the Learning Gap at the Primary Level

“…Típicamente, el argumento enfatiza el sesgo "occidental" de este modelo, tanto en los contenidos como en los procesos. A pesar de que la educación para niños indígenas se ha modificado considerablemente en las últimas décadas -desde el modelo asimilador-castellanizador hasta el modelo intercultural bilingüe de la actualidad (Bertely, 2002)-, las dificultades en la implementación efectiva del modelo intercultural (Bastiani et al, 2012, Despagne, 2013Tinajero y Englander, 2011), así como la elevada proporción de alumnos indígenas que no asisten a escuelas indígenas, son elementos suficientes para dudar de la pertinencia cultural de los contenidos y procesos de la educación que llega a estos niños y jóvenes.…”