Education Policies and Education System: empowerment or dependency?

Luigi Peter RagnoSocial Protection and Livelihoods expertGTZ

ObjectiveEnhancing participants’ understanding on the bivalent role of Education in development: education can stimulate development but at the same time can become a factor that reproduces dependency and inequalities.

This session will Briefly Introduce the human Development Theory, Foucault and Paulo Freire’s discourse

on power and its reproduction through education Using the Mexican education system as case, present key elements which highlights its

colonial and dominant nature Discuss the importance of context (education system) in designing policies which attempt

to increase (in number) education levels Conclude that the perceptible and evident improvements in poverty reduction and

education can hide an awful reality, that education in the form enrolment ratio and attendance (education as quantity), education as numbers and percentages, helps to create passivity and acceptance of the ruling elite: education can increase rather then decrease inequalities

This session is based on Internal Macquarie University Discussion Papers (2004) on Development and Freedom and a research paper on the educational component of the Social Protection Program ‘Oportunidades’ (Mexico).

Achieving Universal primary Education is a key MDG and is a priority for International donors and

Governments. If development is, A. Sen described in 1998, achieved through freedom which is

the mean and the same time the end of the Development process, and education a key tool to

achieve it, if education does not promote freedom and critical thinking,’ real’ development

becomes a far away goal.

Human Capital Theory and Education

Many economists have interpreted the education variable as one of the matrix of economic

growth and income equality in developing countries: their conclusions are mainly based on the so

called Human Capital Theory developed by G.S. Becker (Becker 1975) and have been made

famous by authors such as T. Schultz (1972; 1987), G. Psacharopoulos (Psacharopoulos and

Hinchliffe 1973; 1987) and M. Blaug (1968; 1970; 1983).

Becker (Becker 1975) stresses that prior to the nineteenth century, systematic investment in

human capital was not important in any country. Expenditures on schooling, on-the-job training,

and other forms of investment were quite small. This began to change radically during that

century with the application of science to the development of new goods and more efficient

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methods of production, first in Great Britain, and then gradually spreading to other countries.

During this century, education, skills, and knowledge have become crucial determinants of a

nation’s productivity.

The main argument in the Human Capital Theory is that education facilitates the creation of

particular skills that increase the level of productivity of workers in comparison with those who do

not posses such skills: “the concept of human capital refers to the fact that human beings invest

in themselves,…education,…..which raises their future income by increasing their lifetime

earnings” (Psacharopoulos 1987, p.21). As with any investment, education creates returns and

benefits in both the economic and social sphere: “…A. Smith pointed out that education helped to

increase the productive capacity of workers in the same way as the purchase of new machinery

or other form of physical capital…” (cited in Psacharopoulos 1987, p.21). According to those

writers, education increases people productivity and skills with long term effects on economic

growth.

The Human Capital Theory and the so called Economics of Education (Blaug 1968) represent the

main trend in evaluating links between education and development. G. Psacharopoulos’

collection of researches and studies on the Economics of Education (Psacharopoulos and

Hinchliffe 1973) summarizes in all its aspects how education creates and supports an even

growth and how it lowers income distribution inequalities; De Gregorio and Lee (1999) stress that

empirical evidence (based on a cross-country panel data set for a broad number of countries

measured at five-year intervals from 1960 to 1990) shows a simple cross-correlation between

income distribution and educational variables: increases in education reduce inequality and in

particular, countries with higher educational attainment have more equal income distribution.

Following the De Gregorio and Lee’s model, G.S. Fields (1998) explains labour earning

inequalities in Bolivia as heavily dependent on the education variable. His study on income

inequality analyzes the data (based on the Bolivia’s Integrated Household Survey conducted

between 1992 and 1995 in the principal cities of Bolivia) with the decomposition of the sources of

income model: the fact that education raises earnings, experience raises earnings but at a

decreasing rate, wages are higher in some regions and in the formal sector or the fact that men

and non-indigenous people earn more than women and indigenous people are the main results of

that research. The results of the decomposition model shows that income inequality is primarily

dependent on the education variable; all the other variables (ethnicity, gender, experience,

geographical location, formal and informal sector) can explain just a small portion of earning

differential: for instance a worker with 5-7 years of education earns 147% more than a worker

without education.

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Education is then critical for economic growth and poverty reduction: investment in education

contributes to the accumulation of human capital, which is essential for higher incomes and

sustained economic growth. Education (especially basic primary and lower-secondary) helps to

reduce poverty by increasing the productivity of the poor, by reducing income inequalities among

the population, and by equipping people with the skills they need to participate fully in the

economy and in society (Psacharopoulos and Hinchliffe 1973).

Power and Knowledge

Even if already in the ‘60s the Human Capital Theory was object of strong criticism (see also

Marginson 1993) by many economists, also in this period sociologists started investigating

education and schooling as one of the main causes for the persistent poverty and inequality and

the main channel of transmission of the ruling elite’s hegemonic power.

In the early ‘70s, Brazilian educator Paulo Freire visited Harvard and published an English

translation of his best known work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. His general critique of education

presented an analysis which challenged the neutrality of the model dominant in American

schools. He argued that any forms of education that ignores racism, sexism, the exploitation of

workers, and other forms of oppression support the status quo. It inhibits the expansion of

consciousness and blocks creative and liberating social action for change.

In his theory of knowledge, Freire (1972) believed that all human beings had a natural vocation to

fully realize themselves through a communion with other people. But since human natural

instincts can be easily conditioned by the environment they are surrounded from, their ontological

vocation directed towards the communion with other people can be distorted and can be

transformed in a cynical and selfish egoism. Where this situation exists, discrimination and

oppression towards the less fit class of the population are significant features in the society. At

this stage of its ontological research, Freire (1972) focuses his attention on how oppression and

injustice can interfere with the innate human biases, on how people internalise such values and

how they become dependent on them: he finds in the formal education the root of the ambiguity;

he argues that the society is the product of a class struggle between colonizer and colonized

(new and old), between oppressors and oppressed and between rich and poor. The oppressors

disseminate a false view of the reality where the society is a free and happy place to live, where

“…the street vendor is as much an entrepreneur as the owner of a large factory…” (Kane 2001,

p.38); through the manipulation of the reality the oppressors can “domesticate people”, alienate

them from the real world and use them as matrix for their own personal richness.

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The traditional forms of education are instruments in the hands of the oppressors to domesticate

and alienate people; they deposit in the oppressed’s mind their own knowledge, their own vision

of the world, their own truth: “Education ….stimulates the credulity of students with the ideological

intent (often not perceived by educators) of indoctrinating them to adapt to the world of

oppression” (Freire 1972, p.52). As Freire, many other authors have criticized the importance of

formal education in the development process: some of them are J. Karabel and H. Halsey (1977)

with their collection of articles titled Power and Ideology in Education, McLaren (McLaren and

Leonard 1993; McLaren and Lankshear 1994) and of J. Simmons (1980) in his Education

Dilemma; in particular G. Paulston’s article on Peru stresses that “public education has been

characterized especially at the lower levels as essentially colonizing rather than rational” and that

its primary function was “ the legitimisation of superordinate cultural, economic and political

dominance”. Furthermore he suggests that the “class-linked educational structure….perpetuates

the hierarchical social system and obstructs. .development” (Paulston 1980, p.75).

As McLaren and Lankshear (1994) have added, education has become a top down process

through which the national economical and political elites together with international and global

pressures defend and implement their own agenda. They use the education system to strengthen

their hegemony and their position in the society “to transform people into things and to negate

their existence as being who transform the world….They further negate the formation and the

development of real knowledge” (McLaren and Lankshear 1994, p.58).

In Freire’s philosophy (Freire 1972; Freire 1985; Freire and Macedo 1987; Freire and Faundez

1989; Elias 1994), education is a way to learn on how to take control of people’s own lives. For

the poor and oppressed people, strength is in numbers and social change is accomplished in

unity; if liberation is achieved by individuals at the expense of others, it is an act of oppression:

personal freedom and the development of individuals can only occur in mutuality with others.

Education for liberation provides a forum open to the imaginings and free exercise of control by

learners, teachers, and the community, while also providing for the development of those skills

and competencies without which the exercise of power would be impossible: control over the

curriculum, its contents and methods and over the coordination of all learning activities.

Education’s main aim is learning for empowerment and transforming the oppressing social order:

“Liberating education consists in acts of cognition, not transferrals of information” (Freire 1972,

p.57).

In understanding the issue on how power and oppression operate through education, Foucault’s

discourse on power and knowledge is pivotal. He repeatedly stressed that knowledge is not

power and that, “far from preventing knowledge, power produces it” (Foucault and Gordon 1980,

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p.59). With this expression Foucault disrupts the common belief that who has the knowledge, who

knows, has the power and on the contrary, he puts forward the idea that who has got the power

owns the knowledge. In this work, knowledge will be used as synonym of education, that is the

main instrument of reproduction of knowledge; power instead in Foucault’s writings assumes an

active role, in continuous development and movement that is not concentrated “in the State

apparatus….but..on a much more minute and everyday level” (Foucault and Gordon 1980, p.60)

that he names “micro-powers” (Foucault and Gordon 1980, p.59). Power is not exercised through

“imposing laws on men but ..[through]..disposing things; it is to say, of employing tactics rather

than laws………The instruments of government [that exercise power] instead of being laws…

come to be a range of multiform tactics” (Foucault 1991, p.95).

Not being as direct as laws, those tactics allow the exercise of power without provoking uprising,

revolts, “on the contrary involves very little expenses. There is no need for arms, physical

violence, material constraints” (Foucault and Gordon 1980, p.155). It is internalized in the bodies

so much to create “self-governing actors” (Popkewitz and Brennan 1997, p.294) living in a “gaze”

where “each individual exercises surveillance over and against himself” (Foucault and Gordon

1980, p.155).

According to Foucault’s concepts, Popkewitz argues that “Schooling is strategies and

technologies to direct how students reason about the world-at-large and the self in that world:

along with learning concepts and information within science, social studies and mathematics are

problem-solving methods. The methods to effect school knowledge establish the parameters for

how people are to inquire, organize, and understand their world and self” (Popkewitz 1997,

p.144).

Mexican Education System

In the Mexican and more in general in the pre-Hispanic societies, the concept of education has

changed completely in four centuries; together with education, the process of interaction among

children, family and school has also drastically been transformed. In those societies, the family

had a more important role than the education of children: it was the place where kids learnt how

to live and the values on which to build their day to day existence. It was not necessary to know

how to read or write, but greater importance was placed on the family and the community.

But with the colonization, things changed; the Spanish needed to legitimize the conquest and

educating the native indigenous communities was indispensable. Their project extended the

education that was meant to be a prerogative of the nobility to the lower classes; in those

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schools, Spanish, Catholicism1 and western values become the norm: …todos, espanoles e

indios, criollos y mestizos, negros y mulatos,….fueron transmitiendo, de generacion en

generacion, nuevos valores y concepciones vitales [everybody, indigenous and Spanish….were

imbued generation after generation with new values and ideas on life] (Baznat 2000, p.12;

Erickson 2002, p.146-7).

After the Mexican independence from Spain (1810) state education became the main instrument

to create citizens faithful to the young republic and respectful towards its society; but a century

later, in 1910 soon after the Mexican revolution (Womack 1969; Newell 1979), socialist education

become the priority. An education that did not mean just alphabetizing but that was mainly

teaching methods to improve and modernize agricultural techniques, to spur local and small scale

industry and to develop the poor health conditions of the majority of Mexicans (Palacios 1998;

Baznat 2000, p.14). During these years after the revolution also the government body that is still

today in charge of the public education, the Secreteria de Educacion Publica [Department of

Public Education] (SEP) was set up2.

Education assumed such an important role in the new revolutionary Mexican state that became

part of the 1917 Constitution (article 3): la enseñanza es libre……y laica. Las escuelas ….solo

podrán establecerse sujetándose a la vigilancia oficial. .....se impartirá` gratuitamente la

enseñanza primaria [education is free.... and secular. Schools can only be set up with state

approval.......furthermore education will be free of charge] (Ornelas 1995, Appendix A).The

antireligiosa y jacobina [secular and leftist] (Ornelas 1995, p.59) national education was also

central to the 1934 reform of the article 3 of the Constitution in which a more centralized and

totalitarian control of education was articulated: …Solo el Estado impartirá educación primaria y

secundaria…. Podrán concederse autorizaciones a los particulares que desean impartir

educación con la siguientes normas.......la formación de planos, programas y métodos

correspondan a directivas de lo estado…[ the State has the monopoly of primary and secondary

education.......individuals can set up schools only if........curricula, contents and methods overlap

State’s ones] (Ornelas 1995, Appendix A).

By the 1940s the socialist-revolutionary education of the previous 30 years started to disappear.

The satisfaction of the masses for the agrarian reforms carried out, together with new challenges

the whole world was facing, such as the Second World War, underlined the need for a new type

of education whose main aim was unidad nacional [national unity], harmony and reconciliation

(instead of class struggle) among all the Mexicans without any ethnic distinction. This new

ideology was central in the reform of article 3 of the Mexican Constitution: … la educación …

1 Roman Catholic missionaries played a pivotal role in “educating” the local population (Kirkpatrick 1967)2 5th of September 1921 (www.sep.gob.mx).

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tendrá a desarrollar armónicamente todas la facultades del ser humano y fomentará`……el amor

a la patria y la conciencia de la solidariedad [education will tend to develop the human being as a

whole and will stress the need to love the nation and to reaffirm the importance of solidarity…]

(Ornelas 1995, Appendix A).

Education loses its socialist and revolutionary connotation to assume a more conservative and

nationalist attribute; the Constitutional article also reaffirmed the principle that primary education

will be free and secular.

Central to this new education was Vazquez3’s pedagogía del amor [pedagogy of love]; …

queremos que en la escuela se haga obra de homogeneidad spiritual, de acercamiento, de

unificación;....el amor...ha que unir en un solo espíritu a todos los mexicanos para formar una

nación fuerte..[ we need the school to homogenize and unify the spirit;…love…has the duty to

unify the spirit and to build a strong nation] (Ornelas 1995, pg.115-6). Another important result of

the 1946 reform was the creation of two new bodies: the Instituto Federal de Capacitacion del

Magistero [Federal Institute of Teachers Development] (IFCM) and the Instituto Nacional

Indigenista [National Institute for Indigenous Affairs] (INI). Both extremely centralized and under

the direct control of the SEP (still the case nowadays), those bodies deal respectively with the

formation and training of all Mexican teachers and with integration in the education system of all

ethnicities in the country.

But central to this new period that started in 1946 and whose legacy is evident in today system

was the creation of the Comission Nacional de los Libros de Texto Gratuitos [National committee

of the Free Text Books] (CONALITEG): it was part of a bigger project of developing, producing

and distributing free text books to all kids in primary education in Mexico (Ornelas 1995, pg.119-

123).

The initiative of the Secretary of Public Education Bodet stressed the need of making the primary

education “substantially” free of charge and of any financial obstacle to all Mexicans: ..hablamos

de educación primaria gratuita y obligatoria. Pero al mismo tiempo exigíamos que los escolares

adquierisen libros…..a precio cada ano mas elevados…[…we talk about free and compulsory

education. But at the same time we require the students to buy books that are every year more

and more expensive] (Latapi Sarre 1998, p.47). Another purpose of the libros gratuitos was

unifying the curricula and at the same time assuring equal opportunity to all Mexican children in

the education system.

3 Octavio Vejar Vazquez was the Secretary of Public Education in the ‘40s.

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This first generation of text books (Latapi Sarre 1998) was launched in 1960 and remained in use

until 1972: in those 12 years about 440 millions of books were distributed all over the Mexican

territory. In her book Los Libros de Texto Gratuitos [The Free Text Books] (1988), Villa Lever4

stresses that the first generation of free text books rotated around four traditional images: patria

[nation], familia [family], escuela [school] and trabajo [work]; the nation, that is represented as

generous and as a warden of the whole community, is identified with a government that is

untouchable and perfect. Any social conflict is assumed to be the fault of individual anomalies; as

a divine entity, the nation contains an egalitarian and homogenous society that has to be

defended at any cost. A pillar in this utopist nation is the family: it is a microcosm of the nation

where the unity is held by love and harmony; the “extension” (Villa Lever 1988, p.242) of the

family is the school: it is the intermediary between the society and the family where the parents

are replaced by teachers that offer a harmonious vision of the society. In this perfect society man

(not women) realizes himself through his work that has the power to transform and improve the

collectivity (Villa Lever 1988, pg. 63-85).

From the mid-60s, due to students’ unrest and uprising in several Universities asking for a

democratization of the State, a new education reform was launched. But this time article 3 of the

Constitution remained untouched and the changes took the form of a Ley Federal de Educacion

[Federal law on education] (1973) that embraced a new vision of education and put forward the

reform of the 13-year-old free text books. In the 1973 reform, education becomes a cultural

process in which observation, analysis and critical thinking are encouraged: Latapi` considers

such reform (Latapi Sarre 1998) as the starting point of the modernization of the education

system in Mexico.

The second generation (Latapi Sarre 1998. p.51) of libros de texto gratuitos are one of the most

concrete results of this restructuring of the education system: the contents and the appearances

of all the free text books were changed. The representation of nationalist ideas of the first

generation of books was replaced by una rapresentacion embellecedora de la realidad [the

representation of an embellished reality] (Villa Lever 1988, p.250), where the world is a wonderful

and peaceful place too live in. In this world, la naturaleza y el trabajo [nature and work] are

beautiful expressions of human and social satisfaction: the nature is harmonious and in it cada

elemento [esta] en el lugar que le conviene ocupar, y fuera del cual no se puede desarrollar [all

the elements are where they have to be to develop and grow harmoniously] (Villa Lever 1988,

p.252). At the base of the image of trabajo lies the depiction of a utopist society in which all social

groups’s interests overlap and where opportunities are equal for everybody; el trabajo is depicted

4 Her analysis is limited to one category of free text books, the Manuales de Lectura [Reading Books].

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outside any social context and is accomplished without any physical or mental strain. Harmony

and equilibrium are the main features of this society in which the real does not exist.

The third and last major reform of the Mexican education system started in 1989 with the

Programa para la Modernizacion Educativa 1989-1994 [Project to Modernize education 1989-

1994] and was completed by the actual reform in the Acuerdo Nacional para la modernizacion de

la Educacion Basica (1993)5 [National Accord on the modernization of the basic education] and

again of article 3 of the Constitution6. As the Mexican Government stated in the text of the

Acuerdo, ........la educacion basica…impulsa la capacidad productiva de un sociedad y mejora su

instituciones........., contribuje a.... fortalecer la unidad nacional y consolidar la cohesión social...

[basic education launches the productive capacities of the society, improves its

institutions ....contributes to strengthen national unity and social cohesion] (Ornelas 1995, p.124),

social unity and integration was again the major objective but not the only one; basic education

also has the power to improve the economic conditions and expectations for the future.

The most important aspect of the reform was the descentralizacion [decentralization] of the

education system. The federalization of the system, as stressed by many legislators since the

early 80s, was necessary to reflect the principles of the Constitution and in particular the fact that

Mexico was a federation of 31 States. The decentralization covered only mainly administrative

issues: the administration of the system per se, the management and employment of teachers

and administrative staff and the decision on how to use financial resources. The federal

government then did not hand over all its powers: it maintained control over about 50% of the

resources invested in education (mainly due to the costs related to the development and

publication of los libros de texto gratuitos), over the IFCM7 and the INI, over the evaluation of the

system and in general it retained la capacitad de fijar criterios y reglas de carácter general para

todo el sistema en prácticamente todos los ambitos [the legal right to emanate general norms on

all issues ] to guarantee coherence and to protect national identity (Ornelas 1995, p.307-9).

Another aspect of the 1993 Acuerdo was the reform of the text books. New modern style books,

with a bigger format and brighter colors, the third generation of books did not witness significant

changes in their contents: the importance of the study of geography and history was

reestablished and the area of social science was substituted by civismo [public spirit] and

environmental protection (Latapi Sarre 1998, p.55). The reading material remained almost the 5 The full text of the Acuerdo can be found at http://www.sep.gob.mx/work/appsite/acuerdo/work/appsite/acuerdo/acu0.htm6 The Constitution was not substantially changed but it was added that primary and secondary education (not just primary) is obligatoria [compulsory] (Ornelas 1995).7 An administrative and logistic decentralization of the IFCM occurred but federal government retained the prerogative on the harmonization and cohesion of teachers` education and their refresher courses (http://www.sep.gob.mx/work/appsite/acuerdo/work/appsite/acuerdo/acu6.htm).

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same and new modern Mexican writers were added to the collection (Tatto 1999). The

importance of text books in the formation of citizens capable of living harmonically in the modern

Mexican society was again accentuated in the section of the Acuerdo regarding the reform of the

text books8: ...conocer las características de la identidad nacional y el alcance de los derechos y

obligaciones del individuo……forma la personalidad fundándola en valores como la honradez, el

respeto, la confianza y la solidaridad, que son indispensables para una convivencia pacífica

democrática y productiva...[knowing and sustaining national identity, rights and obligations of the

individuals……exalts values such as respect, honor, trust and solidarity that are indispensable for

a democratic and productive cohabitation]. The major innovation about these text books was their

massive distribution in 44 different indigenous languages to benefit 700,000 kids (Latapi Sarre

1998, p.56).

This piece of information links this section to the last topic of the findings from the documentary

analysis of the education system, the indigenous education9. One of the main characters of the

Mexican education system, above all after the 1993 reform, is the promotion of escuelas

indigenas [indigenous school] in areas where minor ethnic groups are numerically more

important. Those schools have the same administrative structure and the same curriculum of the

“normal” ones: the main difference is that the lectures are held in both Spanish and indigenous

languages.

Mexican Education System and Power

At the end of the ‘60s and ‘70s, a new debate around the role of education and culture in the

society and more in general in the State, was initiated. The ideas that education and widespread

schooling were the demand of the working class for a more egalitarian society, that were the

means through which the society enriches itself and that were the starting point for a

democratization of the institutions, were challenged by the concept that education increased

inequality and that the school system mirrored and amplified such differences. In this view, the

education system reproduces an unequal society where democracy and equality are only abstract

words.

As Gramsci (1997) stressed in the early ‘20s, the ruling class exercises its control over the rest of

the society not just through its monopoly of the economy or politics, but above all through the

control over the culture and its reproduction. With this cultural hegemony, with the monopoly of

the culture and ultimately with the control of education considered to be the main form of

8 http://www.sep.gob.mx/work/appsite/acuerdo/work/appsite/acuerdo/acu5.htm9 Updated information can be found in the section on the indigenous education of the SEP’s website http://www.sep.gob.mx/wb2/sep/sep_Educacion_Indigenista

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reproduction of such culture, the ruling class reaches a stage where the use of violence to

exercise power becomes unnecessary.

In the building of the hegemony, education assumes a pivotal importance in the creation of the

consciousness of citizens, in convincing their attachment to a nation with common ideals and

values and in the integration of minorities.

In Mexico, since the Spanish colonization in the16th century, education has assumed an

important role in the creation and maintenance of the empire. It became a way to inculcate in the

minds of the indigenous native population values that would not have jeopardized the presence of

the conquistadores [conquerors] in the colonies: “Colonial discourse is an apparatus of power…

an apparatus that turns on the recognition and disavowal of racial/cultural/historical difference. Its

predominant strategic function is the creation of a space for a subject people through the

production of knowledge in terms of which surveillance is exercised…” (Mehta 1997, p.234).

Education had a similar aim soon after the formation in 1810 of the Mexican Western-style

Republic: a nation is made not just by people, but by citizens with same values, faithful to the

same institution and with the same history. This was not the case of Mexico where history had to

be forgotten due to oppression of the colonizers over the native population and where people did

not share the same values and institutions. Education was then a weapon used to create the

foundation of the new Mexican nation based on the Spanish/Western morals and principles.

The same trend can be noticed soon after the Mexican revolution (1910) and in the period that

followed, where education was defined as socialist-revolutionary. Even if important shifts did

occur10, the State centralized furthermore the system through the creation of the SEP and the

insertion of an article in the Constitution that launched a free, public and compulsory basic

education.

The centralized federal department in charge of education (SEP) was the main instrument

through which State exercised the control over education. In a country where so many different

ethnicities existed, the unity of the education system was pivotal to maintain and exercise power.

From 1946 the necessity of creating a strong and unite nation was again emphasized; it was

explicitly alleged now that school has the purpose of creating and strengthening the unity and

homogeneity of the spirit and of the nation.

Libros de Texto

10 Education is now more rooted in the reality, in developing methods to improve agricultural production than before.

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“Curricula are historically formed within systems of ideas that inscribe styles of reasoning,

standards and conceptual distinctions in school practices and its subjects. Further, the systems of

reasoning embodied in schooling are the effects of power. That power is in the manner in which

the categories and distinctions of curriculum shape and fashion interpretation and action. In this

sense, curriculum is a practice of social regulation and the effect of power” (Popkewitz 1997,

p.131).

The manifest attempt of the State to strengthen its hegemony over the society is only possible

through the total control over the values and ideas transmitted in the system, in the classrooms

“the text book provides the criteria of learning and defines the formulas by which one arrives to

the truth……..(it) is a marker that orders children in the moral order of the school” (Popkewitz

1998, p.104-5) and in the school subject: “School subjects transmogrify the disciplines into social

and psychological concepts about, for example, developing children’s intuitive understandings,

meeting academic standards, or forming the dispositions, attitudes, and content knowledge held

by children. I call this transformation an alchemy” (Popkewitz 2002, p.262).

The Libros de Texto gratuitos are in fact an instrument to increase social support and to defend

State’s hegemony through the education system: the libros offer the need of a society based on

values such as the nation, the family, the solidarity and more in general a social representation

not in contrast with the ideology of the ruling class (Villa Lever 1988, p.16-19). Being in many

cases the only book in the household, the libros do effect not just children but also adults and are

responsible for the transfer of the dominant ideology; an ideology that encouraged harmony

through social immobility and social cohesion. From the nationalistic vision of the country of the

first generation to the representation of an embellished reality in the second and to the solidarity

and national identity of the third, the libros have played a central role in increasing inequality in

Mexico. They do not promote the free use of intellectual capabilities, do not contribute to an even

human and social development among the poorest sections of the society and do not mirror the

diversity of the Mexican people.

Maestros

Another important issue within Gramsci’s concept of hegemony, Foucault’s notion of discourse

and Freire’s view of education as form of oppression, is the role of the intellectual and in this case

of the teachers, maestros. The control over the contents, curricula and in particular over the

manufacture of the libros de textos does not guarantee the realization of the hegemonic efforts by

the State; contents, books are in fact “translated” and interpreted by an intermediate actor

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between who creates and choose the contents (central authority) and who is meant to be the

recipient of those ideas (student).

As described in the findings, maestros’s training and education is still controlled by the IFCM , a

branch of the SEP (Tatto 1999, p.261).

The role of the maestro is then vital in developing and securing State hegemony over the

education system : the power to control teacher’s education in a centralized manner does

guarantee the State to indirectly achieve their hegemonic target: … la nueva sociología de la

educación tiende a caracterizar el maestro como un emisario de la dominación….como

instrumento del aparato ideológico del Estado, que reproduce en la mente de los niños…la

ideología dominante….[the new sociology of education characterizes the teacher as an emissary

of dependency, …as an instrument of the hegemonic state apparatus, that reproduce in the kid’s

mind the dominant ideology] (Ornelas 1995, p.131).

But the transfer of knowledge, knowledge that has been selected by the centralized institution

that controls the teacher formation is strictly connected to the control and influence over the so

called “hidden curriculum” (Dreeben 1968; Smith and Lovat 1995, p.34). As Smith and Lovat point

out, the hidden curriculum “may be thought of as outcomes from teaching learning activities that

are not part of the explicit intentions …”; it creates “beliefs, norms, perceptions, meanings and

feelings” that become part of the day to day life: the structure of the classroom, the curriculum

and the teacher represent the main channels for the flow of those symbols.

In the Mexican education system as Ornales stresses, the maestro to be heard grita y impone

orden en disciplina en el aula. …ese autoritarismo es endémico, estructural…el maestro es el ojo

de ese huracán [ yells and imposes order through rigid discipline in the classroom...this

authoritarianism is endemic, structural,… the teacher is only the tip of the iceberg] (Ornelas 1995,

p.142). Authoritarianism that reminds at any given moment that the teacher is in charge, that

shapes kid’s view of ethnicity, gender, dependency and so on; it is the result of the teacher being

trained by a national centralized institutions that reflect the dominant ideology and transmits

unconsciously methods and feelings that reflect their representation of the society: passive,

dependent and static: “The ordering, disciplining and regulating through discursive rules becomes

centrally important as schooling embodies an authorized knowledge of the world” (Popkewitz

1997, p.138)

The teacher is only an instrument in a practice they are not aware of, a process that is hidden and

has been hidden in everything they learnt, they did and they saw; this makes for them impossible

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to see what is normal. This does explain Ornales’s idea that authoritarianism is structural and

endemic, not just in the education system but in every aspect of the society, from the family to the

workplace.

The assumption is that the individual and in this case the teacher is a passive actor in the

process: as endemic and rooted in the historical tradition of the Mexican education system,

teacher’s “implicit social knowledge”11 come from the same schools where the hegemonic State

efforts have presented an harmonious and at the same time static and passive reality; teachers

are the product of the same system they are working in: “ …teachers..as object that are

systematically, classified, legislated, standardized and normalized” (Popkewitz 1997, p.148).

They are not consciously part of the reproduction of the system, but unconsciously vectors of

transmission of oppression and dependency.

Indigenous Education

Even if major changes occurred after the 1993, indigenous education was already a priority in the

‘60s, it was rooted in the assumption that the unity of a country is at the base of modernization

and development: the integration of the indigenous ethnic minority was then one of the main

objective of State education. The Mexican State has always played the role of integrator in the

society, between the city and countryside for instance and between the ethnic minority and

majority; one of the mechanism to exercise his role was the education system and in particular

the school, the place where the culture is reproduced and replicated.

The State’s need to manipulate education is again unambiguous: not just as an attempt to

exercise State’s hegemony over the whole population, but a way to control the reproduction and

transmission of knowledge and culture among the indigenous communities and to integrate all the

Mexicans under an umbrella of shared values.

The bilingual education, launched in the ‘70s and implemented in 1993, was just the result of that

necessity: it was in fact bilingual not bicultural education: it was a bilingual education for a

monoculture school, the dominant one: ..los textos y los programmas nacionales (son)…

aplicados en el ciclos escolar de las escuelas “indigenas”…[text books and national curriculum

have been used in the “indigenous” school] (Aguilar 1991, p.12). Bilingual does not mean

bicultural and in this particular case, does not mean indigenous education: it only differs for the

use of the indigenous language in the classroom and keeps maintaining the oppressed/oppressor

relationship between ethnic minority and majority: escuela bilingue …… es el instrumento del

11 “Implicit social knowledge….concerns with what moves people without their knowing quite why or quite how , with what makes real real and the normal normal…..” (Taussig 1986).

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Estado para la integracion, es decir, etnocidio [bilingual school…is the instrument that allows the

State to promote integration, in other words, ethnocide] (Aguilar 1991, p.232).

In Aguilar’s analysis, bilingual education in Mexico is a colonial instrument that prevents the

indigenous community from re-establishing values and ideas that should be transmitted

generation after generation; …rompe con el proceso de endocultura…[ ..it breaks the

transmission of their endogenous culture… ] (Aguilar 1991, p.233) and promotes ideas and

values of the national society.

The Libros de texto use concepts completely alien to the indigenous culture: education reaches

its objective when the individual breaks with the community and become part of the national

society, when he goes forward and progress: la escuela en las regiones indias prepara al alumno

para salir de la comunidad, no para servirla [school in the indigenous communities pushes the

student to leave their community, not to be useful to it] (Aguilar 1991, p.233).

The 1994 massive distribution of libros de textos in 44 indigenous languages to benefits about

700,000 students in the indigenous communities can be read as a further effort by the State to

exercise total control over the reproduction and transfer of knowledge of the many ethnic

minorities; a further effort to incorporate the indigenous in a nationwide oppressed/oppressor

relationship where social cohesion and national unity are achieved through State hegemonic rule.

Nevertheless, in the conclusion of his three volumes book, Aguilar put forward the idea that some

communities in the state the research was focusing on12 are resisting the state hegemonic control

and that education has not fulfilled its integrator role that had been attributed since the

colonization.

Cosmetic Reform

The final issue regarding the Mexican education system and power focuses on the importance of

1993 decentralization of the system. Following the 1993 reform, the Mexican education system

was in fact decentralized among the 31 States of Mexico; it seemed that with this step the

centralized and hegemonic control over education by the state came to an end. But as suggested

above, the decentralization was only an administrative one in which the federal government

retained the control over contents, text books, teacher’s education and indigenous affairs.

12 The study was conducted in 72 indigenous communities in the state of Oaxaca, where about 37% (the national average is 7,2%) of the total population speaks an indigenous language (http://www.inegi.gob.mx/inegi/default.asp: National Institute of Statistics).

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To this “cosmetic” reforms did not correspond any actual change or modernization of the system:

teachers are now trained by decentralized offices of the IFCM but they receive the same training

all over the country and text books and curricula are still the same in each single state and in the

bilingual schools: “The implementation of decentralization is essential if national education is to

improve. Until now, the emphasis of the government has been on achieving administrative

decentralization and not decentralized decision making” (Izquierdo and Schmelkes 1992, p.65).

The 1993 reform did not modernize the system but responded the pressures coming from

sections of the society; as suggested early those changes brought by the last major reform were

only cosmetic, did not have any substantial impact on the system (Tatto 1999). It still remains a

system whose structure is imbued with values that reflect the ideology of the dominant class,

centralized in every important aspect with an endemic tendency to authoritarianism and

dependency.

Correlations between the Education System and Policies targeting Universal education

The MDG 2 and its targets and indicators implicitly

states that sending more kids will break the cycle of

poverty rooted in the lower sections of the society and

give them a chance in life. Education will spur human

and economic development and will offer new

opportunities to the poorest citizens.

But what if we are dealing with an education system

that is imbued with values that push people to accept blindly everything that the State says?

Where the State is an entity in which everything has to be in his own place, where changes come

only from the top?

If the education system becomes regulatory and oppressive, education works against the real

development and become a factor that reproduces dependency and domination.

Recent Education Policies and Programs program have given greater importance to the

education variable’s impact on poverty and human development. However, using the conclusions

reached in the previous sections as starting point, education policies attempting to break the

cycle of poverty and starting off a human-social development through increasing the years of

education or expanding the number of pupils becomes dubious and questioning .

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary educationTarget 3: Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schoolingNet enrollment ratio in primary education Proportion of pupils starting grade 1 who reach grade 5 Literacy rate of 15-24 year olds

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The perceptible and evident improvements in poverty reduction and education hide an awful

reality, that education in the form enrolment ratio and attendance rate have worsened the

situation; education as quantity, education as numbers and percentages, helps to create passivity

and acceptance of the ruling elite : “….education….. acts to increase rather then to decrease …

inequalities..” (Todaro, p.300).

Education therefore works against empowerment and freedom; it becomes the main cause of

underdevelopment and strengthens instead of breaking the cycle of poverty-dependency.

Education Policies and Programs which focus merely on MDG 2 (net enrolment, literacy and

more in general, on numbers) targeting the poorest sections of the population promote the

reproduction of the dependency and passivity and work against real development.

Concluding Remarks: a way forward?

Understanding the bivalent role of education in the development process is the first step to move

forward: knowing how power is exercised through education and the main transmission channels

will spark a critical and analytical process in our work, as development practitioners and policy

makers.

In more practical terms, tools such as Poverty and Social Impact Analysis (PSIA) and other ex

ante assessments approaches for sector and sub sector major (educational) policies reforms

must include analysis of the education system, its origin, teacher’s training and formation,

curriculum and Text books, as well as previous policy reforms.

Such contextual analysis must precede any other attempt of increasing and improving ‘education

numbers’ and indicators: failing to do so, education will have positive impact in the short term

(income) but it will be a insurmountable obstacle on the way to development and freedom.

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Blaug, M. (1968). Economics of education : selected readings. Harmondsworth, Penguin.

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Schultz, T. W. (1987). Education and Population Quality. Economics of education : research and studies. G. Psacharopoulos. Oxford ; New York, Pergamon Press.

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