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México: Educating Citizens for Social Justice in a Highly Unequal Country

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The Palgrave International Handbook of Education for Citizenship and Social Justice

Abstract

The chapter analyzes the vicious circle of economic and political inequality in Mexico. It presents a critique of the view that education can be an equalizer given its economic value, and argues that the reduction of inequality in Mexico is not only about having a better-educated workforce, but also about enhancing the political competence of its citizens. Considering that redistributive policies beyond education are more likely to reverse inequality, this means educating citizens that are able to influence the arena in which such policies need to be made despite prevailing political inequalities. To this end, the chapter advances three main proposals for citizenship education in Mexico: (1) teaching and learning about inequality, (2) recognizing and developing students’ politicity, and (3) educating for effectiveness in political participation. These recommendations are the result of examining the gap between current citizenship education in Mexico and the citizens demanded by the existing context of inequality.

I am grateful to Professor Meira Levinson and James Noonan for their thoughtful and useful comments on the preliminary version of this chapter.This work was supported by Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT) under grant 251879.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Basic education in Mexico includes pre-school (3 years), primary education (6 years, ages 6 to 12 years) and secondary school (3 years, ages 12 to 15 years).

  2. 2.

    I use this term acknowledging that it has been the formal name of the subject only since 1999.

  3. 3.

    See Roldán (2012) and Latapí (2003).

  4. 4.

    See Latapí (2003), Levinson (2004) and Pérez Expósito (2013), for historical overviews of Civic and Moral Education in Mexico.

  5. 5.

    This new subject replaced civics and educational orientation, a course that was centred more on vocational, psychological and moral orientation, and was envisaged to serve as a guide for the process of students’ identity formation.

  6. 6.

    See, for instance, Great Britain (1998)

  7. 7.

    See Biesta (2011); Frazer (2007); Kahne and Westheimer (2006); Pérez Expósito (2014b, 2015a); Straume (2015), for a deeper analysis of the de-politicization of citizenship education.

  8. 8.

    See Pérez Expósito (2014b, 2015a).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Metropolitan Autonomous University, Mexico City, Mexico

    Leonel Pérez-Expósito

  2. Visting Scholar 2015–2016 Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Leonel Pérez-Expósito

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  1. Leonel Pérez-Expósito
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Education, Canterbury Christ Church University, Canterbury, United Kingdom

    Andrew Peterson

  2. Sch of Edu, Mawson Lakes Campus, University of South Australia, Magill, South Australia, Australia

    Robert Hattam

  3. Program of Educational Studies, Open University of Cyprus, Latsia, Cyprus

    Michalinos Zembylas

  4. Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom

    James Arthur

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Pérez-Expósito, L. (2016). México: Educating Citizens for Social Justice in a Highly Unequal Country. In: Peterson, A., Hattam, R., Zembylas, M., Arthur, J. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Education for Citizenship and Social Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51507-0_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51507-0_23

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