Inclusion is Not Interculturality: Suppositions Displacing Indigenous Education in Mexico

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the positioning of educational inclusion in Mexican educational policy following the Educational Reform of 2013; it proposes the displacement of bilingual intercultural education in the indigenous education subsystem. Inclusion is the main emerging category that was identified in the discourse of educational policy documents as well as in interviews and focus groups with teachers working in the indigenous subsystem and government officials working in the education sector at state and federal levels. This category has been displacing interculturality with visible effects in areas such as the definition of beneficiaries, project budgets, opportunities for initial and continuous teacher training, etcetera. Four suppositions are derived from the analysis of these discourses, which impact and reorientate indigenous education and the bilingual focus associated with this subsystem, suggesting its disappearance.

KEYWORDS:

• interculturality
• inclusion
• indigenous education
• educational policy
• diversity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor

Rosa Guadalupe Mendoza Zuany has a PhD in Politics (University of York, UK), Master Degree in Anthropological Sciences (Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán, México), Bachelor Degree in International Relations (ITESM, México). Professor in the Instituto de Investigaciones en Educación, Universidad Veracruzana, Xalapa, México (2011 – present).