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Mexico's implementation of mandatory teacher assessments in 2013 was part of a group of federal reforms aimed at enhancing the quality of state-run education. The reforms elicited strong opposition from key stakeholders. Building on the idea that policy capacities are the set of capabilities necessary to perform policy functions, we examine the effect of subnational government capacities on the pace of implementation of the mandatory teacher assessment in Mexico, a country with one of the most powerful teachers' unions in the world. After conducting statistical analyses based on panel data encompassing information on subnational government capacities from 2015 to 2017, we find that while subnational governments' human resources and fiscal capacities are associated with higher proportions of evaluated teachers, repressive capacities do not seem relevant for this purpose. Our research offers valuable lessons for policy makers in terms of recognizing adequate resource allocation and predicting the speed of policy implementation, even in contexts of significant opposition.

This article explores how the implementation of the education reform led by the federal government in México (2012-2018) took place in rural disadvantaged contexts and, specifically, in schools where an anti-establishment union movement has been developing for several decades. Based on semi-structured interviews and classroom-focused ethnographic analysis at 22 of 100 schools included in an official innovation project, we gleaned that dissident teachers adopted a somewhat flexible and tolerant stance regarding the official project. We gathered evidence about teachers' endeavour to learn a new educational planning strategy and enhance the students' digital skills promoted by the project. In contrast, they kept participating in public manifestations against the education reform. Regardless of how pragmatic this solution could be, the teachers' reflections in the interviews interestingly lay out how their struggle takes part in an ongoing state formation process and their position in the face of social inequality. We conclude that teachers consider the community context of deprivation and violence in willingly accepting the implementation of the Project.

Educational researchers need to pay more attention to understanding the perspectives of implementers as a means to preventing future implementation failures. In an attempt to elucidate the reasons for resistance to the implementation of the 2013 education reform in Mexico, qualitative methods were used to explore the lived experiences of dissenting teachers of the National Union of Education Workers (SNTE) over the cycle of policy in depth. This qualitative study analyzed the narratives of participants. The results revealed manifestations of power in four main categories: (1) agenda-setting imposition; (2) a policy formulation process led by social, economic, and political elites; (3) scientific legitimization; and (4) resistance to the implementation. Results showed that participants' resistance was primarily triggered by feeling that teachers' interests were excluded in the policymaking process. Therefore, in the future, democratization of the education policy-making process is a must within the Mexican context.

This paper focuses upon the enactment and implementation of a National Educational Reform in Mexico, which introduced competitive examinations for teachers entering the newly established Professional Teaching Service of the National Educational System, and compulsory evaluation of all teachers in active service for promotion and tenure. The analysis describes the (1) aims and intentions of the Reform, (2) the force and errors in its implementation, (3) the opposition of a radical wing of the National Union of Educational Workers, and (4) the social turmoil this confrontation has caused. A theoretical basis for a political analysis of educational reform is provided, one that includes an understanding of the political nature of the reforms, the distinction between design and implementation, and the use of different categories to provide a solid analytical framework. It is important to understand the actors of the opposing forces, the aims they pursue, the rationale of their arguments, and the nature of their power.

In the last decade, a gradual negative perception of the compulsory Mexican education system started to emerge when internal and international evaluations of students' outcomes showed continuously low results that did not improve with immediate and mid-term remedial efforts. This added pressure by Mexican society to reform education, where limiting the influence of the teachers union was a central demand. This led to a presidential initiative in 2012 to reform education and the signing of the Pact for Mexico by almost every political party. One of the changes was in the appointment of school leaders. In 2015 a new process to appoint school leaders was implemented, replacing one had been in place for 43 years. Historically, they had developed an unofficial system where leadership positions in schools and wider educational system were given as prizes and incentives for those teachers and others loyal to and highly involved in the teachers union. This study used semi-structured interviews to explore the perceptions of school leaders appointed through the new system to see whether non-educational criteria and practices are still used to appoint school leaders. Participants reported positive initial expectations and issues with exams, with the application process, with transparency, and with appointments.

On 26 and 27 September 2014, 43 students from the "Profesor Isidro Burgos" Rural Normal School in Ayotzinapa, Guerrero, Mexico, disappeared, and six people died. In this article, I analyse the event as the result of long-term historical processes, from the perspective of the social mobilisation that caused the students' disappearance on the one hand, and from the history of rural normal schools on the other. The starting point is to relocate political history within the history of education in order to understand the agency of political actors in the definition of educational processes, and the questioning of the reciprocal relations of school and state. The study is based on widely diverse sources: official documents from schools, statistics, news items from newspapers and social networks, and observations of the mobilisations of 2014. The disappearance of the 43 rural normal students is the result of a long process of abandonment in the countryside, of discrimination against young people of rural origin and Indians, all in the framework of a process of state dismantling which places teachers and normal students in positions of severe vulnerability.

In 2012, the Mexican federal government encouraged the establishment of an educational reform. Teacher unions claimed the reform lacked legitimacy because they had never been consulted. From 2013 to 2016, there were several offline and online protests. The purpose of this report is to study how the popularity of social media has increased the potential for spreading alternative discourse as a subaltern weapon, giving teachers an option to fight back.

The countries of Latin America have been no exception to global calls for educational transformation and teacher professionalization at the secondary level. One of the newest of these reforms is Mexico's Reforma de la Educacion Secundaria (RS) (Reform of Secondary Education), launched in 2006. This article examines portrayals by various actors of the nature and extent of the participation of both teachers and the teachers' union in the different phases of the RS, beginning with the initial formulation of the reform through the implementation and the "follow-up." Findings indicate that in spite of efforts to provide more transparency and opportunities for teacher participation, for the most part secondary teachers in Mexico neither felt like agents nor partners in the RS, nor did they function as such in the reform process. As in previous reform efforts, teachers mostly felt that they were recipients of plans formulated by government officials, and as a result many have evidenced neither complete compliance nor full commitment to the reform. The national teachers' union, meanwhile, claims to represent teachers' voices and thus a form of teacher participation, but this claim is denied in the findings. The discussion and conclusions emphasize the multiple significations of teacher "participation" and the need to overcome system-wide contradictions, while drawing on theory about the conditioned state, bureaucracy, and democratizing civil society to help situate and explain the findings.

This article examines the politics behind the initial centralization of primary education in Chihuahua, Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s. The article argues that the centralization of primary education was one of many tools used by the federal government to consolidate its power in the wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917) and create a corporatist state. Even before the Revolution, federal officials were concerned that neither states nor municipalities were capable of providing primary education (especially in rural areas) adequate to Mexico's needs. Even though the 1917 Constitution gave control over primary education to the municipal government, Education Ministry (SEP) officials began taking major steps in centralizing primary education under the auspices of the federal government during the administration of Alvaro Obregon (1920-1924) by subsidizing state-run primary schools and refusing to deal with municipal governments. Under Plutarco Elias Calles (1924-1928) the SEP undermined state-run education by annulling all existing contracts with state governments and creating a parallel federal primary schools system. The federal government also tried to gain control over federal teachers by centralizing control over grassroots unions. The SEP's drive to centralize control over schooling reached its climax during this period with the federalization of all primary schools in Chihuahua and Queretaro in 1935.

Reform in the Mexican education system accords with global patterns of liberalisation, decentralisation, compensatory programs and accountability. The present study analyses reform in that country during the past 15 years. It reveals that despite expectations of change attending the installation of the new government which replaced the ruling party dominant for 70 years, there has been far more continuity than change in educational politics. It also shows that these have been constrained by the militant and powerful National Teachers' Union. Although the new government has achieved some progress in equity and management, the quality of education can be seen to remain inferior.

This chapter overviews the reforms taking place in the education sector in Mexico at the present time and how the results of the survey and interview phases of this "Schooling for the Future" study interface with these reforms. The results of the interview round of this study indicate that in Mexico there is still very much a "top-down" approach to school reform controlled by the Ministry of Education and the National Union of Educational workers. These two entities are viewed by those interviewed as both the biggest roadblocks to long-term educational reform as well as the possibility of being the biggest facilitators.

This article discusses the value and feasibility of carrying out evaluation research on teacher development and uses as points of reference the author's experiences in two countries, Sri Lanka and Mexico. In Sri Lanka, an evaluation study was designed to understand the effectiveness and costs of teacher development at the elementary level linking teacher preparation with classroom practice and student achievement. The study also evaluated costs and analyzed the possible impact of the results for future policy. The study in Mexico illustrates the challenges of doing evaluation research in an environment dominated by a central state and teacher union politics, and where systemic empirical research on teacher development has been rare. It constituted an initial attempt at looking at the content and the anticipated effects across different approaches to teacher development in Mexico. New calls for greater accountability and better understanding of the reach and limitations of general education worldwide are prompting systems to examine teacher development program effectiveness. In this analytical article, the author discusses strategies and possibilities in the emerging field of teacher development program evaluation.

Evaluates public education's contributions to Mexico's economic development from 1952-1982. Finds education's principal contribution has not been to improve human capital or government competence; education has instead been a vital source of political capital that has helped to maintain the political system as an "inclusionary corporatist" state. Highlights unresolved issues. (BRR)

Describes the role and socioeconomic status of translators in the Latin American countries. Blames the poor quality of translations on inadequate compensation based on the piecework system. It also advocates translators' unionization as a first step to obtain higher salaries and contracts covering all benefits guaranteed to workers under labor legislation. (MES)

The changes in Mexican economic policy within neoliberalism implied serious transformations in labor relations and forms of labor organization. Based on this, the aim of this paper is to analyze the implications that practices such as protection contracts and subcontracting had on the organization of workers, and the subsequent labor reforms, still limited, which make possible new schemes of dynamization within unions, through new demands framed within the rights of labor citizenship. Methodologically, a brief description is made of the main changes in the Mexican economy and the labor context since the last decade of the last century and the first two of the present Century. This is linked to the conceptual elements of the centrality of labor and labor citizenship. It concludes by pointing out that labor reforms make possible new scenarios of opportunity for Mexican trade unionism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista Daena: International Journal of Good Conscience is the property of Spenta University Mexico and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article examines the evolution of written work rules on the railroads in Mexico from 1883 to 1923, looking at three sets of work rules from the Porfiriato and three from the Revolution. Just as foreign investors, British and American, and foreign skilled workers, mostly American, played an important role in the establishment of Mexico’s first railroad companies, these same foreign businesses brought their written rule books, necessary for the impersonal management of labor in companies with large, diverse, and a far-flung labor force like the railroads, to Mexico. The first rules are often Spanish translations of the English-language originals and paid no attention to the workers’ opinions. Through the Porfiriato, however, Mexican railroad workers unionized, in part following the pattern of the American Brotherhoods, and their unions, through labor activism and strikes, fought to transform work rules from company commands to negotiated terrain, with some success before the Revolution broke out. When the Revolution did break out, however, it radically transformed the terrain of work rules, first because railroad companies, even before they collapsed in the face of revolutionary violence, lost the support of the state that they so needed to impose their work rules, and second, because the new state that emerged from the Revolution allied with organized workers to provide them with many of their revolutionary demands: legal trade unions, mandated work benefits, and collective bargaining. Thus, newly powerful railroad unions through strikes and activism and in alliance with the new state made work rules not only negotiated terrain between companies and workers, but terrain in which workers and their unions held the upper hand. As a consequence, the work rules of 1923, where unions are powerful and impose significant benefits to workers, bear little resemblance to those of 1883, where unions are not recognized by the companies, which felt no obligation to provide any benefits at all. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper describes the most relevant political events of 2013 in Mexico during the first year of the new presidency of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). The power correlation favored the PRI, the political party that not only holds the presidency but also holds the majority of states and municipalities in Mexico. The PRI also holds a relative majority in both houses of Congress and in over half of the states' congresses. The so-called “Pacto por México", signed by the Mexican President and the leaders of the three main political parties set the stage for the successful passing of diverse political and economic reforms. Nonetheless, these reforms have generated opposition, mobilizations, and in some cases street rallies among some sectors of the public opinion and the greater society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Investigaciones Políticas y Sociológicas (RIPS) is the property of Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Servicio de Publicaciones and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Socialist Studies is the property of Society for Socialist Studies and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Do the restructuring of production networks, the decentralization of collective bargaining, and the rearticulation of work sites one to another across borders prompt local unions to engage in cross-border solidarities? Drawing on three cases in Mexico and three cases in Canada, this study identifies three patterns of local union involvement in cross-border alliances: defensive isolationism, risk aversion, and proactive solidarity. Four factors are associated with greater union involvement in cross-border alliances: local union power resources, especially discursive capacity or narrative framing; the orientation of the national or industry union; the thickness of and resources provided by international regulation; and the articulation between these different levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For decades following the 1910 to 1917 Mexican Revolution, rural maestros (teachers) in the Mexican state of Oaxaca were respected for their “vocation” and the hardships they suffered while working in poor, remote, rural communities where they played an instrumental role in forging a national culture. Since the early 1980s, politicization of Oaxaca's Local 22 of the national educators' union and work stoppages that close schools coupled with teachers' high salaries contribute to negative attitudes toward the profession. Using ethnographic data collected in Oaxaca among teachers and other members of the public, I discuss the support and opposition for federal teachers who practice what was long considered a “noble” profession, and union members' justifications of their labor actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact that the Mexican Revolution had on the main mining centers located in Sonora, Mexico. Its purpose is to widen the historical view which sustains that large mining centers did not interrupt their productivity because of revolution. In a new perspective, based on archival documents, it has been shown that mining towns polarized their social and political lives during every revolution phase. That is, the workers, organized in embryonic unions, took advantage of the political context to claim, trough the usage of stoppages and strikes, old aspirations regarding wages, health and housing. In times or stages of the revolutionary movement, especially during the factional struggle, they managed to form true communes of mine workers, imposing their hegemony. In sum, we think that the mine workers, especially the emblematic ones of Cananea, need to be considered as a social movement in the Mexican Revolution that distill the struggles of the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay explores the first year of the newspaper El Machete, when it functioned as a vehicle for the politically engaged artists of the Sindicato de Obreros Técnicos, Pintores y Escultores de México. It positions that endeavor at the intersection between politics, social mobilization and culture in Mexico City in the 1920s, particularly in relation to the rise of the CROM labor federation and the critique of official unionism from the left. It addresses the text and images of the newspaper as the products of a particular historical moment, as a collective artistic and ideological project that combined elements of Modernism with popular and radical traditions, and as an important element in the development of graphic representations of the revolution and its iconic social protagonists, workers and campesinos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]