Educational Practice in the Sierra Tarahumara: Challenges and Expectations before the New Mexican School

Abstract

Indigenous education in Mexico has been a great challenge within political agendas, due to the difficulty in closing the abyss between the goals pursued and the achievements achieved. The purpose of this contribution is to present a diagnosis made on the teaching practice in primary education of the Indigenous Education subsystem in the Sierra Tarahumara of Chihuahua, Mexico, based on visions and meanings constructed by participating actors: – parents – as well as teachers and directors responsible for this task; In a second moment, they were analyzed within educational policies generated to address this educational modality: proposals, achievements and challenges still in force at the beginning of the third millennium. At the state level, between 2013 and 2015, 294 questionnaires were applied to teachers or directors of indigenous education and during 2016-2017, 16 in-depth interviews were conducted with: directors or teachers and parents of rarámuri children.