Publications and Research
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
The rollout of Mexico’s new national free textbooks (LTG) at the outset of the 2023-2024 school year sparked a political crisis. Several states sued to prohibit their distribution and segments of civil society protested that they were designed to “indoctrinate” children in leftist ideology and sexual and gender diversity. This study aimed to investigate the effects of the bans and controversy on the classrooms of elementary, middle, and telesecundaria teachers. An ethnographic methodology was employed with semi-structured interviews and field notes collected at three schools each in Guanajuato and Puebla. Findings reveal that physical resources are incredibly important to teachers, chief among them the LTG, since they promote information literacy and critical thinking. Following the typology of biblioclasm (Eco, 2001), the study maintains that inadequate school libraries might represent a greater threat than book bans. The tension of how the right of students to LTG, of parents to shape their children's education, and the autonomy of indigenous communi- ties as well as the impact on participants (teachers) is also explored.
Comments
Originally published in Diálogos sobre educación. Temas actuales en investigación educativa. https://doi.org/10.32870/dse.v0i30.1452