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Schooling, Language and Poverty:
Education and Indigenous People in Mexico
Hiroyuki Ukeda Research Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion of
Science
E-mail: [email protected]
“Prepared for delivery at the 2003 meeting of the Latin American Studies
Association, Dallas, Texas, March 27-29, 2003.”
Contents
I. Introduction
II. Education and Indigenous People
III. A Case Study
III-1. Santiago Mexquititlán
III-2. Education in Santiago Mexquititlán
III-2-1: Description
III-2-2: Explanation
IV. Concluding Remark
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I. Introduction
To deal with indigenous question seriously is imperative in several Latin American countries today. It
holds for Mexico where 6,044,547 inhabitants, 7.13% of the total population 5 years and older, still speak
indigenous languages according to the 2000 Population Census (Figure 1). Education is an important theme in the
current debate around Mexican indigenous people, not only from economic viewpoint that enhanced schooling
will alleviate indigenous economic poverty but also in terms of its expected cultural function to preserve or revive
through bilingual education unique features of each indigenous society. However, notwithstanding abundant
proposals made recently, little is known of the complex relationships there exist between education, poverty and
being indigenous.
Figure 1. Indigenous Population and Its Share in Mexico, 1930~2000. Population Census
Indigenous Population
Source: [ INEGI 1996 (a) ; 1996 (b) ; 2001(a) ]
Any operational definition of actual indigenous people is doomed arbitrary and incomplete 1. Following the
Mexican government (ex.Instituto Nacional de Estadística, Geografía e Informática: INEGI), indigenous people are
defined here as those Mexicans of 5 years and older who speak some indigenous language. Compared with other
possible criteria such as self-recognition, customs and geographical location, use of indigenous language is the least
ambiguous measure of defining and counting indigenous population. In addition, linguistic definition deservedly
takes into consideration the importance of mother tongue.
1 For the definition and demographics of Mexican indigenous people, see [ CONAPO 1997 ; 1998 ; 2001 ] .
3
Indigenous people thus defined are poorer than non-indigenous (so-called mestizo) population in Mexico,
whatever measures of poverty are adopted [ INEGI 1995 ; Panagides 1995 ; INI 2000 ]. Nonetheless, it is
misleading to simply regard indigenous people as a poor and marginal group. First, indigenous people are not
homogenous. Linguists discern 62 different indigenous languages surviving in Mexico, among each of which there
may be a great regional variance (dialects). Internal diversity of indigenous people is not limited to the linguistic
dimension. For that reason, to answer indigenous question in relevant way we must be sensitive to the history of
each community (comunidad, pueblo), the basic social/political unit of Mexican indigenous people [ Bartolomé
1997 ; INI 2000 ]. Second, although the majority of indigenous people remain economically poor, their integration
with external -national and international- economy gets deepened, accelerated by migration process and public
policies. Third, since the 1970s, especially after the neo-zapatists’ rebellion in 1994, some indigenous people have
been involved in new-ethnic movements. A novelty of these movements consists in that they attach positive value
to their traditional cultures, some of them even insisting on indigenous autonomy [ Favre 1998 ; Sánchez 1999 ;
Collier 2000 ; INI 2000 ]. It should be noted that in the Mexican context the surge of indigenous movements is
partly a by-product of indigenous policies (políticas indígenas, indigenismo), which was institutionalized by the
government in the middle of XX century as the establishment in the year 1948 of Instituto Nacional Indigenista
(INI: National Institute for Indigenous People), a public organization specialized in aiding indigenous people 2.
Past indigenous policies, while their integrationist attitude and paternalism have frequently been criticized,
legitimized the idea that indigenous people have different needs so they should receive special attention of the
government and civil society. They also have paved the way to the ‘ethnic revival’ by promoting or supporting
actors committed to it via the creation and maintenance of various indigenous-related institutions. Actually
indigenous policies are expected to contribute to the cultural plurality 3, whereas social policies become the main
channel of poverty reduction strategy for indigenous people [ PROGRESA 2000 ; SEDESOL 2001 ].
The present article is aimed to put forward a comprehensive framework to understand educational
deficiency of indigenous people, and then to apply that framework to the case of an indigenous community. The
selected community, Santiago Mexquititlán (SM), has interesting characteristics for the study of indigenous
educational problems. There most of the residents continue speaking Otomi language. Schooling of the Otomi has
been severely low, but it is significantly improving among young generation.
The investigation of Santiago Mexquititlán’s Otomi by the author started on July 1998. Until 2001 its main
concern was to describe and explain socio-economic conditions of Otomi migrants in Mexico City, not all but
many of whom live together with countrymen in illegally occupied vacant land [ Ukeda 2001 (a) ; 2001(b) ]. From
2 INI is a decentral ized Federal government organization established i n 1948 with the purpose of designing and coordinating public policies towards indigenous people. It was a dependency tied to the Ministry of Public Education (SEP) unt i l May 1992, when i t was integrated into the Ministry of Social Development (SEDESOL) . 3 Indigenous policies have suffered several changes reflecting the political climate of each post-revolution government. S e e [ Marroquín 1972 ; INI 1978 ; Aguirre -Beltrán 1991; INI 2000 ].
4
April 2002 on the author embarked on field study in SM to gather firsthand data related to education there. No or
little schooling has been the vital development issue in that rural indigenous community. In recent years, however,
education of SM exhibits -not remarkable but significant- improvement. The author has periodically visited
governmental institutions such as local -municipal and state- offices of SEP (Secretaría de la Educación Pública:
Ministry of Public Education) and INI, and some schools -primary, secondary and tertiary- located within or near
SM, interviewing with key persons. While qualitative information such as attitude toward and expectation of
going to school was obtained through Otomi and non-Otomi informants, quantitative data as the household
economy was hard to collect, particularly due to the Santiago Otomi’s reluctance to be investigated 4. But, to get a
micro-data set, between December 2002 and January 2003 the author visited ninety-one SM households (85
Otomi households and 6 mestizo ones) 5 with questionnaire (Table 5) 6.
We begin by proposing our framework in Chapter II. Case study of an Otomi community, Santiago
Mexquititlán, is developed in Chapter III in the following order: a) overview of SM, b) description and c)
explanation of what have happened to the education there. Chapter IV concludes.
II. Education and Indigenous People
Decades ago educational gap between indigenous people and non-indigenous population was enormous
in Mexico. To take an example, in the year 1930 more than half of indigenous people (52.7%) were monolingual,
i.e., did not speak Spanish 7 [ INEGI 1996 (a) ]. Though the difference is narrowing, indigenous educational
disadvantage persists and notably so in the case of females (Table 1). Since the 1980s education has been
increasingly recognized as the critical input for long-term economic development. The government, therefore, has
come to emphasize adequate schooling of indigenous people for them to get rid of economic poverty.
Educational disadvantage of Mexican indigenous people can be explained by a lot of inter-related factors.
They can be aggregated into four categories, two supply-side factors (lack of educational infrastructure, poor
4 Otomi people of SM are notorious among many researchers for their distrust toward strangers [ Arizpe 1979 ], a l though young generation is likely to be more open-minded. It can be explained by their cultural isolation, memories of having been discriminated by mestizo neighbors, and too much experiences of being asked questions by governmental agents and students majored in anthropology. 5 One surveyed Otomi household was dropped from the database of this research since it was a successful emigrant household who was l iving outside SM (in San Luis Potosí ) for most of the year. 6 Three high school students were hired as native research assistants, at least one of them accompanying the author in visiting Otomi households. On average it took forty minutes to finish a household survey. There was no data to permit us to locate all the households in SM, hence impossible random sampling. But households were carefully selected so that they would be quasi-representative in terms of economic conditions and geographical distribution. The author, with the help of maps and the 2000 Population Census data, tried to cover all the territory. And households of different housing conditions were selected to mirror socio-economic inequal i ty within SM. 7 Monolingualism was reduced to 16.6% in 2000 [ INEGI 2001 (a) ].
5
quality of the education provided in indigenous communities) and two demand-side ones (liquidity constraint of
indigenous households, disadvantage of being indigenous). Table 2 summarizes what these bottlenecks are and
what policies have been done or been proposed for removing them.
Table 1. Some Educational Statistics, Mexico 1990. Population Census
6 14years
15 yearsand older
Noinstruction
Incompleteprimary
Completeprimary
Post-primary N.S.
Male 73.0 70.2 73.0 28.0 37.0 16.0 15.8 3.2Female 69.3 48.1 66.5 45.8 28.7 11.6 8.9 5.0Total 71.1 59.0 69.8 36.9 32.7 13.8 12.3 4.1
Male 87.9 91.9 87.5 10.1 21.4 19.2 47.6 1.7Female 88.6 87.8 86.4 12.8 22.4 20.2 42.6 2.0Total 88.2 89.8 87.0 11.5 21.9 19.7 45.0 1.9
SchoolAttendance %6 14 years
Schooling of those 15 years and older %
Indigenous
Non-indigenous
Literacy Rate %
Source: [ INEGI 1995 ] for literacy rate and adult schooling. School attendance is author’s calculation based on [ INEGI 1992 ; 1993 ].
Table 2. Factors Explaining Educational Deficiency of Mexican Indigenous People
Factors Prescription
Absence of educational facilities within or close toindigenous communities Construction of schools in the remote indigenous-populated zones
Poor quality of educationImprovement of existing facilities, training of teachers, (well-designed) bilingual education, participation of parents and so forth
Liquidity constraint of indigenous households Pro-poor social policies (conditional scholarship, dormitories, etc)
Disadvantage of being indigenous (geographicaland cultural isolation, discrimination and linguisticdisadvantage)
Investment in social infrastructure, anti-discrimination campaign,and (well-designed) bilingual education
Supply-side
Demand-side
Source: Written by the author
Supply-side factors depend on public policies of the government. That there were no schools within or
near the community is an important reason why a great part of aged indigenous population never have gone to
school. Indigenous people are concentrated in rural and often remote areas 8, although many of them migrate
8 It is clear from the fol lowing table the tendency of indigenous people to reside in rural are as: Distribution of Population by the Size of Locality. 1990 Mexico
Number of inhabitants Indigenous
(5 years and older) %
General (Indigenous and Non-indigenous, 0 year and older)
%
1 – 499 1,545,737 29.3 9,950,659 12.2 500 – 2,499 1,976,577 37.4 13,339,265 16.4 2,500 - 9,999 878,143 16.6 8,873,860 10.9 10,000 – 99,999 411,777 7.8 13,016,055 16.0 100,000 – 999,999 378,911 7.2 27,111,440 33.4 1,000,000 - 91,202 1.7 8,958,366 11.0
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temporally or definitely in search for better economic opportunities. In addition, indigenous people formerly did
not have political power so that their voice could be heard. And yet, since the 1970s they have witnessed significant
improvement in their access to education infrastructure. For instance, so-called indigenous schools (escuelas
indígenas) -primary and pre-primary schools administered by Indigenous Education Department of SEP- have
considerably increased during the past 30 years, with more than 1 million of children enrolled now (Table 3). But
we also have to take into account the quality of education. Though a comprehensive study has not been
undertaken yet, it is often said that instruction given at schools where indigenous children go are poor in quality
[ Bertely 1998 ; INI 2000 Tomo I : 287 ; ‘Estudio de la SEP asegura que la calidad de la educación primaria no ha
cambiado desde 1996,’ La Jornada. 5 de mayo, 2002 ]. One consequence of the poor quality would be less incentive
of indigenous households (than non-indigenous ones) to invest in formal education.
Table 3. Indigenous Schools: Number of Schools and of Enrolled Students. 1970~2000
School Year 1970 71 1980 81 1990 91 2000 01 1970 71 1980 81 1990 91 2000 01Kindergarten 0 3,632 6,209 8,487 0 102,828 218,919 292,031Primary School 1,403 4,628 6,787 9,065 116,054 356,782 588,464 792,530
Schools Enrolled Students
Source: Website of SEP http://www.sep.gob.mx/work/appsite/nacional/index.html
As regards demand-side factors, that is, factors related to indigenous people, liquidity constraint is
supposed to be the principal obstacle for the educational advance of poor households (given underdevelopment of
the market which could finance human capital investment). Indigenous people are poorer and have more children
than non-indigenous population 9, so opportunity cost of sending children to school results higher for indigenous
households. Social policies introduced in the 1990s are designed to address this problem. Governmental program
targeted for poor households, denominated PROGRESA (Programa de Educación, Salud y Alimentación) under
the President Zedillo government (1994~2000) and Oportunidad under the Fox government (2000~), transfers
income by cash or in kind to the poor households. For beneficiaries to accumulate human capital it is conditional
on their keep fulfilling some obligations, which take the form of child’s regular attendance at school in the case of
scholarship. Both the number of beneficiaries and the amount of benefits have been increasing. On the period
January~February 2001 students receiving the PROGRESA scholarship amounted to 1,671,162 persons in
primary schools and 804,329 in secondary (junior high) schools (http://www.progresa.gob.mx/). Amounts of
PROGRESA payments are shown in Table 4. Today high school students also can receive the scholarship. Because
Total 5,282,347 100.0 81,249,645 100.0 Source: [ INEGI 1992 ; 1993 ] 9 See [ INEGI 1995 : 52 ; Panagides 1995 ; de Janvry, Gordillo and Sadoulet 1997 ] for income poverty of Mexican indigenous people. According to the Population Census, in the year 1990 average number of children (excluding stillborn children) is 3.3 for indigenous women 12 years and older and is 2.5 for non-indigenous women 12 years and older [ INEGI 1995 : 68 ] . See also [ CONASUPO 1998 : 119-126 ].
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of their geographical concentration in marginalized zones and of their economic poverty, indigenous households
are more likely to receive these support programs.
Though not benefiting so much population as PROGRESA, INI has managed free dormitories
(albergues) in behalf of those students whose houses are located far from primary school. Between 1995 and 2000,
352,078 of children have been accommodated in the 1,082 dormitories of INI, which cover most of the
indigenous-populated zones in Mexico [ SEDESOL 2001 : 117 ].
Table 4. Amounts of PROGRESA Payments (Mexican Peso), Second Semester 2001
I II III IV V VI I II III I II III
Male 560 600 630 940 1,010 1,070Female 600 660 720 1,080 1,150 1,220
Grant for nutrition(per household, bimestrial)
Grant for stationery or text(per child, annual)
125 125 125 125 125 125 235 235 235 235 235 235
Primary school Junior high school High school
- - 290 390Scholarship
(per child, bimestrial)190 230
290 (not conditional on child's school attendance)
Source: http://www.progresa.gob.mx/
Liquidity constraint is a significant factor that, through its negative impact on schooling, may cause
indigenous households to ‘be caught in a poverty trap’. But, what makes indigenous educational problems
peculiar in relation to the case of non-indigenous poor sector is disadvantage of being indigenous in the Mexican
society. Disadvantage of being indigenous can be divided into three inter-related components: geographical and
cultural isolation, discrimination, and linguistic disadvantage. First, some anthropologists pointed out as a cause
of poverty the closed and risk-averse character of indigenous communities, which had been consolidated as a kind
of their survival strategy [ Aguirre-Beltrán 1991 ] 10. If an indigenous community is isolated from outer, more
dynamic, world, its members will not recognize swiftly the value of formal education. But, indigenous
communities have gradually though not uniformly been integrated into the national and international society. Job
outside the community and migration became the norm among indigenous people [ INI 2000 Tomo I : Capítulo 5 ].
And education itself facilitates change of the attitudes, directly (by instructing Spanish and general-abstract
knowledge) and indirectly (through its influence on occupational choice). Thus, indigenous isolation loses its
significance as more households rely on non-agricultural jobs and people get accustomed to formal education.
Second, indigenous disadvantage may stem from discrimination in the labor market, which will reduce
economic returns of schooling and so incentive to study more. Panasides [ Panagides 1995 ] conducted a
decomposition analysis after estimating income-earning functions in order to explain income difference between
10 See a lso the c lass ic argument of ‘the Image of Limited Good’, proposed by G. Foster [ Foster 1965 ] to interpret behavior of the peasants l iving in relatively isolated communities (whether indigenous or not) .
8
indigenous people and non-indigenous population, and referred to discrimination as a possible cause of the
residual that isn’t attributable to a (supposed) productivity gap between them 11. Unfortunately there is no data
available to estimate the exact effect of discriminatory practices. But we can predict that its significance will
diminish as contacts between the two groups are more frequent and more intense.
Finally, there lies linguistic disadvantage before indigenous people, i.e., disadvantage of not speaking or
speaking (and writing) less fluently than non-indigenous population the dominant language, Spanish in Mexico
[ Chiswick, Patrinos and Tamayo 1996 ; Chiswick, Patrinos and Hurst 2000 ]. In the time when indigenous people
had limited contacts with mono-Spanish mestizo population, their linguistic disadvantage was not to speak
Spanish, surely a severe handicap from an economic viewpoint. Today the problem has shifted to the disadvantage
of being bilingual. In the actual context of Mexico economic benefits of learning and speaking the original
language of the native community is almost nothing for most of indigenous people. Survival of indigenous
languages basically depends upon how much they are appreciated by indigenous people themselves as means of
internal communication and as marker of identity, given the hegemony of Spanish and the mestizos’ prejudice
against indigenous cultures. If indigenous parents keenly perceive disadvantage of being bilingual in schools or
workplaces, they will not teach their ancestral language to children. Indigenous policies of Mexico acknowledged
the indigenous linguistic dilemma, and bilingual education has been institutionalized as a prescription. In its initial
stage bilingual education solely meant instructors’ using indigenous language during the first year of primary
school for indigenous children not to have trouble with learning Spanish. Later its emphasis has moved toward
rather an opposite direction: on contributing to conservation or enrichment of indigenous languages and
traditions. Under the ideal condition where technical, institutional and cultural requirements for bilingual
education are met, indigenous students could feel proud of their native communities while learning Spanish as
well as mestizo students. The reality of bilingual education, on the contrary, may be very disappointing: students
given little or no instruction of indigenous language and, what’s worse, acquiring insufficient Spanish skill 12.
III. A Case Study
III-1. Santiago Mexquititlán
11 The author conducted the same decomposition analysis with some modification using different micro-data set (Encuesta Nacional de Empleo en Zonas Indígenas 1997) from that of Panagides’ study (Encuesta Nacional de Ingresos y Gastos de los Hogares 1989) [ Hisamatsu and Ukeda 2003 ]. 12 For l inguist ic pol ic ies in Mexico, see [ Brice -Heath 1972 ; Bertely 1998 ; García, Ofelia 1999 ; INI 2000 Tomo I : Capí tulo 2 ] .
9
Otomi (otomí, ñäñho) 13 is the most populous of the five linguistic groups that belong to Otopame
family [ Lastra 1998 ]. The 2000 Population Census registers 291,722 speakers of Otomi language, 4.8% of the
total indigenous population. Otomi, as an indigenous language, ranks sixth in the number of speakers, following
Náhuatl (1,448,936 speakers), Maya (800,291), Mixteco (437,873), Zapoteco (421,796) and Tzotzil (297,561). But,
Otomi’s demographic increase is much slower than that of the total indigenous population, annual rate of the
former 3.3% vs. 5.2% of the latter between 1970 and 1980, - 0.9% vs. 0.2% between 1980~1990 and 0.4% vs.
1.4% between 1990~2000 [ Valdés 1995 ; INEGI 2001 (a) ]. Otomi habitat has been the Central Plateau Region,
with top five states in Otomi population among the 32 Mexican states being Hidalgo (114,043 Otomi-speakers),
México (EDOMEX, 104,357), Querétaro (22,077), Veracruz (17,584) and Federal District (DF, 17,083) [ INEGI
2001 (a) ]. Otomi people have often been associated with the maguey plant, to symbolize their dry territory with
low yield [ Granberg 1970 ]. And they have usually been thought as very marginal ethnic group that could not
develop complex social system before as well as after the Spanish conquest [ Besauri 1990 : 233-314 ; Gibson
1967 ]. However, specialists of the Otomi history challenge that negative view, pointing out the necessity of seeking
reliable data about Otomi people, sources not-distorted by powerful groups like Nahua [ Wright Carr 1994 ;
Carrasco 1998 ]. After the Mexican Revolution, particularly during the latter half of XX century, economic and
socio-cultural situation of Otomi people has significantly changed. Massive migration to urban areas as Mexico
City 14 is one component of the transformation.
Santiago Mexquititlán (SM) 15 is located in the Valley of Santiago, whose altitude varies from
2,000 to 2,400 meters above the sea. It belongs to the Municipality of Amealco de Bonfil, which forms the southern
end of Querétaro State. SM is the biggest Otomi community in Querétaro State where, according to the 2000
Population Census, 10,042 persons live and the 91.5% of those 5 years and older speak Otomi language 16
[ INEGI 2001 (a) ]. People there live in dispersed manner, different families settling with distance from each other
17. SM was divided into six barrios in 1947 (See Table 5). Of them, Barrio I has the longest history of Otomi
habitation, where today we find the main Catholic Church, the Delegation, Health Clinic, cemetery, some stores
and tianguis. Mestizos, who are often distinguishable by their color of skin, are minor in SM but live better than
the Otomi in socio-economic terms (schooling, area and quality of agricultural land, occupation, housing condition,
etc) . Most of them live in Barrio IV in which 25.6% of the 1,066 residents 5 years and older only speak Spanish.
13 See [ Manrique 1969 ; Carrasco 1979 ; Galinier 1990 ; Soustelle 1993 ; Parsons 1998 ] for the history of Otomi soc iet ies . 14 Mexico City, t he ever-expanding capital of Mexico, today contains 16 delegations of the Federal District (Distrito Federal: DF) and 32 adjacent municipalities of the State of Mexico (Estado de México: EDOMEX). Most of Otomi living in DF and some part of Otomi in EDOMEX are migrants from rural communities. 15 In the description of SM that follows the author consulted ethnographic studies of Lydia van de Fliert [ van de Fliert 1988 ] and Prieto and Utrilla [ Prieto y Utrilla 2000 ], a linguistic study of Ewald Hekking [ Hekking 1995 ] and a socioeconomic study of Lourdes Arizpe [ Arizpe 1979 ]. 16 81.1% of the 7,744 Otomi speakers in SM are bi l ingual . 17 To l ive disperse is a habitational pattern common in Otomi societies [ Manrique 1969 : 695 ] .
10
Relation between the Otomi and the mono-Spanish, rich and sometimes discriminatory mestizo neighbors living
within or around SM has been rather limited to the sphere of economic transaction, as buyer and seller of grocery
and fertilizers or employee and employer in agricultural labor, and the like. Although the Otomi’s socio-economic
condition is getting better, matrimony between the Otomi and mestizos is still very rare today.
Figure 2. State of Querétaro and Municipality of Amealco de Bonfil
Table 5. Household and Population of Santiago Mexquititlán
Barrio Households PopulationNumber of Surveyed
HouseholdsSum of Surveyed
Households' MembersI 245 1,543 14 111II 193 1,194 10 84III 201 1,226 11 69IV 216 1,228 13 85V 267 1,711 15 106VI 519 3,140 27 163
Total 1,641 10,042 90 618
2000 Population CensusSurvey by the Author betweenDecember 2002 January 2003
Source: [ INEGI 2001(a) ] and the author.
Little is known of the history of SM, though probably Otomi people began to habit there as long ago as XVI
century [ Prieto y Utrilla 2000 : 14, 24-25 ]. During the Porfiriato there were huge haciendas around SM on which
the Otomi worked like peones. When the Mexican Revolution ended latifundism, many Otomi households
received land. Especially, Barrio V and VI is a genuine product of land reform executed between 1930s and 1950s.
Thanks to the land distribution, Otomi’s household economy based on small-scale family farming of maize and
livestock (sheep, pig, cow, fowl and turkey) became improved and more stable. But, in the year 1947 a tragedy
happened that is remembered between elder Otomi as the 'slaughter of animals (la matanza de los animales)'. The
11
army arrived to take their livestock, insisting that they were infected with aftosa fever. The economic loss forced
many santiaguense to migrate.
The rhythm of migration, periodical or permanent, has been accelerated with the fragmentation of land
caused by rapid demographic growth. The 1960 Population Census registered 3,092 inhabitants [ Dirección
General de Estadística 1963 ], so during the past forty years the population of SM has tripled. Under such a
demographic pressure, many adult men could not maintain their household with land inherited from their father.
Among the surveyed households (including mestizo ones) by the author, their agricultural land area is ranged
from 0 to 5 ha, and its mean value is only 1.5 ha (1.25, standard deviation). In relation to the access to SM, the
state government constructed a highway passing through Barrio I and IV in 1962 and enlarged it in 1978. During
the day, a bus to Mexico City (it takes nearly four hours) and another to Quéretaro City (two hours) come every
hour. As a result of this direct connection, migration and visits between SM and other parts of Mexico were
facilitated. Concerning support activities of the government, in 1972 INI established at the center (Centro) of
Amealco its XXII 'Centro Coordinador Indigenista (CCI) ', destined to manage public policies for the Otomi living
in Amealco. Since then the CCI Amealco literally acted as the coordination center of public policies. In recent
years, however, INI’s role and authority have lessened between the Otomi of SM. The decadence of INI was
caused by its incompetence to attend diverse demands of indigenous people (ex. little community-wide impacts of
the projects organized by INI), on the one hand, and by the penetration of pro-poor social policies (PROGRESA),
on the other.
The economy of SM has been diversified, which is the general trend in rural areas of Mexico [ Taylor and
Yúnez-Naude 1999 ]. Almost all the households keep cultivating their small plot of land. But agriculture is not a
profitable activity, some households even losing money by investing too much (ex. purchase of fertilizer) on the
economically non-sense maize production. Table 5 is the list of (main) occupation. It demonstrates mestizos’
advantage over the Otomi, who are much more likely to be engaged in semi-skilled, unstable, manual jobs such as
agricultural wage labor (including at large commercial farms in Guanajuato State), construction work and
commerce on the street. Most of adult men have two or more jobs and many housewives seasonally leave for cities
to vend some sweets or craft products (artesanía) or to beg their bread, on the streets with much traffic. Though
not shown here, income data of the Survey, modified with the author’s observation, suggests that those engaged in
these manual jobs are not necessarily condemned to be poor, many of them –as maestro of construction work and
hard-working street vendor who got to obtain a fixed stall- accumulating money enough to rebuild their houses or
to open small grocery store. During the past five years two things of great economic importance have occurred.
One is the diffusion of PROGRESA. The other is sudden increase of illegal migration to the United States. To pay
a smuggler more than one thousand dollar and to stay in the ‘North’ for a year or longer has become popular
among the Otomi adults, years after the case of mestizo neighbors. Among the ninety surveyed households 12
households (10 Otomi and 2 mestizo) had absent members who were in the ‘North’. Some Otomi adults save 300
12
or more dollars a week and spend that saving on, first of all, their housing.
Table 6. Economic Activities in Santiago Mexquititlán: Members of 12 Years and Older of the
Surveyed Households by the Author (84 Otomi Households and 6 Mestizo Households)
Single Others Single Others
Main job Main job Job besideshousework
Job besideshousework
Job besideshousework
Job besideshousework
Agriculture (family farming, wage labor withinor outside SM)
76 2 2 18 0 0
Construction work (within SM or in cities likeQuerétaro and Mexico City)
33 0 0 0 0 0
Street vendor (of craftworks -dolls and canechair- and sweets)
12 0 6 23 0 0
Industrial worker (textil plant located inAmealco, KALTEX) 5 0 3 4 1 0
Household enterprise (mainly grocery stores) 4 3 5 10 1 7Teacher (of indigenous schools) 2 0 0 4 0 0Employed in public sector other than schools 2 1 0 0 0 0Restaurant 1 0 1 0 0 0Employed in household enterprise of others 1 1 0 0 0 0Domestic servant 0 0 1 1 0 0Driver (Taxi, bus) 0 2 0 0 0 0Other (Carrier at public market, etc) 3 0 0 0 0 0N.S. 2 0 0 0 0 0Total 141 9 18 60 2 7
Not work 3 0 0 0 0 0Housework (mainly) 0 0 23 69 0 1Student 31 4 24 0 2 0Retired 2 0 0 0 0 0
Households who have absent membersworking temporally in the United States (inthe survey they are not counted asconstituents)
FemaleMale
Otomi 10 households,17 persons in the North
Mestizo 2 households,2 persons in the North
Otomi Mestizo Otomi Mestizo
In spite of the Otomi’s search efforts, their very low schooling has curtailed and will continue to curtail
options left for them, whether they work within or outside their native community. Thus education matters.
Before turning to our central theme, we would like to mention three points related to cultural aspects of the
Otomi in SM that can have bearing on education. First, owing to Otomi’s weak tradition of collective action and
lack of intellectual leade rs, to date no new-ethnic movements have emerged in SM. It largely explains
nonexistence of bilingual education there. Second, the Otomi of SM are well known among the neighbors and
governmental agents by their excessive consumption of alcoholic beverage
(http://www.reforma.com/nacional/articulo/207289). Alcoholism obviously does harm to human capital
accumulation, other things equal. Third, the 16.8% of households’ members surveyed by the author are or have
been (non-Catholic) Evangelists. It is difficult to estimate the impact of religious conversion on education, but
Evangelists’ abstention to drink can have positive repercussion in the community like SM.
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III-2. Education in Santiago Mexquititlán
III-2-1. Description
SM is an indigenous community that lags in the diffusion of formal education behind indigenous people
in general 18. It is around 1920 that the first school was opened on the territory of SM. By the year 1974, when
Departamento de Educación Indígena (DEI) of the SEP (Ministry of Public Education) was set to work in the
Municipality of Amealco, all of the six barrios had at least one primary school, but only one school disposed of the
capacity of instructing all the grades, from 1st to 6th. In this ‘complete school’ children studying at higher grades
were mono-Spanish mestizo children. And yet, considerable improvement was observed afterwards in the
educational scene of SM.
Table 7 a) is statistics related to education, of the 2000 Population Census. For the sake of comparison,
below rows of SM are presented information of other entities: two mestizo neighbor localities (Donicá and Torre
(San Nicolás de la Torre)), another large Otomi community in Amelaco (San Ildefonso Tultepec), Amealco (both
Centro and the whole), State of Querétaro, Federal District and the whole country. And table 7 b) displays some
results of the Household Survey conducted by the author. The latter is disaggregated by age, gender and language
use (i.e., Otomi and mestizo). Very poor schooling of the Otomi, compared with mestizos living within as well as
outside SM, is evident from the two tables. But, compared with the past, educational improvement among
younger generation is notable in SM, and the gender gap is also narrowing there.
Table 7 a). Educational Statistics of Santiago Mexquititlán and Some Other Entities. 2000 Population Census
6 14years
15 yearsand older
6 14years
15 17years
Noinstruction
Incompleteprimary
Completeprimary
Post-primary
BARRIO I. 73.4 58.3 71.3 25.0 42.4 32.2 12.3 13.0 3.0 BARRIO II. 63.1 46.9 64.5 16.0 56.4 24.8 11.1 7.3 2.2 BARRIO III. 61.8 46.1 71.4 35.5 55.9 22.5 10.6 10.3 2.3 BARRIO IV. 79.5 63.8 85.8 48.1 38.6 25.6 15.5 20.4 3.7 BARRIO V. 60.4 49.0 83.4 29.0 48.6 30.2 11.9 9.3 2.4 BARRIO VI 71.5 55.5 76.0 23.3 45.8 28.5 14.0 11.4 2.7Total 68.6 53.8 75.8 28.0 47.2 27.8 12.8 11.9 2.7
88.8 80.8 89.8 42.9 19.4 38.2 17.7 24.7 4.691.0 84.7 94.4 39.1 15.8 31.5 23.9 28.7 5.076.2 66.4 79.2 23.3 33.4 29.6 19.4 16.1 3.690.8 93.2 94.9 58.3 9.2 14.1 22.4 53.3 7.679.3 74.8 84.8 30.9 26.7 26.1 22.9 23.4 4.587.1 90.1 91.7 50.4 11.5 14.4 20.7 52.5 7.7*92.9 97.0 96.0 72.9 3.6 8.5 15.4 71.7 9.7*87.3 90.5 91.3 55.2 10.2 18.0 19.1 51.8 7.6*
Federal DistrictNational
SM
DonicáSan Nicolás de la TorreSan Ildefonso TultepecAmealco (Centro)Amealco (whole)Querétaro
Mean schoolingyear of those 15years and older
EntityLiteracy Rate % School Attendance % Schooling of those 15 years and older %
Source: [ INEGI 2001 (a) ]. For figures with asterisk, [ INEGI 2001 (b) : 37 ].
18 According to the 1990 Population Census, i n SM 57.4% of the population 15 years and older have not gone (or gone less than a year) to school and only 6.9% of them had some post-primary-school education, while the corresponding share in the case of indigenous average was 37.0% and 12.3% respectively [ INEGI 1992 ; 1993 ].
14
Table 7 b). Educational Statistics of Santiago Mexquititlán. Household Survey Conducted by the Author
School Attendance
Age N Attendschool
% N Attendschool
% N Attendschool
% N Attendschool
%
6 25 23 92.0 27 25 92.6 1 1 100.0 1 1 100.0
30 26 86.7 26 (NS=1) 25 or 26 96.2 100.0 1 1 100.0 1 1 100.025 17 68.0 32 (NS=1) 18 or 19 56.3 59.4 2 2 100.0 1 1 100.028 11 39.3 17 6 35.3 3 2 66.7 0 - -15 2 13.3 26 1 3.8 1 0 0.0 1 0 0.0
108 1 0.9 119 1 0.8 8 0 0.0 10 1 10.0
Otomi MestizoMale Female Male Female
Schooling of Those 15 Years and Older
Age NNever have
gone toschool
Have post-primary
education
Meanschooling
yearN
Never havegone toschool
Have post-primary
education
Meanschooling
year35 4 14 6.2 31 (NS=1) 2 13 5.8
48 (NS=2) 10 13 5.4 48 12 5 3.923 2 3 4.2 34 22 3 1.8
24 (NS=1) 7 2 3.0 23 18 1 1.012 12 0 0.0 10 9 1 1.2
9 (NS=1) 7 1 1.0 16 16 0 0.0Total 151 42 33 4.4 162 79 23 2.9
Age NNever have
gone toschool
Have post-primary
education
Meanschooling
yearN
Never havegone toschool
Have post-primary
education
Meanschooling
year4 0 4 10.0 1 0 0 2.01 0 1 9.0 3 (NS=1) 0 1 10.52 0 2 9.0 4 0 2 7.33 0 1 5.7 1 0 0 5.01 1 0 0.0 2 1 0 0.51 0 0 6.0 0 - - -
Total 12 1 8 7.5 11 1 3 5.8
Male Female
Male FemaleMestizo
Otomi
Let us see the present state in more detail. Like most of other indigenous communities, pre-primary
schools (Centro de Educación Inicial for infants and their mothers, and Preescolar Indígena for children from 4 to
6 years) and primary schools (for children from 6 to 11 years if they enter in time and finish without repeating any
year) in SM are under the indigenous education branch (DEI) of the SEP, which was institutionalized in the 1970s
as part of basic education system. Basic education of SM -indigenous pre-primary school and indigenous primary
school- has made significant progress in its spread among children of school age and in the decrease of repetition
and dropout rate. Table 8 shows some data of indigenous schools in the SM Zone 19, school year 2001~2002.
19 DEI (Departamento de Educaci ón Indígena) Amealco attends two Otomi-populated zones of the municipality, SM and San Ildefonso Tultepec. In the SM Zone two small neighbor localities are also included: Los Árboles Tlaxcaltepec and Chiteje de Garabato, where Otomi -speakers are the minority today (17.4% and 7.9%, respectively).
15
Table 8. Schools Administered by Indigenous Education Department, Ministry of Public
Education: Santiago Mexquititlán Zone, School Year 2001~2002
1) Initial Education Center (Centro de Educación Inicial)
Name Location Total1 NSOT'I BARRIO I.2 DI NE GA PÖDI BARRIO II.3 AR XI MAI YA BORSI BARRIO III.4 YA BOTSI UN NJWA BARRIO III. 5 AR NGU YA MENGU BARRIO IV.6 DA BÖDI COR Ñ'ENI BARRIO V. 7 RA THUHU YA HÑOHÑO BARRIO VI. 8 AR DONZA CHITEJE DE GARABATO9 YA DONI DUI DONJ LOS ARBOLES TLAXCALTEPEC
209 Infants9 Teachers
2) Indigenous Kindergarten (Preescolar Indígena)
Name Location RoomsEnrolled
Students AExisting
Students BPromotableStudents C B / A (%) C / B (%)
TeachersD B / D
1 YA NGU YA BOTZI BARRIO I. 2 39 34 34 87.2 100.0 1 342 GUARDI DE GA BATZI BARRIO I. 3 26 26 26 100.0 100.0 1 263 NDAZA BARRIO II. 3 27 27 27 100.0 100.0 1 274 RA ÑHU YA BOTZI BARRIO III. 3 23 19 19 82.6 100.0 1 195 RA ÑU RA NCHODI BARRIO III. 1 24 21 21 87.5 100.0 1 216 HABU ÑHENI YA BOTZI BARRIO IV. 3 30 30 30 100.0 100.0 1 307 YA DENI YA BOTZI BARRIO IV. 3 20 20 20 100.0 100.0 1 208 YA MAYHO BARRIO V. 3 30 29 29 96.7 100.0 1 299 YA BOTZI NDTHAXAY BARRIO V. 3 22 21 21 95.5 100.0 1 21
10 JABU DENGAR DENI BARRIO VI. 3 32 30 30 93.8 100.0 1 3011 RA DUHU DE RA ÑAÑU BARRIO VI. 7 75 73 73 97.3 100.0 3 2412 AR DHUY BODHY BARRIO VI. 3 20 18 18 90.0 100.0 1 1813 AR DONI HA FOT'ZE BARRIO VI. 3 23 23 23 100.0 100.0 1 2314 HABU TU'U YA BOTZI CHITEJE DE GARABATO 3 26 24 24 92.3 100.0 1 2415 HABU NUHU YA BOTZI LOS ARBOLES TLAXCALTEPEC 3 22 22 22 100.0 100.0 1 22
46 439 417 417 95.0 100.0 17 25
Total (of all the grades)
Total
3) Indigenous Primary School (Primaria Indígena)
Name Location RoomsEnrolled
Students AExisting
Students BPromotableStudetns C
B / A (%) C / B (%)Teachers
DB / D
1 IGNACIO MANUEL ALTAMIRANO BARRIO I. 9 271 255 247 94.1 96.9 9 282 BELISARIO DOMINGUEZ BARRIO II. 6 118 107 102 90.7 95.3 4 273 CUAUHTEMOC BARRIO III. 6 121 104 101 86.0 97.1 4 264 MELCHOR OCAMPO BARRIO III. 9 290 278 270 95.9 97.1 9 315 IGNACIO ZARAGOZA BARRIO IV. 8 246 227 211 92.3 93.0 8 286 LEON COVARRUBIAS BARRIO V. 6 99 88 86 88.9 97.7 3 297 FRANCISCO I. MADERO BARRIO V. 8 234 218 213 93.2 97.7 8 278 VICENTE GUERRERO BARRIO VI. 9 268 255 247 95.1 96.9 9 289 JUAN DE LA BARRERA BARRIO VI. 8 232 220 211 94.8 95.9 8 2810 YA BOTSI MAXEI BARRIO VI. 1 25 21 21 84.0 100.0 1 2111 EMILIANO ZAPATA LOS ARBOLES TLAXCALTEPEC 6 123 120 114 97.6 95.0 4 30
76 2,027 1,893 1,823 93.4 96.3 67 28Total
Total (of all the grades)
Source: Departamento de Educación Indígena, Dirección de Educación Básica de la Secretaría de la Educación Pública.
The distinctive feature of these indigenous schools is that all the teachers were born in some
Otomi-speaking communities (SM or other Otomi-populated communities in the State of Querétaro, Mexico and
Hidalgo). In spite of the adjective ‘indigenous’, in indigenous schools neither Otomi language nor cultures of SM
have been taught until now. As schoolmistress of a primary school in Barrio III said to the author, in SM bilingual
education is confined to ‘the oral’, that is, bilingual education there means that teachers working at indigenous
16
schools can speak Otomi and not more. As we shall see, teachers of these indigenous schools may not have
adequate teaching capacity.
Table 9. Principal Post-Primary Schools for the Otomi Children of SM. School Year 2001~2002
Name LocationYear of
FoundationEnrolled Students
Number ofTeachers
Number ofClassrooms
Secondary(Junior HighSchool)
Escuela Secundaria TécnicaJosé María Velasco
San Nicolás de laTorre (near BarrioIV)
1983544 in total340 from SM
14 9
EMSAT (EducaciónMedio-SuperiorA Distancia)
Barrio IV( ¬Barrio I)
1994105 (Otomistudents from SMare the majority)
6 4
CONALEP (ColegioNacional de EducaciónProfesional Técnica)
Centro de Amealco 1999255 in total97 from indigenouszones
20 6
Tertiary(HighSchool)
Source: Interview with head teachers
As regards post-primary education, advance is notable as well. Among the cohort of thirty years and
older to go on studying after primary school was rather exceptional, but post-primary education is coming to be a
normal option for the teenagers today (Table 7). In the past, those children who wanted to get more than
elementary schooling and could afford to do it had to go to schools outside SM (ex. in Centro of Amealco). At
present, however, there are a junior high school near Barrio IV (in Torre) and a high school within Barrio IV, in
both of which the share of Otomi students is rising (Table 9). Finally, superior education in college or university
remains inaccessible or unimaginable for most of the Otomi households. And yet, about ten Otomi high-school
graduates are entering in the two-year technical college (which is sited in San Juan del Río, the industrial center of
Querétaro State) or some public university (Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro, Universidad Pedagógica Nacional,
etc).
III-2-2. Explanation
In this section a brief explanation is given to the evolution of education in SM, using the framework
presented in Chapter II (see Table 2).
1) Educational Facilities
Absence of schools close to where one lives is responsible, though not wholly, for very low schooling of
elder Otomi. And it should be remembered that in the past many primary schools had no more capacity than
instructing one or two year (grade). When interviewed by the author about schooling, many aged Otomi
17
mentioned the absence of school as the reason why they had never gone to school. But, as we saw in the preceding
section, access to educational facilities has been considerably eased since their time. Now there are ten indigenous
primary schools within SM. In school year 2001~2002 nine of these ten schools were ‘complete’. And six of them
had six or more classrooms (Table 8). At Melchor Ocampo School in Barrio III, the largest primary school in SM,
nine computers were equipped as a pilot project in 2002. Thus, for the children today disadvantage in access to
educational facilities is rather small, except the case of superior education that is provided only in cities such as
Querétaro and San Juan del Río.
2) Quality of Education
Data constraint inhibits us to systematically compare the quality of education in SM with that of other region
(including private schools in cities). Here we focus on the capacity of teachers. As far as junior high school and
high school are concerned, all the teachers have completed superior education 20. But, in the case of indigenous
schools, teachers may not have adequate teaching skill.
There had been no native Otomi teacher in SM until the year 1942 when don. Eusebio Ramírez (1916~), after
working in the hacienda as peon and then having opportunity to receive education for pedagogue outside SM,
began to teach at primary school in Barrio I (in which only the 1st and 2nd grade were instructed at that time).
Since then the share of Otomi teachers, including Otomi teachers born in other region, has steadily been raised.
According to Ramírez, eleven students taught by him became teacher. Formerly, as schools were short of
instructors, one could teach with the degree of primary school. The government has helped Otomi teachers with
little background to study for getting higher degree while teaching at school.
To instruct Otomi children by Otomi teachers turned to be the rule at pre-primary and primary schools with
the arrival of indigenous education system in Amelaco. Teachers of indigenous schools are required to come from
Otomi-populated communities. This ethnicity-conscious rule has possibly some merits from pedagogical
perspective, such as teachers’ familiarity with the Otomi environment. However, as stated above, ‘true’ bilingual
education has not been undertaken in SM. Maybe the merit of indigenous teacher system should be found in its
economic function for the indigenous community: it gives nearly one hundred Otomi adults -more than half of
them are from SM now- a stable and well-remunerated (for the most of Otomi people) job. Despite some possible
merits, indigenous schools are problematic in that teachers will have less teaching skill than under other
(ethnicity-neutral teacher) system. Today teachers must have finished high school in the case of pre-primary
schools and universities for pedagogue (Normal or Universidad Pedagógica Nacional) in the case of primary school.
20 In the junior high school located in Torre one male teacher is Otomi from Barrio III, and a female mestizo teacher from Barrio IV works at the high school in Barrio IV. CONALEP Amealco has no teachers native of S M.
18
But, in a primary school investigated by the author, only four of the eleven teachers working there have the
university degree.
3) Households’ Liquidity Constraint
Economic poverty certainly was and is a cause of the Otomi’s low shooling, as Otomi informants frequently
told the author. But recently, assistance by the government has let liquidity constraint less binding for the
increasing number of Otomi households. Here we only talk about the PROGRESA.
PROGRESA was introduced in SM around 1997, and since then has been extending its reach. Among the
ninety surveyed households, 40 students of 21 households (39 students of 20 Otomi households and 1 student of 1
mestizo household) were receiving the scholarship whose amount is shown in Table 4. It covered 31% of the 130
students between 8 and 20 years. Though not conditional on school attendance, grant for nutrition (see Table 4) is
also important since it soften the budget constraint of those households who have students or future students
(infants). Of the same sample, 40 households (39 Otomi and 1 mestizo) were paid grant for nutrition every two
month. All of the households receiving the scholarship were also beneficiaries of this grant.
Every teacher and many recipient mothers interviewed by the author coincide in that the cash transfer
program had positive impacts on schooling, which confirms the detrimental effect of economic poverty on
education. However, Otomi households not receiving the benefits are often critical of the PROGRESA. The
trouble is that in the selection process are excluded not only most of the relatively rich households (ex. mestizo
households and indigenous school teacher’s households) but also many poor or extremely poor households. One
reason of the incomplete targeting is that many poor households were absent, working temporally in some city,
when the inspector of PROGRESA came to visit their house.
The CCI AmeaIco (INI), in collaboration with the DEI Amealco (SEP), has managed a free dormitory
constructed in Barrio III. That dormitory can offer bed, meals and some complementary class to fifty children
studying at primary school. The easier access to school and the diffusion of PROGRESA has been reducing the
necessity of such a dormitory service.
4) Disadvantage of Being Indigenous
Distance from school (which was relevant in the past) and liquidity constraint (which is alleviated by
PROGRESA) alone cannot explain well the scant schooling of Otomi people. Disadvantage of being indigenous is
not negligible in SM. However, its nature and magnitude has changed and will continue to change in the future.
First, cultural (or psychological) isolation of Otomi-speakers from mestizo societies around them, reinforced
by geographical isolation (cf. inadequate provision of social infrastructure such as road and electricity), has
19
retarded their acceptance of formal schooling system. According to the supervisor of the DEI, who was born and
grown in a Otomi-speaking community in Hidalgo State but has been working at Amealco for the management of
indigenous schools during the past thirty years, formerly Otomi parents of SM had no or, if any, little interest in
education. When she visited them from house to house to invite their children to primary school, they would often
reject her at the door. But, the degree of isolation has been decreasing though in some households more than
others. The change of attitude was brought about by the shift of occupation, investment by the government in
social infrastructure 21, legitimacy that formal education has little by little gained in the community. And yet, in
many Otomi households as those households whose parents are alcoholic or those located in the remote, hilly zone
of SM (ex. in the ‘above (arriba)’ part of Barrio II and III), schooling is still valued little. Whether a boy who has
just finished primary school or junior high school is to continue to study receiving the scholarship or to enter in
the labor market as construction worker earning much more what PROGRESA give him every two month not
solely depends on the economic condition of his household. How much benefits he and his family expect of better
schooling and what they think of the teenaged marriage also affect his decision. As for marriage in early age,
among the 263 persons of 6 to 20 years recorded in the author’s survey, 27 persons (27 Otomi and 0 mestizo) were
married and all of them did not go to school.
Second, that neighbor mestizos used to treat in discriminatory way Otomi people, who were regarded
uniformly poor, alcoholic or ‘men of custom’, may have reduced Otomi’s incentive to go to school in the past. But
now that socio-economic condition of the Otomi (including the skill of Spanish) has improved, their decision on
schooling will not be influenced by the prejudice of some mestizos. Then, “Isn’t there any discrimination -explicit
or implicit- in the labor market by color of skin or other productivity-unrelated grounds that would lead the
Otomi to hesitate to invest in getting higher education?” We do not have information enough to verify the
existence of discrimination in the labor market. It seems especially difficult our considering the very few examples
there are among the Otomi who have long job experiences after finishing high school, college or university (except
the teachers of indigenous schools). We suspect, however, that discrimination in the labor market explains, if any,
a tiny portion of the difference in schooling between the Otomi in SM and their mestizo neighbors.
Last but not least, we must take into account the linguistic disadvantage. Among elder Otomi, not to speak
Spanish at all or to speak Spanish only partially was a serious disadvantage, which limited their occupation and
could alienate them from formal education. But actually, the main linguistic disadvantage has shifted to the
bilingual disadvantage. Most of Otomi people speak Spanish and are engaged in non-agricultural jobs at least
seasonally. And interest in acquiring better schooling is rising. In this context, some Otomi adults cease to teach
their children Otomi language, though disadvantage of being bilingual in school or workplaces may not exist at all
21 For example, it was in the year 1967 when the first electric wire was installed in Barrio IV [ van de Fliert 1988 : 83-85 ].
20
in reality.
It is at this stage of linguistic dynamics that ‘true’ bilingual education can contribute to indigenous people.
But, it does not exist in SM. Surely to teach reading and writing of indigenous language requires technical
assistance, such as standardization of orthography, elaboration of teaching materials (grammar text, dictionary,
reading materials whose contents would attract indigenous children, etc) and training for teachers. But, in this
respect, SM may be rather favored among indigenous communities, since a Dutch professional linguist, Ewald
Hekking, has actively involved over twenty years in the rescue program of Otomi language in Querétaro State 22.
It appears that the hitherto absence of bilingual education in SM is principally due to little interest manifested by
Otomi people themselves, including native Otomi teachers, in organizing projects to keep alive their language and
tradition 23. The possibility of rapid loss of Otomi language in SM in the near future, a process that has already
occurred in other Otomi communities, cannot be discarded.
IV. Concluding Remark
In this article a framework was proposed to explain the educational deficiency of Mexican indigenous people.
It is composed of the four inter-related factors, divided into two supply-side factors and two demand-side factors.
Supply-side factors basically depend on educational policies of the government. The first of them is absence or
insufficient supply of educational infrastructure, which might be especially relevant in the case of elder indigenous
people, and the second is poor quality of the education provided in indigenous communities. Demand-side factors
are related to indigenous people. They vary to some extent between regions, subject to the initial condition of each
community. The first demand-side factor is liquidity constraint of indigenous households, who are likely to be
poorer than mestizo ones. However, disadvantage of being indigenous in the Mexican society ought to be taken
into account as another demand-side factor, which does not hold for the poor but non-indigenous sector.
Disadvantage of being indigenous can stem from cultural and geographical isolation, discrimination in the labor
market and/or linguistic -monolingual or bilingual- disadvantage. Significance of these four factors change over
time, often brought about or induced by public policies such as massive construction of pre-primary and primary
schools in the indigenous-populated zones from the 1970s, recent penetration of pro-poor social policies
(PROGRESA) that soften budget constraint, introduction of bilingual education system which, if designed
carefully and implemented accurately, could alleviate linguistic disadvantage of indigenous people, and so forth.
22 Ewald Hekking is professor of the Universidad Autónoma de Querétaro (UAQ) . See [ Hekking 2002 ] for a brief presentation of his longstanding experiences. [ Hekking y Andrés de Jesús 1989 ; 2002 ; Anaya-Larios 2002 ] are some of h i s works that can be used as teaching materials for bi l ingual education. 23 For the success of bilingual education enduring commitment on the part of indigenous people themselves is necessary.
21
This framework was applied, though sketchily, to the case of an Otomi-speaking community located in the
south of Querétaro State. In the selected community, Santiago Mexquititlán, more than 90% of inhabitants
continue speaking Otomi language although it ceases to be transferred to children in some households. There
educational deficiency has been the grave problem, which restricts occupation open to Otomi adults whether they
seek jobs within or outside SM. Nevertheless, schooling is considerably improving among younger generation. By
comparing the Otomi with mestizo neighbors and comparing young Otomi with elder Otomi, and also by tracing
the role of public policies, the extent to which each of the four factors is relevant in explaining the evolution of
education in that Otomi community was indicated. In the next work our application results will be shown in more
rigorous and thorough manner.
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