EBAIS Río Segundo I, Alajuela Sur REMES y ATAPS en el mismo espacio.

This study examines the schooling experiences of indigenous children in two urban schools in the State of Jalisco, Mexico. I try to understand the role of schools in mediating ethnic identity formation processes of indigenous children.

The research questions (RQ) that guided this study aim to understand:

RQ1: What are the processes of identity formation of indigenous children in Mexican schools, especially in terms of their ethnic identification?

RQ2: How do teachers understand cultural diversity, and how do they see their role in promoting or undermining the children’s ethnicities?

Since I have spent several years now working on this document, I have come to reflect on the term ‘immigrant indigenous children’, which I used in my initial drafts of the thesis, as an inaccurate one. I realise now that most indigenous children who attend urban schools in Mexico are not necessarily immigrants; most of them were born in the cities and are children of indigenous immigrants. Naming them ‘immigrants’ in my research questions was exercising exclusion by labelling then as foreigners in the

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context where they were born. My original research questions1 _{were highly ambitious}

and in some ways biased by the way I saw things some years ago.

I consider it important to show these changes as a meta-analysis of my own research perceptions. I have come to realise that my original research questions were inaccurate in certain ways, as I was unable to see that indigenous children are no longer

immigrants. Most of them were born in the city, and labelling them as migrants further entrenches their status as outsiders. It was also difficult to identify the strategies of the schools, since there were no explicit efforts as such. While there were approximations to the cultural diversity of the schools, they were not even close to recognising their need to respond to their multicultural composition. I, therefore, decided to construct my research questions more openly, letting the data speak for itself through the voices of the children.

By using an ethnographic approach, I addressed these research questions by placing indigenous children’s voices at the centre of the research. This proposal is ethnographic because it aimed to observe and participate in the children’s school environment in order to understand their own perspective. It also tried to observe to what extent the Mexican urban school recognise and value cultural differences and whether there are approaches that consciously or not, strengthen or limit the indigenous children’s ethnic identities.

For the purpose of this ethnographic research, I concentrated on the state of Jalisco for two main reasons. Firstly, Jalisco is a state that has not given enough attention to

indigenous issues in schools. It has not yet implemented any programme of Intercultural Bilingual Education and, a decade after I conducted my first fieldwork, it still struggles to recognise its multicultural composition. Secondly, gaining access to public schools in Mexico for research purposes is not an easy endeavour. It involves negotiating with people at different levels of the educational system, who are often reluctant to allow

1 _{On April 2009 my main research question was: How do immigrant indigenous children understand their}

schooling experiences and how do schools respond to their needs? – Specific questions: 1. What are the processes of ethnic identity formation of young children in relation to ‘otherness’ in multicultural

environments? 2. How do schools deal with cultural diversity, and which of the strategies are (in)effective in meeting the children’s needs?, 3. How do indigenous children understand their interactions with their school environment and what are their responses to it?, 4. What forms of adaptation and resistance do indigenous children display within schools?

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access to external individuals. My ethnographic work in Jalisco was conducted in collaboration with the Centre of Research and Higher Studies in Social Anthropology (CIESAS), a research institution with a longstanding relationship with the Ministry of Education in Jalisco and is the institution that conducted a research project on

indigenous urban migration in three different states of the country in 2005-2008.

Therefore, access to schools was granted through the permits already given to CIESAS. While CIESAS finished the project in 2008, I continued my fieldwork in the schools and I also stay on as a permanent member of the Seminar on Education, Indigenous and Ethnicity with CIESAS.

In order to respond to my research questions, I have divided the thesis into three

sections. The first section consists of Chapter 1, 2, and 3, which explain the context and relevance of the research problem and the methodology and methods used. Chapter 1 provides a brief introduction to the research study. Chapter 2 offers a historical

perspective on the situation of the indigenous peoples in Mexico, especially in the last decade, and the current educational approaches to deal with cultural diversity. Chapter 3 shows the methodology and methods followed, including the approach to collecting and analysing the data, as well as issues of ethics and reflexivity.

The second section addresses the first research question concerned with the process of identity formation of indigenous children. Chapter 4 is concerned with the processes of identity formation of indigenous children in relation to language use. Chapter 5 attempts to respond to the processes of ethnic formation in terms of the emotional habitus and cultural capital of indigenous children, highlighting the differences between the indigenous groups.

The third and last section addresses the second research question regarding the role of the teachers and the schools within this process of ethnic identity formation. Chapter 6 discusses the realities of indigenous children within the school setting, highlighting the emotional, individual, family and institutional habitus embedded in their experiences. This chapter also addresses the aspirational capital of indigenous children and the responses of the school system towards those aspirations. Chapter 7 talks about the teachers’ understanding of cultural diversity, presenting the dynamics of the

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the low expectations that most teachers have on poor and especially indigenous children. Lastly, Chapter 8 presents research conclusions and recommendations for policy makers, regarding the recognition of cultural diversity within the Mexican schools.

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Chapter 2: Theoretical framework