Importaciones de Grano, 1965-95 MARTIN, S Op Cit., Pág 323.

It is clear from the history of education in Mexico that the determinants of educational policies and practices are a complex and interacting set of factors rooted in the wish to preserve and maintain a system of social control. We have characterized this as the interplay between the formal and the informal, that is, between established institutional procedures and practices of the official system and the various practices of clientel- ism and cronyism that vitiate all levels of decision making in the system. Our discussion of the formal and informal and the complex rela- tions between them will focus on the teacher. Hence, a recurrent part of this work is that we do not forget that in decision- making processes the rigidness of formal structures and processes often means that decisions are made through parallel and, most confusingly, sometimes through overlapping informal structures. In countries like Mexico the informal can easily override, if not replace, the formal structure. Mexican research- ers are not encouraged to investigate this area and the opaqueness of its procedures often makes it difficult to understand what is happening. International practitioners, analysts and comparativists have even less capacity to understand the problem. They are hampered because they restrict themselves to working with the formal system. They therefore concentrate on the formal aspects, regarding them, by default, as being synonymous with what they call the education system.

As we have seen in Chapters  2 and 4, the results of 70  years of single-party rule, with very little changing during the 12- year period when the presidency was occupied by another party, has been the establish- ment of educational institutions and practices hallmarked by opaqueness in decision making and procedures, clientelism and a lack of account- ability, underwritten by a misuse of public funds. The development of a trade unionism more concerned with graft and maintaining social con- trol rather than any real commitment to education – combined with a prebendalist bureaucracy – has made educational imperatives subservi- ent to the maintenance of the system. In the eyes of international organi- zations, Mexico’s educational policies, on paper, appear to be rational, progressive and open, to a fault. The upshot has been decades of educa- tional inertia, reflected recently in the past 17 years of Mexico remaining

among the worst performing countries in the PISA league tables (for example, see also Ornelas (2008, 2012, 2014), Barba (2010) and Posner et al. (2017)).

It is important to emphasize that until now there has been little discussion of the process by which the authorities exercise their almost exclusive control and how the administration has bound together the variety of component institutions that make up the educational sys- tem. On paper the organizational chart looks similar to that of any other educational system. But this belies its real daily operation and it is in the grey area between the official version of educational pro- cedures and what actually happens that we find out how the sys- tem operates. In reality, we have a vast and overarching network of interpersonal relations among individual teachers, bureaucrats and authorities to whom teachers are beholden through the interchange of favours and loyalty. The influence these authorities exercise is not necessarily derived from their functions in the bureaucratic hierarchy. More commonly, their power is as a result of their political influence. Indeed, this type of informal network frequently traverses the formal chain of command in most educational processes. This almost invisible and informal clientelist system at the heart of the education adminis- tration has encouraged not only cronyism but also corruption in the conduct of educational activities at all levels. The tendency has been not to blame the system but to castigate the teachers for its continued failure. This charge of culpability more than any other element weighs heavily upon the teaching profession that has had little or no respon- sibility for the creation of a system more concerned with social control than with stimulating the development of an actively inquisitive popu- lation. Moreover, the process of decision- and policy-making at each level is complex and often serpentine. For example, as we have seen at the national level, complicated and convoluted negotiations take place between the most powerful stakeholders, such as religious and entre- preneurial organizations and the SNTE and the ruling party.

As policy is filtered down through the system it is subject to other pressures. In relatively weak systems of control there is room for other actors, such as parents, community leaders, teachers themselves as well as established political and trade union organizations, to take part. The labyrinthine nature of the process has yet to be fully analysed in the Mexican context. We can point to James Scott’s (2010) study of anti- centralized state formations in Southeast Asia; Bruno Latour’s (1987) examination of real laboratory activity as distinct from the formal and taken- for- granted idea of the ‘scientific method’; Mary Douglas’ (2002)

concepts of ritual purity and pollution in different societies and times; the social anthropologist, Gerald Mars’ (1982) revealing research on informal work practices; and even more relevantly, Merilee Grindle’s (1977) investigation into Mexican bureaucrats in a food assistance pro- gramme. Despite this gap in the literature, these works can act to guide our endeavours.