Educating for alternative futures: Schooling, indigeneity and ethno-development among young Nahuas of the Sierra Norte de Puebla (Mexico)

This project explores a topic at the core interest of educational studies on multicultural societies, that
of bilingual-intercultural education for ethnocultural minorities representing a large part of the national
population in many states. In fact, education of indigenous people is an overwhelming issue as it
inherently relates to both the cultural and material survival of such minority groups.
The research will focus on a pedagogical model specifically known as Intercultural Bilingual Education
(or Indigenous Education), adopted by a high school of the Sierra Norte of Puebla (Mexico) that seeks to
preserve their traditional knowledge and modes of living. Being primarily based on a subsistence
economy (sustainable agriculture, mutual help, community work circuits) and on specific cultural traits
(native language, traditional medicine, religiosity, and clothing), they are put under threat by young
people's tendency to flee rural communities in search of better education/employment in urban areas
as well as by governmental development project aiming to exploit natural resources of their territories.

Schooling processes that address the importance of preserving and transmitting native knowledge
are of extreme relevance to the welfare of indigenous communities. On the one hand, they teach
youngsters the kind of formal knowledge they would otherwise pursue in urban, official schools; on the
other, they provide them with training to develop skills for the bottom-up improvement of their
communities' lives through project drawing on their own resources and local knowledge.
Understanding the functioning and impact of this secondary school on small, apparently autonomous
rural communities would bring an original perspective into the ongoing academic discussion on
Bilingual-Intercultural Education; in addition, it may shed light on a set of good practices that may inform
studies on participant development through grassroots resources. Finally, such research may be found
of interest for the emerging debate about young people's aspiration through education.

60 credits achievable through the following 15-credit courses: Being a Social Scientist SS5101; Philosophy and Methodology of the Social Sciences SS5102; Qualitative Research in the Social Sciences SS5103; Quantitative Research in the Social Sciences SS5104