The political arena of Intercultural Higher Education in México

Abstract

More than 15 years since intercultural education became an official education policy in Mexico, this text analyzes intercultural higher education (IHE) policies from an approach set in the field of tensions with the State, along three fundamental axes: intercultural public universities, independent institutions of higher education, and their tensions and relationships. The analysis of cases and the review of the literature on the subject, shows the ways in which the actors participate in the dispute over the IHE as a political field and the reconfiguration of government policies in their regional expressions. At the same time, it illustrates a tension of origin associated with ignoring the rights of autonomy as a framework of significance of IHE policies. The field seems to be playing out between: a) The validity of demands for recognition, b) Multicultural rhetoric and the emerging strategies of the different actors, and c) The growing precariousness of IHE in the period of the withdrawal of the State and its resources.