Compulsory High School. Notes to Think the Mexican Experience

Abstract

Compulsory high school education is a process that has been developing, with different characteristics, in some Latin American countries. In Mexico, the H. Congress of the Union modified the 3rd and 31st articles of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States to extend compulsory education to high school from 2012. Although there is a growth of enrollment in this level of education, many young people do not attend high school or they interrupt their studies. With the purpose of describing some characteristics of this process in Mexico, I present reflections that emerged from a recently concluded research in dialogue with the current bibliography. It is a study that analyzes, from an ethnographic perspective, the accreditation of subjects in everyday life at Colegio de Bachilleres high school in Mexico City. We claim that the credit system is affected by a mandate that is present in current educational policies: to improve young people’s indexes of access to school, enrollment, and passing courses in high school. The aim of this paper is to identify challenges for the institutions that are envisioned in the future.