88 Global Education Review 4(3)

Resisting Westernization and School Reforms: Two Sides to the Struggle to “Communalize” Developmentally Appropriate Initial Education in Indigenous Oaxaca, Mexico

Lois M. Meyer University of New Mexico, Albuquerque

Abstract In 2011, Indigenous Initial Education teachers in Oaxaca, Mexico, for the first time participated in an alternative teacher professional development effort (called a diplomado) to initiate community- appropriate bilingual programs for pregnant mothers and infants under 3 years old. Collaborating with parents and village authorities, the goals were Indigenous language revitalization/ maintenance and quality Initial Education, prioritizing communal values and Indigenous (non-Western) socialization practices. The teachers conducted various research tasks, one of which - the photographic and narrative documentation of young children’s spontaneous learning opportunities in their communities - is analyzed here. A finding of this study is that even very young infants in their spontaneous activities display early indications of responsible actions toward others that develop into caring for community. This effort to communalize Initial Education faces two intense oppositional pressures in Mexico today. For decades federal school policy has imposed on Indigenous teachers and communities Western- influenced views of developmentally appropriate ECEC, such as age grouping in care and school facilities and prioritizing teacher-organized and supervised activities. For Rogoff (2003), the imposition of Western views of ECEC denies the cultural nature of human development. In Oaxaca, only the Western view counts; the Indigenous perspective has been officially marginalized. Recently, another layer of imposed federal and state school reforms places Indigenous teachers at risk. Now teacher preparation, hiring, and retention will be assessed by national standardized tests of teacher professional knowledge, without consideration for rural life experience, knowledge of community practices, or Indigenous language competence. This article describes the status of communalized ECEC programs in Oaxaca given government repressions, and teacher resistance to these repressive school reforms.

Keywords Education, education policy, educational reform, Indigenous education, ECEC, bilingual education, teacher education, Oaxaca, Mexico, community-based education, diplomado

Introduction ______This article reports a recent effort in rural Corresponding Author: Lois M. Meyer, Department of Language, Literacy & Indigenous Oaxaca, Mexico, intended to Sociocultural Studies, Hokona 140, College of Education, transform institutional practices of Early University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131. Email: [email protected]

Global Education Review is a publication of The School of Education at Mercy College, New York. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported License, permitting all non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Citation: Meyer, Lois M. (2017). Resisting Westernization and school reforms: Two sides to the struggle to communalize developmentally appropriate initial education in Indigenous Oaxaca, Mexico. Global Education Review, 4 (3), 88-107. “Communalizing” Initial Education 89

Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), not with to the U.S.2 In 2013, 12% of Mexico’s 223,144 the goal of better aligning them with global basic education schools had no water and many reform efforts focused on standardization and had no functional bathrooms or lighting (Bacon, increased academics – quite to the contrary, it 2013); such schools dot the Oaxacan landscape. resists these efforts. Neither does it seek blindly Consequently, along with hopes for improved to import Western views of “developmentally job possibilities, pursuit of educational appropriate practices (DAP)” involving play, opportunities for their children motivates arts, music and child-initiated activities – these, Oaxacans to abandon their rural communities too, are held up for scrutiny. The ECEC effort in and emigrate abroad. Oaxaca resists both of these externally imposed In March 2001, on the occasion of its 27th orientations, prioritizing instead local, anniversary, the Coalition of Indigenous Indigenous values and communal child Teachers and Promoters of Oaxaca (Plan Piloto- socialization practices that too often are CMPIO)3 publicly denounced the situation of overlooked and even denigrated in favor of Indigenous education in the state: “Education in imported definitions of DAP. The agents of Indigenous communities is in complete change in this transformational effort are abandonment. Intercultural bilingual education teachers of Indigenous Initial Education (who only exists in political rhetoric, and the work with pregnant mothers and infants 0 to 3 authorities seem either ignorant of this years old) as part of a broad-based Pedagogical situation, or disinterested” (Soberanes, 2003b, Movement to reconstruct intercultural bilingual p. 6). education in the state of Oaxaca, based in the This public denunciation of educational Indigenous values, priorities and communal abandonment in Oaxaca was the result of a practices known locally as comunalidad. powerful process of consciousness-raising by the As the Mexican state with the greatest Coalition’s own teachers. Soberanes (2010) Indigenous population, Oaxaca has endured comments: “For many years, we teachers of both historic and present repression inflicted on Indigenous education have been instruments of its original peoples; at the same time, rural education policies that have tended toward the teachers in Oaxaca have a history of struggle disappearance of original peoples by enabling alongside Indigenous communities to defend their incorporation, assimilation, or integration educational and other rights. The reasons to into the dominant mestizo culture” (p. 105). struggle are varied and urgent. Seventy-five Recognizing their participation, both conscious percent of the municipalities of Oaxaca are and unconscious, in this grim educational considered highly or very highly marginalized; reality, and with the intent of constructing almost half of all Mexican municipalities that are together with local communities a transformed highly marginalized are located in Oaxaca. Indigenous education, in 1995 Plan Piloto- According to the 2010 census, two million CMPIO began the Pedagogical Movement, an Oaxacans speak one of over 50 Indigenous inclusive effort of children, parents, teachers, languages or language variants;1 a majority of committed intellectuals, communal authorities these Indigenous language speakers live in and other community members, broadly focused Oaxaca’s rural, impoverished communities. on constructing educational alternatives that More than half of the municipalities export respond to the needs and conditions of life in the laborers to large urban centers, to the fields and Indigenous communities of Oaxaca (Soberanes, maquiladoras of the northern Mexican states, or 2003a; Soberanes, 2003b; Soberanes, 2010). 90 Global Education Review 4(3)

The Pedagogical Movement provides the Oaxaca to legally mandate and institutionalize philosophical foundation of the Diplomado4 in comunalidad in public education – the “Plan to Community-based Initial Education, described Transform the Education of Oaxaca (PTEO)”, a here, a ground-breaking professional joint collaboration in 2012 between the Oaxaca development effort intended to prepare State Institute of Public Education (IEEPO) and Indigenous early educators as teacher- Oaxaca’s powerful teachers’ union affiliate, researchers to document, celebrate, and Section 22 of the National Union of Education incorporate into their own teaching the Workers (SNTE); and in 2014, a proposed new communal child socialization practices of the education draft law crafted from 383 proposals rural Indigenous communities where they teach. for education reform generated in public forums statewide – were legislatively ignored. Instead, Literature Review the national, normative approach to schooling, “Communalizing” Indigenous ECEC tightly controlled by the SEP, pays scant In Oaxaca, comunalidad is the term used to attention to minoritized, local priorities such as designate the collective communal governance Indigenous comunalidad. structures, values, priorities and practices of This disparagement of the “local” in favor Indigenous communities (Martínez Luna, of federal assimilationist policies is not 2003). According to Maldonado (2002; 2004), surprising. The cultural rights and priorities of comunalidad is the historic foundation of minoritized Indigenous groups within the Indigenous life, identity and cultural resistance. Mexican nation have historically been This pervasive sense of communal belonging is marginalized and discounted. In multiple the culmination of a continuous, profound international agreements, most recently the UN process of civic formation by means of which Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples villagers, virtually from birth, are collectively (UNDRIP) in 2007, the Mexican nation socialized beyond individualism or family promised to respect the linguistic, cultural, priorities to absorb communal responsibility territorial and other rights of Indigenous into their personal values. Peoples within its national territory and to grant In 1995, in response to Indigenous and them educational autonomy. These promised teacher union pressure, comunalidad was rights are foundational to the struggle for written into the State Education Act as the culturally appropriate Initial Education in fourth guiding principle of educational practice Indigenous Mexico. Yet over and over again the (Martínez Luna, 2010). Still, despite its Mexican nation has demonstrated that fundamental importance to Indigenous Indigenous educational autonomy is an empty existence and identity in Oaxaca and its presence promise, and that the yawning gap between in state law, comunalidad has had little impact promise and reality in Indigenous education that on the system of public education in the state, a has endured for decades, if not centuries, system that, although supposedly decentralized continues unabated today. from federal to state control in 1992, still retains for the Secretariat of Public Education (SEP) in Resisting Westernized “Developmentally Mexico City virtually unlimited control over Appropriate Practices” administrative and curricular decisions that Significantly, Oaxaca is not alone in the effort to affect all school levels, including Initial resist standardized, universalized definitions of Education. In recent years, two efforts in “developmentally appropriate” ECEC and to “Communalizing” Initial Education 91

pursue localized educational priorities. For her own documentation across decades of several decades, international investigations by infants’ learning processes in Indigenous Mayan both Western and non-Western researchers Guatemala, she succinctly and unambiguously (Tobin, Wu & Davidson, 1989; Wollons, 2000; states her view: “Human development is a Rogoff, 2003; Tobin, Hsueh & Karasawa, 2009; cultural process” (Rogoff, 2003, p. 3). For Tobin, Arzubiaga & Adair, 2013) have example, there are vast differences in documented highly distinct approaches to the community “time tables” of expectations for education of young children in diverse countries children’s participation during childhood, such around the world (e.g. China, Japan, the U.S., as the age at which children are entrusted to care Vietnam, Russia, Israel, Turkey, France, Mayan for younger infants or to use potentially Guatemala), while also acknowledging the dangerous implements. However shocking or historical and political contexts which have dangerous one community’s “time tables” may contributed to these diverse approaches. seem to another community, such as our own, Tobin (2005), an “unreformed cultural Rogoff’s message is clear: expectations for child relativist,” contends that national standards development are deeply and historically such as those that promote low student-teacher embedded in, and inherently appropriate for, ratios, multicultural and bilingual education, their local community and cultural context. and mediation during children’s disagreements, (2003, p. 4) may be appropriate in the U.S. However, Significant cross-cultural research, then, supports the effort to localize Initial Education, [t]hese standards become a problem when or in Oaxaca’s case, to “communalize” it. we lose sight of the fact that they are Community-based priorities for child cultural and contextual and not socialization and early education problematize universal…; when they are applied, universal assertions about “what is known about imperialistically, to systems of early how young children learn best,” or generalized childhood education outside of our judgments about what practices and curricula country; and when they are imposed on are “not developmentally appropriate.” In communities within the United States who Oaxaca, Western assumptions about do not fully endorse the values and beliefs developmentally appropriate practices in early of the dominant culture. (2005, p. 426) education are resisted in favor of promised, According to Tobin, U.S. educators must though rarely granted, community educational “challenge our taken-for granted assumptions autonomy. that quality standards are universal, generalizable, and non-contextual” (2005, p. Resisting Mexico’s Federal School 424). Reforms Rogoff concurs, and strongly advocates for In global diplomacy, Mexico appears to agree a way to accomplish this provocative challenge: with Tobin’s and Rogoff’s views regarding the engage in, or at least be familiar with, “cultural critical importance of, and the human right for, research,” that is, research documenting child locally and culturally relevant early education for development and socialization processes as they young children, especially in Indigenous and occur outside of Westernized U.S. settings other minoritized communities. But by all (2003, p. 7). Citing scores of international child indicators, Mexico’s many signed international development and socialization studies, including agreements regarding culturally respectful early 92 Global Education Review 4(3)

education are little more than official rhetoric, eliminate Initial Education as an education level for the nation neither reflects in education policy throughout the Mexican school system. nor practices in the field what it internationally According to Bacon (2013), U.S. corporate preaches. Instead, it imposes federal “school and financial interests are deeply invested in reforms,” including constitutional amendments these education reforms: and labor reforms that abrogate teacher A network of large corporations and banks contractual agreements and restrict and extends throughout Latin America, standardize who can teach and how instruction financed and guided in part from the is to be implemented. United States, pushing the same formula: In 2013, Mexico’s ruling party, the PRI, standardized tests, linking teachers’ jobs orchestrated expansive reforms to the Mexican and pay to test results, and bending the Constitution, with particular focus on education. curriculum to employers’ needs while According to the government, the reforms eliminating social criticism. “reconfigured the structure, planning, operation and evaluation of the National Education In addition to global corporations such as System, ratified the right of every individual to Coca-Cola and Ford, and giant media networks receive an education, and defined the State as like Televisa, groups that lobby for these reforms the responsible entity to guarantee this.”5 in Mexico and Latin America receive assistance However, according to Oaxaca’s dissident from the World Bank, the US Agency for Section 22,6 the reforms’ intentions are to International Development, and the Inter- privatize public education, with consequences American Development Bank. that are pervasive and debilitating, not only for While the massive and politically aligned teachers, but for Mexican society as a whole, and Mexican National Union of Education Workers especially for impoverished Indigenous (SNTE) supported these federal reforms, the communities. For example, with the reforms, dissident democratizing segment within the public school teachers’ hiring, promotion and SNTE, called the National Coordinator of retention are now based entirely on standardized Education Workers (CNTE), immediately called test scores, with little if any consideration for for teacher resistance. Oaxaca’s Section 22 is a local needs or teachers’ communal funds of leader within the dissident CNTE, and its knowledge. Massive teacher firings based on teachers, reinforced by considerable parent and standardized test scores have begun and are civic support throughout the state, have taken to anticipated to increase. the streets and the courts since 2013 to resist, The reforms have serious implications for temporarily managing to hold back civil society, as well, according to Section 22 implementation of some of the reforms in the lawyers. The government has announced that state, but at considerable cost. Their strategies 100,000 small rural schools will disappear include pedagogical proposals such as the PTEO, through school consolidations, to be replaced by judicial efforts such as legal challenges to the larger and arguably better-equipped schools law, defense of incarcerated protesters, and often located considerable distances from the criminal investigations of teacher children’s homes and communities. Parents are disappearances and assassinations, and political expected to pay school utility bills and are efforts like the proposed but rejected state responsible for facility upkeep and repairs. And education law prioritizing comunalidad, as well crucial for this study, efforts are in place to as massive marches, blockades of highways, “Communalizing” Initial Education 93

government buildings or commercial centers, states without strong dissident CNTE and civic and sustained strike encampments.7 The state resistance, Indigenous early education has been and federal governments have responded under intense threat of elimination. Far from brutally, militarizing with thousands of armed prioritizing, encouraging, or even permitting troops states like Oaxaca where the resistant that the fundamental Indigenous values of CNTE is active, “disappearing” teacher union comunalidad influence Initial Education or any leaders or arresting them and banishing them to other education level, recent Mexican education federal prisons in distant Mexican states, reforms rigorously pursue an accelerating retaining teacher union leaders’ salaries and agenda of homogenization and standardization freezing union bank accounts, violently in the preparation and evaluation of both destroying strike encampments, and arresting students and teachers, under the banner of and killing protesters, whether teachers or global competitiveness and “increased community members. opportunities for all.” Still, resistance to the immense structural Despite powerful teacher and community reforms continues today in Oaxaca, despite resistance to the imposed reforms, there police militarization and intense psychological presently exist no institutional opportunities in warfare conducted against the protesters by a Oaxaca for professional preparation of Initial massive media campaign. According to Education teachers in ways that reflect the Fernando Soberanes,8 veteran Section 22 activist diversity of the state’s Indigenous challenge. and one of the drafters of the proposed but legislatively rejected education law, Teacher Preparation for comunalidad has not been defeated – due to “Communalized” Initial Education Oaxacan teacher and civic pressure, a new Purpose and Goals of the Diplomado education law recently passed by the State Faced with this professional development void, Legislature still retains some elements of and committed to pursuing the principles of the comunalidad that deviate from the mandates of Pedagogical Movement, in particular to work federal school reforms. collaboratively with communities toward an How has Initial Education fared given alternative education based in comunalidad, in Mexico’s education reforms and the ensuing 2011 Plan Piloto-CMPIO planned and teachers’ union resistance? In the 25 years since implemented the Diplomado in Community- the establishment of Mexico’s Program of based Initial Education, the first professional Indigenous Initial Education (PREII), successive development effort in Oaxaca focused policies have focused on this early educational specifically on Indigenous early educators and level, culminating in a reform in 2010 that officially financed and accredited by the state produced new curricular guidelines (Dirección public education system. General de Educación Indígena, 2010). Despite The commitment to develop the these new policies and curricular designs, no diplomado grew out of Plan Piloto-CMPIO’s attention has been given to soliciting community assessment that the government, despite input in order to discern minoritized multiple international agreements to the perspectives on early childhood socialization for contrary, was committed through its policies and Mexico’s diverse Indigenous population, or to actions to assimilationist approaches rather than reorient teacher education toward communal local autonomy in its work with babies and perspectives, values and practices. In Mexican 94 Global Education Review 4(3)

toddlers and their parents in Indigenous emigration and increasing loss of their communities. Indigenous languages in younger generations; nevertheless, they often retain communal Official approaches to the practices of infant socialization vital to the education of these very young continuation of their Indigenous cultures. children, which international

funding agencies frequently encourage and support, focus on Research Design ‘re-training’ Indigenous parents, Research Questions especially mothers, to abandon The research questions embedded within the communal childrearing priorities goals of the diplomado were: and practices in order to adopt 1. How can young, inexperienced Indigenous practices promoted by Western teachers with no professional teacher theories of child development. preparation be equipped with the knowledge Individualism and the acquisition and skills to value, investigate, and of the Spanish language are document child socialization practices and unquestioned assumptions and young children’s learning processes in their priority outcomes of these official local Indigenous community? assimilationist programs” 2. What are the local socialization practices by (Soberanes, 2010, p. 110). means of which each community “teaches,” The goals of PP-CMPIO’s diplomado were: and young children learn, the communal (a) to enrich the communal knowledge of the practices, values and mutual obligations of young teacher participants; and, (b) to provide comunalidad, including use of the local participants with necessary research skills to Indigenous language(s)? investigate, document and honor local 3. How can educators collaborate with community practices of child socialization and community members to transform children’s learning processes, including language Indigenous Initial Education, so that acquisition; in order, (c) to collaborate with “developmentally-appropriate” ECEC is communities on the creation of an authentic, understood to incorporate and prioritize alternative, bilingual, and community- local practices, including Indigenous appropriate Initial Education. language use, through which communities These goals contrast starkly with socialize young children into comunalidad? universalized assimilationist priorities for Initial

Education; instead, they prioritize communal Structure and Methods perspectives on early infant socialization. In an Plan Piloto-CMPIO’s diplomado lasted 12 effort to concretize multiple international months (July 2011- July 2012) and involved 200 agreements signed across the years by the intense contact hours in multiple weekend and Mexican nation, the diplomado sought to two summer workshops, as well as consultation provide Initial Education teachers with the visits to the teachers in their communities. knowledge and skills required to research Taking seriously the diverse Indigenous Indigenous children’s communal contexts, locales and communal practices across the state, language usage, and processes of learning. many diplomado sessions were spent These rural communities suffer high rates of introducing participants to various qualitative “Communalizing” Initial Education 95

research methods that they then employed to and with only one exception, the participants gather information about specific child also requested that their real name and the socialization practices and young children’s name of the community where they serve be language and learning processes in their included. The one who requested anonymity has particular community of practice. These been given a pseudonym. research methods included: autobiographies of the teachers’ own linguistic and educational Analysis of Infants’ Spontaneous histories; surveys of language use in homes and Activities in Communities the community; interviews with mothers and Only one of the portfolio research tasks is grandmothers; biographies of infants, with analyzed here – photographs that the teachers particular attention to pregnancy and birth took of spontaneous activities of infants and practices; documentation of community events, preschoolers inside or outside their home, or in including obligatory, unpaid communal labor multiple sites in the community, along with carried out for benefit of the community (called teachers’ narrative explanations of each tequio in Oaxaca); and photos and narrative photograph.9 By spontaneous activities, we explanations of infants’ spontaneous activities. mean activities that the infants carried out on In their final portfolios of research evidence, the their own, without teacher planning or apparent teachers submitted the results of the data parental request, and which the teachers collection tasks they had carried out in their documented photographically and described local community, accompanied by signed through field notes. The present study confirmation by community and educational complements an earlier study in this journal authorities that the tasks had been successfully (Meyer, 2016) in which participant teachers’ completed. linguistic and educational autobiographies were analyzed. Participants The timing of the diplomado and of this All diplomado participants were Indigenous analysis of photos and narratives deserve females, mostly in their early 20s, representing 7 comment. The year-long diplomado formally of Oaxaca’s 16 Indigenous ethnolinguistic ended in 2012, before the federally orchestrated groups. In the end, 35 participants submitted education reforms of 2013. Still, rumblings of the required portfolio of research tasks in order impending changes were apparent, though to be considered “completers” and receive uncertain, throughout the diplomado, causing Oaxaca State Institute of Public Education uncertainty and urgency among participants and (IEEPO) accreditation for the diplomado. All 35 facilitators. The present analysis of photos and completers had lived for years in rural commentaries took place in fall 2014, after Indigenous communities of the state; however, federal education reforms were ratified by the only 27 were first language speakers of their Mexican Congress. Their ratification began a Indigenous language. Seven Indigenous massive and continuing movement of resistance languages were represented among them, by the CNTE nationally and by Section 22 in including diverse variants of these languages. Oaxaca (resulting in several civilian deaths in Twenty-eight of the 35 completers (80%) Oaxaca in June 2016). As this analysis was consented to have their portfolios analyzed. underway, my colleague analysts, who are Consented completers’ quoted texts are committed activist members of Section 22, were accompanied here by their Indigenous ethnicity, 96 Global Education Review 4(3)

constantly called on to participate in CNTE However, in recent decades researchers meetings and protests. have studied the daily activities of children of Various reflections could be made about different ages in diverse cultural contexts, the timing of this data analysis process within its identifying “activity scenes” that include those political and educational context. I only offer who interact with the children, the motivations here my profound respect to the diplomado of all present, the cultural scripts that influence participants who committed time to investigate the scene, and indications within the interaction the activities of infants in their communities as as to the cultural purposes, values, beliefs and part of their portfolio tasks during this goals of all actors (e.g. Remorini, 2013; Rogoff, tumultuous time, and to my co-analysts, Plan 2003; Rogoff et al., 2007). These studies, often Piloto-CMPIO Pedagogical Committee members, conducted by anthropologists and psychologists, who managed to rob time from their resistance have found notable differences between cultures, efforts to focus attention on urgent community- including if and when children are separated based pedagogical concerns during a period into age groupings, or how often they have when their own professional futures and opportunities to observe and even participate in educational priorities were profoundly at risk. the daily activities of adults in their worksites or in community tasks and encounters (Rogoff et Findings al., 2010; Rogoff, 2014). International studies Research Question #1: How were the have also contrasted the learning processes and participants prepared as teacher- environments of children who “learn by researchers? observing while pitching in (LOPI)” in collective, Before describing the analysis itself, an community-based and familial activities, with explanation is warranted as to how these novice those who learn mainly through Westernized, Indigenous teachers were prepared in the school-based “learning through assembly-line diplomado with the research skills to instruction,” where adult guidance and control is photograph and narrate the spontaneous prominent (Rogoff, 2014). activities of very young children in their Most international studies reviewed for communities in their effort to “value, investigate, this analysis were conducted by researchers who and document child socialization practices and are recognized academics, some of whom are not young children’s learning processes in their local native to the country or cultural context they Indigenous community” (research question #1)? study. Often they have research expertise and Today studies that document and analyze advanced degrees from Western academic the daily activities of young children are familiar, institutions. though various researchers caution that most of The present analysis differs in several these are conducted in Western cultural settings important ways from the studies just described: (Greenfield et al., 2003; Rogoff et al., 2007; 1. All the teachers whose photos and Rogoff et al, 2010). Both Western bias and descriptive commentaries of children’s cultural blindness have promulgated the belief spontaneous activities are analyzed here that individualistic, academic and Western were born in Oaxaca, though not necessarily assumptions about infant development and child in the community in which they now teach. socialization are “universal,” impacting the field None were strangers to the local context or both nationally and internationally (Tobin, to the children and families they 2005; Hedge & Cassidy, 2009; Fleer, 2003). documented, as all were working in the “Communalizing” Initial Education 97

community directly with the children when that ensued, in an effort to identify these they submitted their portfolios. Some had youngsters’ informal processes of learning in worked in their present community for a few their communities. months, others for several years, and some 4. These teachers had no previous formal were native to the community. academic training to conduct research. The 2. Twenty-seven of the 35 completers identify research strand of the diplomado, which this themselves as fluent speakers of their author facilitated, prepared them to carry Indigenous language, though not all speak out various qualitative research methods the local language or variant of the pertinent to their work in the community, community where they teach. Even those including interviews, linguistic surveys, and who do may not use the local language with ethnographic observations, among others. the children (an important distinction), They were prepared to do so during instead opting to use Spanish with families diplomado sessions in a cyclical and applied and children alike. Many factors complicate way. That is, after a preliminary orientation language use in these Indigenous to each data collection method, the communities. The community may be participants returned to their communities multilingual, with families that speak to apply the method and record their data. diverse Indigenous languages, only one of At the following diplomado session, they which the teacher speaks. Or the teacher shared their data in small working groups or may be assigned to a community outside her in plenary sessions in order to refine their linguistic region. Also, given pervasive documentation, aided by comments and Indigenous language loss in these suggestions made by their colleagues and communities, it is not unusual today that the the facilitators. Sharing and comparing data children may have little exposure to the from Indigenous communities across the Indigenous language in their home, making state initiated a collective process of Spanish their stronger and preferred reflection and analysis that itself reflected language. (There is some evidence of this in the diplomado’s commitment to the language use documented in the photo comunalidad. narratives.) All of the teacher participants, 5. Each portfolio included two letters attesting regardless of their proficiency in an original to the validity of the documentation language, were proficient and literate in submitted, one written by the teacher’s Spanish, the language in which the data in educational supervisor, the other by a village their portfolios were documented and authority. These letters certified that the submitted. research tasks carried out by the teacher 3. The teachers did not “set up the scenes” they were recognized and approved in both the documented by introducing new and educational and communal spheres of her unfamiliar activities or toys into their work. encounters with the children. To the The research processes described above contrary, our interest was to record the characterize “practitioner action research,” a spontaneous activities of children wherever specific form of qualitative research deemed these occurred, to note any materials they appropriate for the purposes of the diplomado chose to use and any dialogues with others 98 Global Education Review 4(3)

and its participants (Stringer, 2013). Practitioner Research Question #2: What are the action research seeks concrete changes in practices and processes whereby teachers’ practices, as they reflect and theorize communities “teach,” and young children based on the documentation which they learn, the practices and priorities of themselves have collected in their community comunalidad, including use of the local with communal approval; their reflections are Indigenous language(s)? then shared in their research community in The following analysis is based on careful order to deepen, refine and socialize their attention to the submitted documentation of discoveries. During the diplomado, participants only one of the research tasks in the final engaged in the continuous cycle of reflecting, portfolios submitted by the 28 consenting theorizing and acting that constitutes teacher-researchers: photographs of young practitioner action research, with the goal of children’s spontaneous activities wherever in the community these were encountered, and the addressing real community problems and teacher-researchers’ narrative field notes transforming their pedagogical practice in ways accompanying each photo. The photographic that both respect and reflect local Indigenous and narrative documentation, along with several comunalidad. To honor the depth and quality of other research tasks submitted in the portfolios, diplomado participants’ research intended to answer research question #2: What accomplishments despite their youth, teaching are the local socialization practices by means of inexperience, and lack of academic credentials, which each community “teaches,” and young they will be called “teacher-researchers” children learn, the communal practices, values throughout the rest of this paper. and mutual obligations of comunalidad, Significantly, three of the four analysts of including use of the local Indigenous languages? these photographic data – Julian Jiménez As we poured over the accumulation of Ramírez, Lilia Martínez Pérez, and Javier photos and narratives documented in the portfolios, the scenes of young children’s Mendoza Almaráz - are Plan Piloto-CMPIO spontaneous activities began to differentiate teachers and members of the Coalition’s themselves in significant ways. First, we found Pedagogical Committee. They, too, are Oaxaca examples of young children’s careful observation natives and Indigenous language speakers, who of everyday adult activities happening around differ from the teacher-researchers only in their them, while they seemingly remained on the multiple years of teaching experience in the periphery, without actively participating. field. The fourth analyst (this author) is an We then identified a second large applied linguist and bilingual educator who has collection of photos where children engaged collaborated with Plan Piloto-CMPIO for more directly and actively with people, objects and than 17 years and who was involved, along with natural materials in their local environment. the other analysts, in planning and Here we distinguished three types or moments implementing the diplomado. As the only of young children’s direct action, which we have proficient English language user, and with Plan identified in this study as a trajectory of Piloto-CMPIO approval, all translations of cited informal active learning. In Type 1 actions, the data into English are hers. children observe and imitate an action as it is being carried out or modeled in their presence. “Communalizing” Initial Education 99

In Type 2 actions, children imitate an action not always join in on the activities they observed. spontaneously at a later time and in a new Photo after photo across communities context, that is, independently, without the captured young children carefully observing immediate presence of the modeled action. A activities in many settings: daily tasks carried third type or moment consists of creative actions out by their parents; forms of play or childcare by even very young children, which display their of older siblings; games played by or with their young peers; community events; use of various ability to generate novel solutions to immediate utensils in the home, garden or field; and care of contextual problems and to mobilize the will to animals. Significantly, most of these photos act, seemingly no longer merely imitating others. show children observing home or community Our trajectory of informal active learning activities that are significant economically to the confirms Rogoff’s concept of young children family or community, such as women planting “learning while observing and pitching in and tending crops, or men harvesting fish to take (LOPI)” (Rogoff, 2014), while further to market. One example of many such photos distinguishing distinct, observable LOPI types or was described by Nancy Piamonte Sumano in moments. the Huave coastal community of Huazatlán del The presence of the narrative field notes Río, San Mateo del Mar, Tehuantepec, a allowed us to identify a third, smaller set of community known for its waist-loom textile spontaneous learning processes in these weavings: “Here the mother is weaving a communities: learning through direct, physical napkin. The little girl carefully observes the action in culturally unremarkable settings, but process of the activity her mother is doing.” now accompanied by oral dialogue Of particular interest to the analysts were (“scaffolding”) with someone older, often but not a few photos where the children are attentively always an adult. Finally, and much less observing collaborative tequios, Oaxaca’s term prominent in the photos, were very limited data for unpaid collaborative labor on behalf of the displaying young children’s presence and community. By witnessing tequios, from a very learning during tequio scenes of collaborative early age the children learn to appreciate the community labor, a photographic absence importance of shared work for the benefit not initially puzzling to us as researchers, as we will just of one’s own family, but of the community explain below. as a whole. A photo and narrative of a collective tequio task was provided by Élvia Torres Chávez Learning Through Attentive Observation in the Mixtec community of San Juan Diquiyú, Many studies of the daily activities of young Tezoatlán, Huajuapan de León: “Here we see children in non-Western communities, how the mothers gather to clean the patio of the especially those of Rogoff and her collaborators, school. […] Standing nearby, we see the little document that the children witness and intently girl watching the mothers; this is how this observe, and may “pitch in on,” daily tasks and activity gets transmitted to future generations.” activities of adults (Rogoff, 2003; Rogoff et al., Such tequio tasks and preschoolers’ 2007; Rogoff et al., 2010; Rogoff, 2014). The presence during them were only infrequently phenomenon of attentive observation of the documented in the submitted photos, as we will activities happening around them was very comment below. evident in the Oaxacan photos and commentaries, though preschool children did 100 Global Education Review 4(3)

Learning through Direct, Physical Action virtually all the Type 1 photos, the little ones with People, Objects and Natural imitated family members’ or acquaintences’ Materials actions in order to “pitch in” and collaborate on In our analysis of photos, there are numerous everyday chores. Here Galdina Santiago Pérez examples of young children who not only describes a visit the Initial Education children observe especially family activities that occur made to a home in their Mixtec community of around them, but who also involve themselves Nuevo Tenochitlán, Putla Villa de Guerrero: directly and physically in these activities, what “We visited a mother who was stripping kernels Rogoff (2014) calls “pitching in.” It is apparent off corncobs when we arrived. With great from the narratives accompanying the photos confidence, the children joined in with her, that participation by the young ones is stripping the cobs of their kernels.” permitted, even encouraged, and perhaps at Type 2 imitated actions are those times expected by the adults and older children. reproduced at a later time and in a new setting, Preschool children’s involvement takes various without the immediate presence of the action forms, occurs in a variety of settings, may be previously imitated. These independent actions accompanied by diverse persons, and apparently result when children have observed incorporates the use of a variety of materials. and imitated the same action so often as it is The little ones actively participate in mundane being modeled in their presence that now, in a tasks and cultural celebrations within their new setting and without a visible model, they homes: they help clean the family garden and remember how to carry out the action by cornfield, they participate in fiesta preparations, themselves, and appear to feel a desire or they sweep the house, water plants, help plant responsibility to do so. This second type of seedlings. In these tasks, they employ a variety imitation signals a significant learning leap, of objects and materials, such as natural displaying the young child’s capacity to materials (soil, corncobs), common utensils remember what had been modeled and imitated (broom, empty yogurt containers, cup, box), earlier and to reproduce it independently at a animals (donkey), cultural materials (figures in a later time in a new setting. It also may indicate a Christmas manger scene) and very few nascent sense of “communal responsibility,” that commercial toys (ball, rattle, doll). is, the need and desire to take action on behalf of After carefully studying and organizing the others, or the whole group. Hildeberta Martínez photos submitted in all 28 portfolios, we Vásquez, a Triqui teacher-researcher in the propose that the children in their activities community of San Juan Teponaxtla, Putla Villa display a trajectory of informal active learning, de Guerrero, documented this example of Type 2 involving three distinct types or moments of imitation: learning in action. There appear to be two initial After everyone had left the classroom, types of imitated activity: the first, imitation by Eleazar (2;5) noticed that the floor of the the child in the moment and in the presence of classroom was very dirty. Without the imitated action; the second, imitation at a anyone telling him to do so, he decided to later time, in a new context, without the grab the broom and sweep the floor. I presence of the imitated action. asked his mother if he did that at home. The following example displays the first She said yes, that they had to buy him a type or moment of imitated activity on our small broom, that everything his mother trajectory of informal active learning. In does he wants to do. I was surprised “Communalizing” Initial Education 101

because he collected all the trash. This intruder to her mother’s garden in the Zapotec made me realize the influence it has on community of San Isidro, Cozoaltepec, Santa children how they are taught at home and María Tonameca, Pochutla: how they participate in household tasks. Little Leidi (2 years) encountered her In many photos, preschoolers were dad’s donkey roaming about nearby. engaging independently in actions they had Suddenly the donkey came over to eat the certainly observed countless times around them plants her mom had planted near the in their everyday settings and most likely had house. Since Leidi and her brother Edwin imitated alongside adult models previously and always water the plants in the morning, frequently. Often, as with Eleazar above, these they take care of them and don’t let the were routine household tasks, though the donkey eat them. preschoolers were also seen to weed the family’s cornfield, water the garden, feed birds and Learning through Direct, Physical chickens, and carry firewood. Action, but Now Accompanied by Oral The photos suggest that commonplace Dialogue with Someone Older, often an family and cultural tasks tended to be those Adult infants chose to reproduce spontaneously, even Some teacher-researchers included narrative in their self-selected “play.” In one case, three- evidence of what Vygotsky (1987) called the year old Yoemí imitated her mother symbolically “zone of proximal development,” that is, the in her play, carefully wrapping her doll following difference between what the child can do for local tradition and singing her “baby” to sleep herself without help or guidance, and what she with lullabies. In another case discussed below, can do with support from the more advanced when their imaginary car needed repair, a two- linguistic and cognitive skills of someone older year old and his preschool older brother (“scaffolding”). Often, but not always, the more accessed their father’s professional tools to make mature person is an adult, such as the child’s the repair. The portfolios provide scarce parent, uncle, aunt, or neighbor, someone with evidence of infants’ spontaneous activities that more knowledge who deepens the child’s are technologically or imaginatively distant from understanding by asking or answering their local “here and now.” questions. Triqui teacher-researcher Hildeberta It is clear that observation and imitation Martínez Vásquez witnessed a bilingual are pervasive in these children’s learning. Still, conversation in San Juan Teponaxtla, Putla Villa in some photos and accompanying de Guerrero, between Eleazar and his mother commentaries the teacher-researchers record while the child swept the house. Here the very young children adding a new and creative mother instructs the child on how sweeping twist to something previously learned, should be done and where to deposit the trash. displaying another significant learning leap - the (This is the same child described earlier as he possibility that the children are self-initiating spontaneously applied his much-practiced creative actions in response to immediate sweeping skills, unrequested, to clean his contextual situations. These examples of self- classroom floor): initiated creative actions became Type 3 on our When I arrived at the house of Eleazar trajectory of informal active learning. María (2;5), I found him sweeping. While he Luz Monjaráz Alonzo documented a two-year- swept, he chatted with his mother in old taking responsibility to “shoo away” a hungry 102 Global Education Review 4(3)

Spanish. His mother spoke to him in mother-child dialogue in a coffee orchard, a Mixtec, saying that he should sweep from setting that is at once familial, communal and inside the house to the outside. And when commercial in her Mixtec community of Santa he finishes, he should put the trash in its María Yucuhiti, Tlaxiaco: place. Little Emely (2;6) is with her mother as Scaffolding is not always or only provided she cuts coffee beans from the trees, an by adults. The portfolios included some activity in the community that parents examples of older siblings or peers offering teach their children. The little girl is very linguistic and cognitive scaffolding to younger interested and entertained in this activity. children. Triqui teacher-researcher Bicki While they cut coffee beans, the mother Fernández Guadalupe admits to being “really chats with the little girl, and Emely asks surprised” by a play scene she witnessed her questions: “Why are the coffee beans between two siblings in the community of San red? Why don’t we collect the green Juan Teponaxtla, Putla Villa de Guerrero. Here beans? Why is coffee sweet? Why don’t the older brother scaffolded his two-year-old we eat the beans?” among others. sibling in their shared symbolic play as they How do these dialogic interactions differ repaired their imaginary “car”: from the activity scenes described previously in Without letting him know, I observed our description of the trajectory of informal little Isaí (2;4) in his home. He was active learning? Incorporating dialogue, these playing with his five-year-old brother. scenes illuminate the importance of the What I could see is that they were playing conversations that mothers and others who are at repairing their car. I noticed that from older engage in with the preschoolers while their father’s tools – he’s a taxi driver - together they participate in routine activities in they had grabbed a jack and cables. their homes and communities. In most cases the According to them, their car was in really activities themselves are similar or identical to bad shape. And what I could manage to those described earlier, consisting of everyday hear is that the five-year-old said to Isaí, household or community activities involving “Change the oil ‘cause it’s no good ready-at-hand implements and tools, not child- anymore.” Isaí responded, “Yes.” And specific toys. They differ only in that interaction they spent about half an hour playing. I and oral dialogue is engaged in with an older was really surprised by what these little person. ones were doing. Research Question #3: How can It is notable that in most of these dialogic educators collaborate with community exchanges, the older persons, often the mothers, members so that “developmentally encourage the children’s curiosity not by setting appropriate” Indigenous Initial aside what they are doing to engage in child- Education is understood to prioritize and focused play, but rather by entering into and incorporate community practices of extending dialogue about their mundane adult comunalidad? daily tasks, and in the process enrich the infant’s Our third research question sought to language skills, cultural knowledge and investigate how educators and community awareness of their communal world. Rocío members together might “communalize” Aparicio Ortiz Miramar documents such a “Communalizing” Initial Education 103

Indigenous Initial Education. If, as Maldonado buried so they would cook. This is done (2002; 2004) has suggested, the pervasive sense every year during these months (March of communal belonging and shared or April) because then it is taken out of responsibility which surpasses individualism or the village to sell during the fiesta of Holy family priorities in Oaxaca’s Indigenous Week. This maguey, when cooked, can be communities is instilled virtually from birth, chewed, it’s a traditional sweet, and how could Initial Education teacher-researchers mezcal can also be extracted from it. observe, document and learn from this profound Here all the men help each other light the process of collective civic formation in order to oven. Children from the elementary nurture it in their own teaching practice, rather school also help carry the maguey hearts than seeking to standardize or Westernize the to the oven. The photo shows how the early education they provide? children observe the activities that occur Given the diplomado’s transformative in this process, everything that’s being pedagogical purpose, the photos and done. And they ask their dads how they commentaries analyzed above initially puzzled, do it. This is good because the fathers say even troubled, us as analysts: Why was it that that this is an activity that is a custom the spontaneous activities of young children done every year and that it should not be documented in these 28 separate Oaxacan forgotten, and it’s better that we teach Indigenous communities overwhelmingly our children so that it will be preserved. captured preschoolers acting alone or in small groups, such as in pairs or with a few family Before the maguey hearts are ready to be members? In Oaxaca’s Indigenous cooked, when they are green, young communities, individuals or families are children don’t get involved because the sanctioned if they isolate themselves from maguey has a very sweet juice that makes others; all are expected to participate and you itch if it splashes on your skin. In this contribute to the whole, according to their age, activity pregnant women don’t gender, and physical health. So why was participate because it is said that if they broader collective, communal life not more help or if they stand next to the oven, they evident in these photographic data? will give “the evil eye” and the maguey In a few rare photos, only one of which is won’t cook. It will stay a light coffee described here, communal life and young color, and when chewed it will make your children’s presence in it are readily apparent. In mouth itch. The maguey stays in the oven the Mixtec community of Guadalupe Llano de for five days so that it is well cooked and Avispa, Santiago Tilantongo, Nochixtlán, delights people’s taste buds. teacher-researcher Gabriela León Santos records Various elements of comunalidad are a collaborative tequio task (cooking the hearts of evident in Gabriela’s commentary: i) there is agave plants, called magueys, to make the communal knowledge and wisdom (what the alcoholic drink, mezcal). Gabriela documents teacher-researchers tend to call “beliefs and how the men of the community employ this customs”) that influence how community communal event as a “teachable moment” for members of different genders and ages the children: participate; ii) there may be certain risks Everyone is gathered around a large involved in young children’s participation in oven where the ripe maguey hearts were these communal activities, but rather than being 104 Global Education Review 4(3)

excluded, their participation is watched over and document infants in these communities intently guided; iii) there are opportunities for little observing adult activities (e.g. a mother weaving; children, along with others, to observe, listen, mothers cleaning the school patio; fathers participate, converse, and inquire, as well as harvesting fish to sell). Increasingly, these possible limitations to their participation; iv) the young infants “pitch in” to help accomplish community understands that its collective many of these everyday tasks through guided, activities, together with oral commentaries that and then spontaneous, participation (e.g. accompany them, are teaching something stripping kernels off corncobs; sweeping the important that the children need to learn if floor at home with guidance, then spontaneously communal life is to be sustained. Here we differ in the classroom). At times the infants’ from other studies conducted in non-Western participation involves new, likely unrehearsed, communities, where few examples are reported actions in the moment to creatively problem- of oral, explicit communal “teachings” provided solve, often on behalf of others (e.g. shooing a by adults to children (Rogoff, 2003; Rogoff et hungry donkey away from Mom’s garden). And al., 2010). when there is dialogue with someone older, the The four analysts spent time conjecturing talk tends to be about why and how the tasks of why so few photos of shared communal events the family and community are best like this appeared in the portfolios. It is highly accomplished (e.g. repairing a car; harvesting likely that these tequio events occurred often in coffee beans). Rarely did the portfolios offer the communities, and that young children were evidence of infants playing with commercial present at them along with everyone else, as toys; their symbolic play involved no princesses educating younger generations into communal or superheroes, only cars to repair and baby tequio obligations is a priority. Together we dolls to swaddle and lull to sleep with traditional hypothesized explanations: perhaps older lullabies; there was no evidence here of planned children and adults at the scene who were more parental play or video games. active and verbal (as in Gabriela’s description In the end, with transformed communal above) drew the teacher-researcher’s attention eyes, we saw that these developmental changes away from the less participatory preschoolers; or in infant participation and “pitching in” on perhaps the teacher-researcher felt some family and community tasks most likely are discomfort in documenting community events moment-by-moment instances of the pervasive, involving adults and older children who might incremental process of civic formation toward not grasp why their actions and utterances are communal belonging and shared responsibility receiving attention; or perhaps the teacher- that begins in Oaxacan Indigenous communities researcher herself was too involved as a “virtually from birth.” The familial scenes community member in the event to remember to documented by the teacher-researchers of infant document it. These, or others, could be possible participation in mundane tasks were themselves explanations, but we will not know without evidence of the intimate, unremarkable, taken- further investigation. for-granted process whereby infants were However, careful reconsideration of our learning comunalidad through participation in own analytic findings led us to see that our acts of communal concern and responsibility disappointment at the lack of photos of toward others. communal tequio events was likely cultural blindness on our part. Our findings clearly “Communalizing” Initial Education 105

Discussion: “Communalizing” the chats that mothers have with their little ones Developmentally-Appropriate and to their importance in the children’s learning.” We suspect that such dialogues do ECEC occur in the communities, even if few were In December 2014, Plan Piloto-CMPIO documented in the portfolios, but this requires organized a gathering of the diplomado further documentation. participants, their educational supervisors, and A final teacher-researcher reflection is newly hired early childhood educators in their shared here: “This analysis of the spontaneous schools. One purpose of this gathering was to and communal activities of little ones in our share our analysis of young children’s communities makes me ask myself: How should spontaneous activities and our proposed this information impact my teaching work with trajectory of informal active learning, and to these children?” In essence, this is a request feedback. One revelatory reflection personalized recasting of our third research displays the tremendous chasm between question: How can educators collaborate with communal practices and informal learning community members to transform Indigenous processes, on the one hand, and formal, teacher- Initial Education, so that “developmentally- planned “school reform” mindsets, on the other: appropriate” ECEC is understood to incorporate “I don’t take into account the activities that the and prioritize local practices through which children do in their homes and in the communities socialize young children into community; what matters to me are the comunalidad? activities that I want to implement with the The portfolios evidence some advances in children.” Plan Piloto-CMPIO’s efforts to “communalize” We acknowledged to the group our Indigenous Initial Education in Oaxaca, in some surprise that few of the teacher-researchers communities if not in all. Perhaps most included in their narratives rich details about significantly, consciousness about the dialogue and language use that likely occurred in importance and possibilities of community- the scenes they photographed. One of Plan appropriate ECEC has been raised, and specific Piloto-CMPIO’s goals in organizing the local efforts by some diplomado participants diplomado had been to prepare these novice have been implemented and defended, despite early educators with skills needed to provide intense negative pressures on two fronts: quality bilingual education, and to this end imported culture-bound Western perspectives of continuous attention was given to strategies “developmentally-appropriate practices” such as dialogic scaffolding for strengthening or prioritizing play and planned adult revitalizing the Indigenous language of the interventions, and Mexican standardized, community. The three examples included federally imposed school reforms. Whatever earlier of dialogic interactions between little continuing questions remain, like Tobin (2005) ones and their mothers or siblings, dialogues and Rogoff (2003), these teacher-researchers that can be seen to scaffold these young learners now recognize that they have the right and in important linguistic and cognitive ways, were communal obligation to augment rather than among few such examples in the portfolios. supplant the important funds of knowledge and When exposed to these samples and our findings learning the children acquire spontaneously and at the gathering, one teacher-researcher informally in their Indigenous communal commented, “I have paid very little attention to contexts. Facing continued government 106 Global Education Review 4(3)

repression but fortified by civic, CNTE and Plan 6. Mayem Arellanes Cano, lawyer in the Legal Piloto-CMPIO support, their goal remains to Department of Sección 22, in a public construct together with parents and presentation in Albuquerque, NM, communities a transformed Initial Education November 2016. based in Indigenous comunalidad. Now more 7. Mayem Arellanes Cano, lawyer in the Legal than ever they understand that nothing less is Department of Sección 22, in a public required if their communities’ languages, presentation in Albuquerque, NM, communal lives, and human and Indigenous November 2016. rights are to be honored and defended. 8. Personal communication, January 4, 2017. 9. This analysis of photographs and narratives, Notes conducted collectively by three members of 1. Available on datos.cipaz.org, 8 February the Pedagogical Committee of Plan Piloto- 2010, as cited in “Plan para la CMPIO and this author, has been reported Transformación de la Educación de Oaxaca previously in a Spanish language (PTEO),” State Institute of Public Education anthropological publication in Peru of Oaxaca (IEEPO) and Section 22 (Jiménez, Martínez, Mendoza & Meyer, SNTE/CNTE, Oaxaca de Juárez, Oaxaca, 2015). The present article, the first to report January 2012, p. 7. this work in English, draws on the earlier 2. Benjamín Maldonado Alvarado, public analysis while adapting and updating the presentation, Albuquerque NM, June 2015. previously published article. 3. Plan Piloto-CMPIO has three institutional “faces”: (i) since 1978, it serves as a References Bacon, D. (2013). US-style school reform goes south. The statewide public school district, known as Nation, March 12, 2013. Accessed at Plan Piloto, part of the system of Indigenous www.thenation.com. Education of the State Institute of Public Dirección General de Educación Indígena (2010). Marco Education of Oaxaca (IEEPO), with about curricular de la Educación Inicial Indígena. México DF: Secretaría de Educación Pública. 1400 Indigenous teachers in more than 450 Fleer, M. (2003). Early childhood education as an evolving rural bilingual schools throughout the state; “community of practice” or as lived “social (ii) in 1982, it was recognized as Local D-1- reproduction”: Researching the “taken-for-granted.” 211 of Oaxaca’s Section 22 of the National Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 4(1), pages 64-78. Union of Education Workers (SNTE), and a Greenfield, P., Keller, H., Fuligni, A. & Maynard, A. (2003). key leader in the dissident National Cultural pathways through universal development. Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE); Annual Review of Psychology, 54, 461-490. and (iii) in 1990, it legally incorporated as a Hegde, A. & Cassidy, D. J. (2009). Kindergarten teachers’ perspectives on developmentally appropriate civil association (AC). practice: A study conducted in Mumbai (India). 4. A diplomado in Mexico is an officially Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 23(3), accredited academic experience devised to 367-381. address a specific educational need. Jiménez, J., Martínez, L., Mendoza, J. & Meyer, L. (2015). Análisis de las actividades de niños de Educación 5. Unidad de Normatividad y Política Inicial en pueblos originarios de Oaxaca, México. Educativa. (2015). Política Nacional de Anthropológica, XXXIII, No. 35, 141-172. Evaluación de la Educación: Documento Maldonado, B. (2002). Autonomía y comunalidad india: rector. November, 2015. Enfoques y propuestas desde Oaxaca. México DF: Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia. Maldonado, B. (2004). Comunalidad y educación en Oaxaca. “Communalizing” Initial Education 107

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