Abstract

ABOITES, Hugo. The Right to Education in Mexico: From 19th-century Liberalism to the Neo-liberalism of the 20th Century. RMIE [online]. 2012, vol.17, n.53, pp.361-389. ISSN 1405-6666.

This article attempts to answer questions about the scope of the human right to education as established in Mexico's Constitution and in the Mexican population's possibilities to exercise that right during the past one and one-half centuries. With this double purpose, a description is given of three major moments in Mexican history when significant changes were generated in constitutional texts that refer to education, as well as in the concrete policies and strategies that broaden or restrict access to education. Such changes can be identified as the reforms of 1857, 1934, and the 1990s (1992 and 1993); the final period includes the modification of the compulsory nature of high school education (2012). The corresponding texts are presented and analyzed, but above all, an effort is made to show their connections with the way the right to education-in a context of confrontations, agreements, and resistance to decisive change-is conceived and translated into fact.

Keywords : Right to education; human rights; educational policy; political constitution; history; Mexico.