Resumo

MUNOZ ARMENTA, Aldo. Escenarios e identidades del SNTE: entre el sistema educativo y el sistema político. RMIE [online]. 2008, vol.13, n.37, pp.377-417. ISSN 1405-6666.

In spite of the triumph of the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional-PAN) in Mexico's presidential elections, the National Union of Workers in Education (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Educación- SNTE) maintains a corporatist structure; it also enjoys the consent of the political authorities to intervene in the educational system and to use public resources in electoral campaigns to favor its allies. The explanation is that the union performs a strategic function for governability in the educational setting: control over workers. Union leaders have a pragmatic attitude toward the executive branch and political parties: the union approves presidential proposals in exchange for state toleration of discretionary union government and the preservation of power in the educational system. The union supports parties that guarantee positions of power. The purpose of this article is to explain the institutional factors that enable the SNTE to exist as a pressure group in the national educational sector, as well as the factors that make it a political actor.

Palavras-chave : unionism; teaching profession; power; educational policy; Mexico.