Citizenship Education in Mexico The Depoliticisation of Adolescence Through Secondary School PDF

International Studies in Sociology of Education
ISSN: 0962-0214 (Print) 1747-5066 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riss20
Citizenship education in Mexico: the

depoliticisation of adolescence through secondary
school
Leonel Pérez-Expósito
To cite this article: Leonel Pérez-Expósito (2015) Citizenship education in Mexico: the
depoliticisation of adolescence through secondary school, International Studies in Sociology of
Education, 25:3, 225-257, DOI: 10.1080/09620214.2015.1076705
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2015.1076705
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Download by: [Harvard Library] Date: 05 May 2016, At: 11:46

International Studies in Sociology of Education, 2015
Vol. 25, No. 3, 225–257, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2015.1076705
Citizenship education in Mexico: the depoliticisation of

adolescence through secondary school
Leonel Pérez-Expósito*
Departamento de Relaciones Sociales, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana,

Unidad Xochimilco, D.F., México
(Received 3 October 2014; final version received 23 July 2015)
Recent contributions have argued about the depoliticisation of

Downloaded by [Harvard Library] at 11:46 05 May 2016
citizenship education (CE), mainly through theoretical and documentary

analyses, and based on the European context. Nonetheless, there is a
lack of field studies which can provide empirical evidence about how
does the depoliticisation of CE actually operate. Based on a mixed-
method research in Mexico City’s secondary schools, this paper shows
how the contemporary approach to CE, instead of looking at nurturing
children’s and adolescents’ politicity, contributes to pupils’ depoliticisa-
tion. Among different potential characterisations of political participation
(PP), the curriculum of CE circumscribes it within the arena of formal
politics, from which students are largely excluded in the present. Addi-
tionally, CE promotes a range of practices of participation which are
deprived from a political meaning. Students appropriate them discur-
sively, but perceive limited opportunities for perform them, especially in
school. Through the depoliticisation of CE, adolescents mostly learn that
PP is a promise of inclusion in the future, while the idea of active citi-
zenship becomes reduced to a correct discourse about largely imper-
ceptible practices in students’ everyday life. The article stresses the need
of shifting the priority of CE in Mexico from the formal curriculum to
the transformation of school practices, in order to develop students’
politicity through participation.
Keywords: citizenship education; depoliticisation; secondary schools;
adolescence
Introduction
In England, during the late 1960s and the 1970s, authors like Crick, Lister
and Heater, argued for the need of political education (Crick, 2000; Crick &
Heater, 1977), and what they called ‘political literacy’. In their view, the
political was understood as a ‘dimension of human experience’, which
*Emails: leperez@correo.xoc.uam.mx, leonmpe@gmail.com

Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.
© 2015 Taylor & Francis
226 L. Pérez-Expósito
realises whenever there is ‘conflict of interests and ideals’ and a ‘differential

distribution of power’ and resources. These ‘politics of everyday life’ allows
to find the political ‘in the family, the locality, educational institutions, clubs
and societies and in informal groups of all kind’ (Crick, 2000, p. 65).
Accordingly, the type of participation that this perspective aimed to promote
in students was clearly political. Political participation (PP) becomes inclu-
sive of children and adolescents, and it is not restricted into the distant
arena of the formal political system.
Conversely, during the 1990s and early 2000s, we observed a new wave
of citizenship education (CE) programmes across different countries, Eng-
land included, in which the political was demoted in importance. PP was
either replaced by, or ambiguously combined with less controversial cate-
gories (Berger, 2011; Pérez Expósito, 2014b), such as civic engagement;
civic, citizenship, social or democratic participation; active citizenship;
community involvement or community service (Education Commission of

the States [ECS], 2000; Great Britain, 1998; Ministerio de Educación
Nacional [MEN], 2004; Pérez Expósito & McCowan, 2013; SEP, 2007,
2011a). Certainly, as Crick acknowledges, ‘“political education and political
literacy” […] might now seem too narrow a term to catch our meaning
compared to “CE”’ (Great Britain, 1998, p. 11). CE has suffered an expan-
sion in its content and purposes, many of which are sufficiently justified.
However, as Frazer (2007) points out, this path has entailed a ‘looseness’ in
the definition of citizenship, and particularly a distancing from its political
character.
Different authors have made important contributions to the analysis of
this process of depoliticisation of CE (e.g. Biesta, 2011; Frazer, 2007; Pérez
Expósito, 2014b; Straume, 2015), but mainly through theoretical and docu-
mentary analyses, and based on the European context. There is a lack of
field research, which can provide empirical evidence about how does the
depoliticisation of CE actually operate. This article is a product of a mixed-
method research that included qualitative work in two schools from con-
trasting delegaciones (municipalities) of Mexico City, and a representative
survey (n = 828) of third-grade students from all the general secondary
schools in these two areas.1 Based on these data, the article analyses the
process of depoliticisation of CE in Mexico, especially in the secondary
schools of these two territorial demarcations.
Elsewhere, I have theoretically formulated two ways of depoliticisation
of CE (Pérez Expósito, 2014b). In the following, I develop them through an
empirical analysis, in order to argue that while CE aims to form active citi-
zens involved in PP, it rather contributes to adolescents’ exclusion from
political action. On the one hand, the article shows how among different
potential characterisations of PP, the curriculum of CE circumscribes it
within the arena of formal politics. In it, students will only be included in
the future, because they are not entitled yet with the political rights that are
International Studies in Sociology of Education 227
necessary for an efficacious and full participation in this domain. Students’

representations of PP resemble the curricular conception, and reveal their
exclusion from this type of participation. On the other hand, the article sus-
tains that CE promotes a wide range of practices of participation which are
displaced from their potential political meaning. Students, teachers and
principals appropriate these practices discursively, but perceive a lack of
opportunities for perform them, especially in the school. Through CE, I will
argue, adolescents mostly learn that PP is a promise of inclusion in the
future, while the idea of active citizenship becomes reduced to a correct
discourse about largely imperceptible practices in students’ everyday life.
The political meaning of participation: diversity and change

The analysis of the depoliticisation of CE in Mexico requires a previous
conceptual analysis about the variety of potential meanings of the political.

As noticed in the introduction, what allowed the centrality of the political in
the English proposal from the 1970s was a particular conception of it,
which permitted to locate the political in students’ everyday lives. Within
this framework, pupils’ participation in practices that involve ‘conflict of
interests and ideals’ and a differential distribution of power and resources
(Crick, 2000, p. 65) become forms of PP. Therefore, the way in which the
political character of participation is understood in CE’s programmes is cru-
cial to determine whether the curriculum advances a political or apolitical
proposal, and – more importantly – whether it promotes the politicisation or
depoliticisation of children and adolescents’ lives. Thus, a depoliticised CE
does not necessarily entail the removal of the political, but rather to
appropriate a particular meaning of it.
The forms of getting politically involved change according to different
times, places and cultures (Norris, 2002, 2007; Pérez Expósito, 2014b).
Among this diversity, it is difficult to identify the distinctiveness of PP in
relation to other forms of participation. Commonly, PP is defined as actions
that citizens undertake in order to influence the structure and composition of
government, as well as its policies (Conway, 2000; Verba & Nie, 1987).
Yet, this conception is based on a particular meaning of the political, which
defines it as a domain characterised by the presence of government, and the
relation of influence that citizens establish with it. In this view, the govern-
ment represents the entity where truly political decisions are made: those
which are collective and sovereign, from which it is not possible to be
exempt due to their territorial inclusion and coercive force (Sartori, 1973,
1992).
Nonetheless, to define the political character of participation by the pres-
ence of government overlooks what Norris (2002) understands as contempo-
rary diversifications in the targets of PP, like actions against transnational
corporations without seeing the government as an intermediary (Lam, 2003;
Pérez Expósito, 2014b; Pérez Expósito, Ortiz-Tirado, González, & Gordillo,

2012). It also usually restricts PP within the national domain and disregards
a transnational arena for political action (Ruggiero & Montagna, 2008).
One way of avoiding the previous limitations is to define the political by
its public character. According to Arendt (1958/1998), for instance, the
political emerges between humans; both beyond the human being as a meta-
physical idea, and as an isolated individual. Politics transforms those who
are absolutely diverse in isolation into relatively diverse through an encoun-
ter based on a relative equality. This can only be achieved beyond the pri-
vate realm: ‘the distinctive nature of the political or public realm was
developed by the contrasts which Arendt drew between it and the concept
of “the social”. The latter signified all of the activities and relationships
which, by nature, were “private” (Wolin, 1983, p. 9).
To characterise the political by its public character or by the presence of
government, illustrates what Leftwich (2004) categorises as approaches to

the political as a particular arena (the public realm or the governmental
domain). Conversely, the author finds that from other perspectives the
political is mainly understood as a process. An example of it is the view of
the political as a deliberative procedure of decision-making, characterised
by rational argumentation among participants with an equal status, but
with competing views about the common good, and oriented by the possi-
bility of consensus (Cohen, 2003; Gutmann & Thompson, 2004; Habermas,
1996; Rawls, 1993, 2001; Thompson, 2008). While Rawls (1993) still
restricts this process into a public-governmental arena (McCarthy, 1994),
others like Cohen (2003) argue that, in a democratic society, deliberative
politics should be a procedure to be found in every institutionalised
context.2
In addition to Leftwich’s classification, Franzé (2004), in his analysis of
the concept of the political in Aristotle, Weber and Schmitt, suggests three
more standpoints: to define the political by its ends, means or as a particular
type of relation. The first approach means, for instance, to understand the
political as an activity whose end is the achievement of a just society (e.g.
Aristotle, 1946; Rawls, 2001). The second can be illustrated by the concep-
tion of violence or the potential use of force as the distinctive means of
political activity (e.g. Nicholson, 2004; Weber, 1920/1972, 1922/1978).
Lastly, the third approach identifies the political with a particular relation
between persons and groups. For instance, when these are arranged as
friends/enemies (Schmitt, 1932/1996) or adversaries (Mouffe, 2005), or as
power relations between men and women that transcend the public–private
distinction (Evans, 1979; Hanisch, 1969; Squires, 2004).
At least, then, the political can be defined (a) by its ends, (b) by its
means, (c) as a specific arena, (d) as a process and (e) as a type of relation
(Pérez Expósito, 2014b). This wide range of meanings explains why the
observer, or the participants involved in political action, can classify very
contrasting practices as forms of PP. To select one or another implies subtle

or radical differences in terms of the ‘who (agencies or collective organisa-
tions), what (repertoires of actions commonly used for political expressions)
and where (the targets that participants seek to influence)’ (Norris, 2002,
p. 4). It means that the conception of PP in programmes of CE unavoidably
includes certain actors and excludes other, validates specific agencies,
accepts some practices and disregard other and privileges particular targets.
As I will show, in the contemporary approach to CE in Mexico’s secondary
schools, those excluded from PP are precisely the children and adolescents
to which such education is directed.
The depoliticisation of CE in Mexico

Once I have analysed how the political meaning of participation is far from
being homogenous and consensual, and the relevance of the way in which
the political is understood in CE, in this section I present an empirical
analysis of the depoliticisation of CE in Mexico, and particularly, in sec-
ondary schools from two different areas of Mexico City. The empirical
analysis relates an examination of the meaning of PP in the Mexican pro-
gram of Civic and Ethical Formation (CEF), with students’ representations
of PP, their involvement in practices that exemplify such characterisation,
and pupils’ participation in school and broader communities.
Methods
The data are derived from a research with students, teachers and principals
from secondary schools located within two contrasting municipalities (del-
egaciones) of Mexico City. One of them is the municipality with the highest
level of human development (HD) in the city,3 and highly urbanised. The
latter is among the municipalities with the lowest levels of HD in the city
and it is considered as mostly rural.4
The research followed a sequential mixed-method strategy (Greene,
Caracelli, & Graham, 1989; Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009), with three stages.
The first was based on a concurrent embedded strategy (Creswell, 2009) in
which a documentary analysis of the legal framework for Mexico City’s
secondary schools and the curriculum of CEF from 2007, was treated from
both qualitative and quantitative approaches. The second was a qualitative
stage comprising three workshops with a group of third-grade students in
two schools (one per municipality)5; four semi-structured interviews with
teachers of CEF (two per school); and two semi-structured interviews with
schools’ principals (one per school). The third stage was a quantitative
phase in which a self-administrated questionnaire was applied to a repre-
sentative sample of third-grade students from all the general secondary
schools in these two areas (n = 828).6 The sampling frame for the survey
comprised 2984 students in 17 schools: 1964 pupils in 12 schools in the

urban area, and 1020 in 5 schools within the rural one (SEP, 2012). It was
a probabilistic, stratified and clustered sample with unequal probabilities.7, 8
CE in Mexico: an overview of contemporary proposals for secondary

schools
CE in Mexico is one of the three formative axes in the curriculum of CEF
for basic education.9 The central purposes of CEF are that students:
• Recognise themselves as subjects with dignity and rights, able to make

decisions and commitments that ensure the enjoyment and care of its
person, both in its quality of personal life and collective welfare,
towards the construction of their life project.
• Understand that human rights and democracy are the frame of refer-
ence to make autonomous decisions that enrich coexistence, and to
question actions that violate the right of people and affect their natural
and social environment.
• Recognise that the characteristics of democracy in a state of law allow
the regulation of their relations with the authority; people and groups,
while actively participate socially and politically in actions that ensure
more democratic, intercultural, solidarity-based and fairer ways of life
(SEP, 2011b).
These three principal goals summarise the dominant discourse in the

curriculum, and represent the culmination of a significant change in the
orientation of CEF, which began in 1999 with its formal introduction in
secondary education. Nonetheless, civic and ethical/moral education in the
independent Mexico can be traced back to the first half of nineteenth cen-
tury. From that period to its latest reform in 2011, changes in the official
content of CEF10 can be seen as a slow transition in the following direc-
tions: from a combination of Catholic morality and civic indoctrination11 to
secularism; from authoritarianism to a commitment with democracy; from
ideology to a procedural value education; from nationalism to a balance
between localism, nationalism and cosmopolitanism; from cultural homo-
geneity and male domination to the acknowledgement of cultural diver-
sity and gender equity; and, in the case of secondary education, from
adultcentrism to an adolescent-centred orientation.12
Probably more than any other subject, transformations in the orientation
of CEF correspond to significant discursive and practical changes in the
broader national political life. For instance, since the student movement of
1968, Mexico began a slow, painful, contradictory, diverse and sometimes
hopeful process of democratisation, which extends from the arena of social
movements and civil organisations, to its more formal political domain.13 In
1999, just one year before the first election of a president from a different
political party than the official PRI14 – which governed the country from
1929 to 2000 –, the subject CEF was introduced in all grades of secondary
education.15 CEF represented a major change in the history of civic and
moral education in Mexico (Latapí, 2003; Levinson, 2004). Compared to
previous reforms in 1974 and 1992, the programme introduced an innova-
tive perspective, which combined a radical redesign of the curricular content
with a significant change in the pedagogical orientation. On the one hand,
the scope of the programme ranged from reflection on students’ identity,
and adolescence and youth’s issues (sexuality, health, addictions and future
plans), to participation in society, and the study of rights, law and govern-
ment within a democratic polity. On the other hand, the reform made a cri-
tique to previous approaches to civic and ethical education based on
prescription and indoctrination. It argued for a teaching style that would
lead to the development of practical skills, through which students would

relate the subject’s themes with their interests and daily lives. This
pedagogical approach would also promote the practice of democratic values,
attitudes and forms of collective and collaborative participation (SEP, 2001).
The 1999 programme affirmed some tendencies from past proposals, like
secularism and commitment with democracy, a procedural value education
under the idea of values for living together, and a balance between national-
ism and cosmopolitanism. But this curriculum introduced new elements to
be used in succeeding reforms, particularly a pedagogical approach centred
in adolescence and adolescents, and a discursive inclusion of gender equity
(Levinson, 2004).
In 2006, the curriculum of secondary education was substantially
renewed again. CEF would have 4 h per week in second and third grades.
The reform maintained some of the principles, purposes and orientation
from the previous programme, but established significant changes. Now the
pedagogical approach would be based on the development of eight civic
competences, which seek to integrate the teaching and learning of abstract
knowledge, skills and attitudes, according to the way they should be jointly
displayed in specific ‘real’ practices (SEP, 2006). These competences were
defined as (1) self-knowledge and self-care; (2) self-regulation and responsi-
ble exercise of freedom; (3) respect for, and appreciation of diversity; (4)
sense of belonging to the nation and humanity; (5) management and resolu-
tion of conflicts; (6) social and PP; (7) adherence to legality and sense of
justice; and (8) understanding and appreciation for democracy. According to
the programme, the civic competences are classified in three formative axes
(personal, ethical and citizenship formation), and have to be developed
across three dimensions (a specific curricular content to be worked in class-
room, cross-curricular content with other subjects and the school environ-
ment) (SEP, 2007).
The last reform in 2011 was strongly based on the previous programme.
The curriculum keeps the eight civic competences and the three formative
axes, but adds the dimension of students’ daily life to the three already
established. The programme emphasises the importance of the relation
between school, family and community, especially for practising those
competences with a stronger social character. The new programme slightly
modified the definition of some competences, topics and learning outcomes,
but keeps the content’s organisation as in the 2006 programme.
The programmes of 2006 and 2011 ratify previous advances in CEF,
some of which originated at the end of nineteenth century and between
1910 and 1946, and others of more recent development: secularisation, com-
mitment with democracy, a procedural value education, a balance between
nationalism, cosmopolitanism and universal principles, an approach centred
in adolescence and adolescents, and gender equity. However, the current
curriculum incorporates an emphasis on the local scale, a commitment with

cultural diversity and the acknowledgement of Mexico as a pluricultural
nation with more than 15 million indigenous people from 62 ethnic groups
(CDI, 2012).
Students’ exclusion from participation in the arena of formal politics

The recent curricular reforms in Mexico reflect and inflation in the demands
to CEF. The wide scope of the programmes’ content shows how this subject
has to comply with a growing politically correct discourse about citizenship,
which includes a rhetorical commitment with democracy, cultural diversity,
inclusion, equity, adolescents’ rights, social and PP, etc. Thus, the pro-
gramme embodies an expanded meaning of citizenship, which simultane-
ously reflects a distancing from its political character. I understand this as a
process of depoliticisation of CE, which does not necessarily entail to
remove the political from the curriculum, but to employ a particular mean-
ing of it, especially in relation to potential practices of participation. In the
following, I will show how this kind of depoliticisation means that, on the
one hand, the curricular conception of PP depoliticise adolescents’ lives in
the present and, on the other hand, the programme promotes students’
involvement in different forms of participation that rely strongly on moral
and altruistic motivation, but are deprived of their potential political mean-
ing. I contend that students perceive a wide gap between the idealisation of
such forms of participation, and the real opportunities they have to perform
them in their daily contexts, particularly in school.
PP in the curriculum of CEF: a future-oriented view

The Programme of Civic and Ethical Formation 2007 (PCEF) defines the
competence Social and PP as follows:
Participation refers to the activities orientated to pursuing the welfare of a

given collectivity through the mechanisms established in the law, in order to
influence the decisions affecting all the members of society. This participation
is a necessary element for democratic life, and expresses itself in society’s
organisations and in political entities such as the political parties.
In order to participate in the improvement of social life, students need to

develop dispositions to construct agreements with others, to collaborate in
collective actions in a responsible way, to efficiently communicate their judge-
ment and perspective on different problems affecting the collectivity, and to
formulate proposals and requests to persons or social and political institutions.
(SEP, 2007, p. 11)
This definition merges social and PP into one concept. Indeed, the whole
PCEF seems to evade the term PP. It appears only twice through the whole
document,16 and both times as ‘social and PP’, whereas the term social
participation emerges six times. Additionally, participation is often pre-

sented as democratic participation, which has the same frequency in the
PCEF as social participation. However, both terms are never defined with
clarity; rather, the programme presents them as synonyms.
In terms of explicit definitions, then, it is not clear what the curriculum
means by PP. Yet, according to how the PCEF describes ‘social and PP’ as
a competence, social participation would ‘express itself in the society’s
organisations’, whereas PP would show itself in the ‘political entities as the
political parties’. Similarly, through social participation students might
formulate proposals and requests to ‘social institutions’, while through PP
these would be directed to ‘political institutions’. Thus, the political charac-
ter of participation lies on a separate arena from the social, characterised by
its own agencies for participation (Norris, 2002; Pérez Expósito, 2014a,
2015): ‘political entities’, ‘political institutions’ and ‘political parties’.
Further references in the PCEF with the adjective ‘political’, clarify that
these agencies channel participation within the ‘state’s political organisation’
or ‘country’s political organisation’. The programme then reinforces a con-
ception of PP restricted within the arena of formal politics, where citizens
get involved in order to participate in the government, or having influence
in its structure, composition and/or policies. Accordingly, the PCEF devel-
ops only the figure of the political party as the agency par excellence for
PP (the ideas of political entities and political institutions are never clari-
fied). However, Mexican political parties offer few possibilities for effective
student participation in the present. Although some develop an agenda for
children and adolescents, adult participants have a considerably more effica-
cious participation within them, because political rights are reserved in the
Mexican constitution for citizens over 18-year olds. For adolescents, it is
rather an agency for participation in the future. Thus, the curricular concep-
tion of PP depoliticises adolescents’ present. At best, PP is understood as
actions within a domain where students can participate with restricted rights
(Batallán & Campanini, 2008).
Students’ segregation from their own representation of PP

Having analysed the meaning of PP in the curriculum, it is necessary to
examine the degree of correspondence with students’ representations of PP,
and the extent to which adolescents are involved in forms of participation
that can be regarded as political according to such characterisation.
In the qualitative stage of my research, the first workshop with students
in both schools was structured in two sections. Section 2 was organised
around the use of pictures and videos as a ‘trigger’ for generating reflection
among students about the meaning of PP (Haw & Hadfield, 2011). I
selected a series of pictures and videos, which in my view represented dif-
ferent forms of PP, including different types of actors, practices, agencies

and targets, according to contrasting meanings of the political.
First, I presented these images with a brief description of their content
(Boxes 1–5), and asked students to look at them carefully. Then, partici-
pants formed two groups and observed the pictures and videos once more.
After each image, I asked students to what extent do they consider it an
example of PP, and why?
The analysis of students’ opinions led me to classify the images according
to the consensus or disagreement they provoked in each school, and between
the two of them. Table 1 shows this grouping and the criteria that I followed
for the classification. Each code within the brackets represents an image
described in Boxes 1–5; P designates pictures and V is used for videos.
The distribution in Table 1 shows how students’ characterisations are far
from being an homogeneous block; on the contrary, as any social repre-
sentation, there are differences and discrepancies among the group of par-
ticipants (Doise, Clémence, & Lorenzi-Cioldi, 1993). Variations in the
meaning and form of social representations between individuals have to do
with their differential social positioning, personal histories (Holland & Lave,
2001), their capacity of agency, and the situated conditions within which
representations are communicated (Van Leeuwen, 2008). Yet, their social
character enables the identification of common organising principles across
individual variations. An organising principle can be described as a virtual
or implicit idea, maxim or image, analytically perceptible through explicit
ideas or images in two ways: (1) The organising principle orders the explicit
ideas ‘by giving them a meaning they had not previously had’, or (2) intro-
duces coherence between them by securing their common meaning through
‘a work of selection’. Thus, the organising principle ‘reduces the ambiguity
or polysemy inherent in ideas or images and makes them relevant in any
given social context’ (Moscovici & Vignaux, 1994/2000, p. 190). These
principles also present a generative characteristic; they can be seen as a
Table 1. Students’ classification of selected images according to whether they

represent or not PP.
Notes: P designates a picture and V is used for videos.

0 = All students said NO, or some students said NO and the rest consented tacit or
explicitly.
1 = The group is divided: some students said NO and some Might Be.
2 = The group is divided: some students said NO and some YES.
3 = All students said MIGHT BE or some students said MIGHT BE and the rest consented
tacit or explicitly.
4 = The group is divided: some students said MIGHT BE and some YES.
5 = All students said YES, or some students said YES and the rest consented tacit or
explicitly.
= Degree of agreement between the two schools in regard to an image representing PP.
= Degree of agreement between the two schools in regard to an image not representing PP.
matrix from which people construct specific images of an object. An

organising principle is an implicit idea that generates different explicit
representations.
The analysis of students’ classification of these images reveals the pres-
ence of government as a first organising principle in their representations of
PP. When something is clearly understood as PP, government is always
there. This is more evident when people in government are the main partici-
pants, as in P12 and P15, two of the pictures representing PP (Box 1). But
within this group, as well as in the images described in Box 2, people out
of the government are also portrayed as protagonists, however related to it
through their actions. Participants involved in PP want to influence govern-
ment’s composition (P07, V05 and V06 in Box 1) and government’s policies
or laws initiatives (P02 in Box 2). The government is also represented as
opponent or adversary (P17 in Box 1), or as the actor from whom partici-
pants expect a response to their demands (P17 in Box 1 and P13, P16 and
V01 in Box 2).
Box 1. Description of pictures and videos regarded as clear examples of PP

by students in both schools.
P05 This picture shows a group of P07 The photo depicts an aged woman
women in the front, holding introducing her vote in a ballot box.
together a large banner which says: At its top, one can read
‘All women, all the rights!’ ‘[DIPUTADOS FEDERALES]
following by a cartoon of a woman federal representatives’, even when
raising her right arm. Behind them the first word is uncompleted, and at
it seems to be a very large group of the bottom the letters ‘FE’, which
people, mainly women, in what are the two last initials of the
appears to be a street protest Electoral Federal Institute (IFE in
Spanish), the institution in charge of
organising federal elections
P12 Here, a group of Mexican federal P15 This picture was taken in a local
representatives is portrayed. Two of council in Mexico. We can see at
them, the ones standing at the the front five people raising their
centre-right of the picture, seem to hands and if one looks at it

be talking to each other, while one carefully, almost every person in the
of them is signing with his right table raises her/his hands too. The
hand. They also seem to call the information add to the image in the
attention of some of their website where it was taking from,
colleagues. On the bottom left side says that they are approving the
there are two representatives budget to be exercised in that
captured just before hugging each municipality
other
P17 The photo was taken during a series V05 This video was made by the youth
of teachers’ protests in the city of delegation from one of the main
Oaxaca, Mexico. Approximately, political parties in Mexico (PRI) in
from the centre to the top of the a municipality called Naucalpan. It
picture we can see the police forces. shows differ ‘types’ of young
From the centre to the bottom some people, in terms of how they look
teachers, and in the left corner at (trying to depict different juvenile
the bottom, there seems to be a identities), all of them saying what
photographer, probably from the is to be young, and at the end, the
media, who is being pushed away video shows altogether inviting
during what appears to be an young people to vote for their
intense discussion, almost a fight party’s candidate
V06 Action takes place in an assembly V08 This video captures the moment in
of the youth delegation of another which a group of federal
important political party in Mexico representatives from PRD (one of
(PAN). One sees a large group of the three principal parties in
young people – the majority looks Mexico) occupy the main platform
over 18 years old – gathered of their chamber, holding different
together in a hall, singing a little banners as in a street protest,
motto of their organisation: ‘youth manifesting their rejection to a
action’. After this, another one that reform which allows, to some
says: ‘we won’ extent, foreign participation in oil
industry
Box 2. Description of pictures and videos that almost create consensus

among students in both schools according to whether they represent a form
of PP.
P02 This image shows two men just P13 The latter, who are seen from the
before kissing each other. One of back, were a group of nursery
them is holding a flag in his back, students is depicted in what seems
which usually is a symbol of to be a dialogue to faculty members
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and of the Autonomous University of
transgender (LGBT) pride and Queretaro (a Mexican estate). The
LGBT social movements. The latter, who are seen from the back,
picture was taken during a protest in were in a labour strike demanding a
Mexico City, supporting a local law better salary. The former, within that
proposal on homosexual marriage context, claimed for the continuation
and adoption of their education. A group of
students at the back of the picture is
holding a banner that says: ‘We
need preparation. We have lives in

our hands’
P16 The photo shows a group of V01 A Chilean TV channel made this
Argentinean university students video. It is a report about a street
working outside the classroom, in protest against violence suffered by
what appears to be a parking area. It women in households. The reporter
is a symbolic protest in order to interviews some of the participants
demand an improvement in the about their reasons of protesting.
conditions of the university’s One can see mainly women singing
equipment and facilities mottos and holding banners with
claims like: ‘Machista violence is
not allowed. Nor in the street,
neither at home.’ A sort of an
artistic installation lies on the street.
It is made of shoes with labels in
front of them, showing the names of
women killed by domestic violence.
They are arranged as a circle around
which protesters are gathered
Box 3. Description of two examples of images whose character is rather

undefined because the groups in both schools were divided in their opinions.
P06 This picture shows a group of V10 The video was made by Greenpeace
Indian women during a protest and is called ‘Have a break’, just as
against Coca Cola in New Delhi. the slogan of ‘KitKat’, a chocolate
They allege environmental damage bar made by the transnational
caused by a bottling plant that company Nestlé. A man is working
belongs to the transnational at his office and action is disrupted
company. One of them is holding a by the slogan in full screen. He
banner: ‘Coca Cola go back, go opens up the chocolate and we see
back’ in close up how it has the form of
(Continued)
Box 3. (Continued).
an orang-utan’s fingers. People in
the office start to look at him
surprised. He bites the chocolate and
blood comes out of it. The blood
falls into his computer’s keyword
and he ends up with the chin
covered by it. Action is again
interrupted by a message in full
screen: ‘Give the orang-utan a
break’. After it, we see images of an
orang-utan in a deforested
landscape. The advert ends with a
last message: ‘Stop Nestlé buying
palm oil from companies that
destroy the rainforest’
Table 2. Students’ judgement on images with a clear or unclear reference to

government.
Relation to
Image government Students’ comments
P17 Clear [It is political participation] because they’re asking to the
GOVERNMENT for … a better salary … I guess. [Pedro:
urban school]
[It is political] because they work for the GOVERNMENT,
and they judge the GOVERNMENT in order to get more
jobs or a better salary. [Ana: rural school]
P02 Clear [T]hose are their rights, (in reference to marriage and
adoption), they want them as laws, and that, kind of goes
with GOVERNMENT and politics, and it would be political
participation. [Karina. Rural school]
P13 Unclear They are making a demand to GOVERNMENT, they are
discussing about their salary, and students want to go back
to classes. [Moses: urban school]
P16 Unclear They are demanding to GOVERNMENT better conditions,
isn’t? Better classrooms … [Mario: urban school]
They’re doing that to be taken into account, in order to be
considered and that others see that the facilities are wrong.
[…] It might be [a form of political participation] because
they are doing it in order to call GOVERNMENT’s
attention. [Karina: rural school]
V01 Unclear Well, it is [political participation] because it involves the
law, and then there is GOVERNMENT. [Pedro: urban school]
In Table 2, I present some examples of students’ judgement on images

with a clear or unclear reference to government, depending on either expli-
cit and intrinsic elements in each picture or video, or explicit references in
the contextual information which was given to participants with each image
(see descriptions in Boxes 1–3). The quotations related to the images with
no clear reference to government, show how students construct a relation-
ship to it, in order to be able to classify the video or picture as an example
of PP. In other words, they add this component to what is represented in
the image in order to anchor it (Moscovici, 1984/2000) in their own idea of
PP.
A second organising principle in students’ representation of PP is the
public character of participation. The images that students disregard as PP
(see Boxes 4 and 5) take place in a more ‘private domain’ than the ones in
Boxes 1 and 2, which suggest a rather ‘public sphere’. On the one hand,
the meaning of public seems close to what Habermas presents as the most
common understanding of it: ‘We call events and occasions “public” when
they are open to all, in contrast to closed or exclusive affairs’ (Habermas,
1967/1989, p. 1). In the images classified as PP (Boxes 1 and 2), most of
the actions are portrayed in settings that are relatively open to all: streets
(P05, P17, P02), national chambers of representation or local councils
(P12, P15, V08) and public universities (P13, P16). None of these places
are the property of a person or a particular group. In fact, they do not have
a single owner, but are usually presented as belonging to the state, the
nation, or the People. On the other hand, in the analysis of these images the
public character is given by the fact that participation does not only con-
cern or affect the people directly involved, but also implicates a broader
group, or a whole society. In other words, the action is undertaken in the
name of others, represents them, its effects have direct implications on this
wider group, or exemplifies an action carried out by them.
Box 4. Description of pictures and videos not representing forms of PP

according to students’ opinions in both schools.
P01 This picture shows a woman holding P14 We see a woman and a man
two yoghurt pots, probably taken standing face to face. The gesture
from the fridge in her right side, in the woman’s hand, the opened
which is full of products. The mouths of both, along with the
depiction suggests that she is looking connection they established through
at something in the labels, and maybe their eyes, insinuate they are
comparing something between the arguing, probably loud. They might
two be a couple or just two people
quarrelling
V02 This video presents a group of young people gathered together in a natural
setting, surrounded by trees. Some of the boys have taken their shirts off, and
wear short pants, while the women also seem very relaxed in their clothing.
Many are singing: ‘The holy spirit is here. Move inside me, take my mind
and my heart, fill my life with your love, oh God’s spirit, move inside me’
Box 5. Description of videos that almost create consensus among students

in the urban and rural schools, regarding how poorly they epitomise PP.
V03 The video was taken in an Argentinian school, presumably a private one.
Action takes place in the office of the school’s counsellor. She receives two
young girls who have a problem between them: one of the girls lent her
notebook to the other, who, accidently – she claims – damaged and lost it.
The whole sequence presents us a mediation session, in which the counsellor
aims to solve the problem. There is dialogue between the three of them, and
there is also debate between the students. At the end, the parties in conflict
solved the problem and agree a solution
V07 We see a strong discussion. One can imply that it is taking place among
members of a family. People involved are in a living room, some are sited,
and some stand up. Even when the argument begins between two persons,
immediately one hears many voices, and different persons intervening in the
discussion
Videos and photos classified as not representing PP (see Boxes 4 and 5)

lack of at least one of the previous two meanings of the public: they occur
in rather restricted settings, or the actions portrayed concern mainly or
exclusively to those presented in the images. For instance, in V07, we see a
strong discussion among individuals that seem to be members of a family.
This video only provoked one comment per school:
Mario17 (urban school): [it’s not PP] because they’re only

discussing their problems.
Martha (rural school): those are family problems … nothing
more.
In contrast, when I presented a video of a street demonstration of Chi-

lean women against domestic and sexual violence (V01), most students did
not hesitate in classifying it as a representation of PP. I asked them why it
was so, if the problem is also domestic and has to do with the private realm
as the one in V07. And Elias answered:
Well, it’s also a family problem, the difference is that they’re expressing it on
the street [OPEN SETTING], they are making demands. In the previous one
[V07] it remains there, in the family [IT ONLY CONCERNS TO THOSE
DIRECTLY INVOLVED], in the house [A CLOSED SETTING] […].
Both organising principles (a public character and the presence of

government) are interrelated. In addition to the sense of the public based
on the openness of the setting and the participants involved, for students
something becomes public when it establishes a connection to the
government.
The quantitative results of my research corroborate the identification of
these two organising principles in students’ representations. One of the
requests for an answer (Saris & Gallhofer, 2007) in the survey question-
naire was especially designed for researching this issue. It comprises a
battery with eight statements representing different forms of PP (See
Box 6). Statements (a)–(d) represent actions in which no explicit reference
to government is made, whereas statements (e)–(h) include the government
as the main actor [(h)], interlocutor [(e)] or show an explicit reference to
its policy [(f) and (g)]. Simultaneously, statements (a), (d), (e) and (h)
represent actions with a public character, according to the two meanings
previously analysed. In contrast, statements (b), (c), (f) and (g) represent
actions with a private connotation, understood as the lack of those two
meanings. Students were asked to respond whether each of these state-
ments represents a form of PP by answering one of the options YES,
UNDECIDED or NO.
Box 6. Statements in the questionnaire representing different forms of PP

according to the factors public–private and reference to government/no
reference to government.
(a) A group of people are gathered in a demonstration outside the central offices
of Coca-Cola Inc. in Atlanta, US. They are demanding fair conditions for its
workers in Colombia
(b) A girl in London decides not to buy a bottle of Coca cola light in her local
store, as a protest against the bad work conditions of Coca Cola´s workers in
Colombia
(c) An Argentinean family discusses the consequences of consuming Coca-Cola
products at home. One of the children claims that drinking them promotes the
terrible working conditions of Colombian workers in that company
(d) Members of an international NGO are gathered at the Zócalo square in Mexico
City. They are launching a campaign against the consumption of Coca-Coca
products around the world, until the company improves the conditions of its
workers in Colombia
(e) A group of farmers are in a demonstration outside the Ministry of Government
(Mexico). They demand more support from the government for agricultural
production
(f) A young man in the supermarket choose to buy fruits and vegetables made in
Mexico to support the government’s initiative to solve the poverty in the
countryside
(g) At dinner, one couple discusses about Mexican government’s proposal to solve
the problems of agricultural production in the countryside
(h) The Mexican representatives in the Congress present their proposals to
minimising the problems of agricultural production in the countryside
I designed the statements based on two overlapped dimensions: (1) The

presence or absence of government, and (2) The public or private character.
Accordingly, each dimension comprises two factors: government vs. no
government, and public vs. private, respectively. In order to test the validity
of these constructs (Bryant, 2000) a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was
carried out. It allowed testing whether the distribution of students’ responses

across the eight items was not random, but driven by these latent variables
(Factors).
The results of CFA (Figures 1 and 2) suggest that the factors Public,
Private, Government and No Government are clearly identified in students’
MODEL A MODEL B (FINAL)

GOODNESS-OF- GOODNESS-OF-
FIT STATISTICS FIT STATISTICS
CMIN= 46.430 CMIN= 10.197

DF= 19 DF= 8
p= .000 p= .251
NFI= .802 NFI= .935
IFI= .873 IFI= .985
TLI= .739 TLI= .957

CFI= .862 CFI= .984
RMSEA= .042 RMSEA= .018

ECVI= .117
LO=.097 ECVI= .058
HI=0.146 LO= .053 HI=0.73
Saturated Saturated
Model = .106 Model =.065
HOLTER .01
= 645 HOLTER .01
= 1630
Figure 1. A confirmatory model generation of the public and private as factors in

students’ responses to eight statements representing PP.
MODEL A MODEL B
Goodness-of- CMIN= 96.772 NFI=.588 TLI= .259 RMSEA ECVI=.177 SM= .106 HOLTER CMIN=2.678 NFI= .918 TLI= .259 RMSEA ECVI=.035 SM=.034 HOLTER
Fit Statistics: DF=19p= .000 IFI=.640 CFI= .609 = .070 LO=.145 HI=.219 .05= 258 DF=1 p= .110 IFI= .947 CFI= .926 = .045 LO=.033 HI=.046 .05= 1187
MODEL C (FINAL)
Goodness
-of-fit Statistics:
CMIN=4.520 DF= 4 p=
.340
NFI=.943 IFI= .993
TLI= .970 CFI=.992
RMSEA = .013
ECVI=.044 SM= .048
LO=.044 HI=.056
HOLTER .05= 1736
Figure 2. A confirmatory model generation of government and no government

presence as factors in students’ responses to eight statements representing PP.
responses through the statements (observable variables) associated to them

in the final models. These improve all the goodness-of-fit statistics to a level
of very good fitting (Byrne, 2010), which means that the models represent
the data very well. Likewise, the feasibility and statistical significance of all
parameter estimates is achieved, and the correlation between the factors
(latent variables) decreases significantly in the last model, suggesting an
acceptable degree of independence (Byrne, 2010).
Based on these results, in Figure 3 I present a model with the factors
Public and Government, which graphically shows how a public character
and the presence of government act as organising principles of students’
representations of PP.18 Furthermore, the factors Government and Public are
derived from the five statements with the highest percentages of students’
answers YES [(E), (H), (D), (F) and (H)] (see Table 3).
GOODNESS-OF-FIT
STATISTICS
CMIN= 4.723
DF= 4
p= .317
NFI= .956
IFI= .993
TLI= .971
CFI= .992
RMSEA= .015
ECVI=.044
LO= .044 HI= 0.056
SM = .048
HOLTER .05 = 1662
Figure 3. A confirmatory model of public and government as factors in students’

responses to eight statements representing PP.
Table 3. Statements considered as PP (percentage of students with YES answers).

Dimension 1
Statements with Statements without an
government explicit reference to
presence government
Dimension Statements with a (E) 65.8 (A) 37.4
2 public character (H) 63.0 (D) 54.6
Statements with a (G) 41.6 (B) 21.6
private connotation (F) 45.5 (C) 28.3
The findings from CFA correspond to the results in Table 3, which

shows that students classified as PP the statements with an explicit reference
to government, in a higher proportion than statements without it. Likewise,
the percentage of students who considered that the statements with a public
character represent PP is higher than the proportion in statements with a pri-
vate connotation. Additionally, Table 3 presents in bold letters how the two
statements with the highest percentage of YES responses are the ones with a
public character and the presence of government [(E) and (H)], whereas
statements with a private connotation and without a reference to government
have the lowest percentage.
The qualitative and quantitative results, then, concur in the identification
of the public character of participation and the presence of government as
two basic organising principles of students’ representations of PP. This
characterisation resembles the curricular representation of PP, and therefore,
it also allocates the political into a distant scenario from adolescents’ lives.
It is very unlikely that students find themselves in participatory experiences
that comply with both principles (the public character of participation and
the presence of government). Students’ responses in regard to their involve-
ment in activities that were explicitly presented in the survey questionnaire
as public and/or with a clear reference to government are an indicator of it
(see Table 4). Participants were asked to respond in one of the following
options: (1) Yes, I’ve done this within the last 12 months, (2) Yes I’ve done
Table 4. Students’ participation in political action according to their own

representation of PP.
Have you ever participated in Yes, I’ve done Yes, I’ve done No, I’ve
the following activities or this within the this, but over a never
organisations? last 12 months year ago done this
A youth organisation linked to 12.4% 11.9% 75.6% n = 804
a political party or union
To write a letter to a 12.5 12.9 74.7 n = 801
newspaper or news program
about any public affair
To contact a representative, 7.4 13.6 79.0 n = 795
senator or a municipal
authority
To contact a community 12.6 20.8 66.7 n = 795
authority
Occupy public buildings as a 6.5 7.9 85.6 n = 798
form of protest
To contribute to a discussion in 13.6 20 66.4 n = 794
the Internet or social network
about public affairs or social
problems
this, but more than a year ago and (3) I’ve never done this before. Table 3
shows the distribution of pupils’ answers.
In order to present an overview of the frequency of students’ involve-
ment in all the activities in Table 3, I constructed a variable (score of partic-
ipation) that counts the number of responses ‘Yes, I’ve done this within the
last 12 months’ per student. The results showed that 542 respondents
(65.5%) had not participated in any of these activities within the last year,
and only 65 students (7.9%) had been involved in more than two of them.
These results are an indicator of the rare involvement of students in activi-
ties that exemplify their own representation of PP.
In short, students’ representations of PP are organised under two main
principles: the presence of government and the public character of participa-
tion. This characterisation concurs with the meaning of PP in the curriculum
of CEF, and both represent a view that significantly excludes students from
political action. Instead of advancing an inclusive conception of PP, CE

depoliticise adolescents’ potential forms of participation in the present. This
is how the depoliticisation of CE operates without removing the political,
but by fostering a particular meaning of it.
Students’ exclusion from alternative practices of PP

It might be argued that students appear as a marginal actor in their own
understanding of PP, because in their daily contexts, the political as actions
with a public character and explicitly related to government is rarely visible.
As I showed in the first section, the political can be understood in different
and contrasting ways, but even from these alternative meanings, students
seem to be excluded from PP in the school, family and broader communi-
ties. This is so, even when the PCEF encourages student participation in
these contexts.
The curriculum aims to promote student participation in decision-making
at school and other contexts of pupils’ daily life. The PCEF also encourages
pupils’ involvement in conflict resolution and participation in the resolution
of common problems within different communities. While this type of par-
ticipation is not presented as political, from alternative approaches to the
political it certainly might be assumed as such.
In relation to participation in the decision-making processes, the PCEF
establishes, for instance, that students will participate ‘in the definition and
modification of rules and agreements in their contexts of development’
(SEP, 2007, p. 33). Regarding students’ involvement in conflict resolution,
the PECEF aims that students understand that conflict is an inherent part of
human relations, because between persons and groups there are relations of
authority, power and influence. It is also an intrinsic element of a demo-
cratic life, because participants have different arguments and positions in
regard to issues of common interest (SEP, 2007). Especially, the curriculum
seeks to foster student involvement in the definition of strategies and actions

for solving conflicts in a non-violent way (SEP, 2007, p. 40). Lastly, partic-
ipation in the resolution of common problems is developed in the rationale
of the PCEF, as well as through different blocks of content both in second
and third grades.
Because the curriculum acknowledges that students belong to different
communities, from school to the global human community, the programme
aims to promote student participation oriented to solve different problems
across this range. Alongside, the curricular content encourages active
involvement in different stages: definition of relevant problems, design of
strategies and courses of action, and their implementation. Table 5 shows
excerpts from the PCEF and from an auxiliary document for teachers of
CEF called ‘Guide to Work’, which illustrate how the curriculum aims to
Table 5. Stages for student participation in the resolution of common problems

within different communities.
Stages
Definition of Design of strategies and
common problems courses of action Implementation
The school I [the student] I [the To intervene I [the I value my
search and analyse student] in the student] take right to
information in develop elaboration part in local participate
order to requests of proposals and school in affairs
participate in and and in the organisations that
public affairs in a proposals organisation in order to contribute
free and informed about of collective intervene in to the
way (SEP, 2007a, problems activities in problems of collective
p. 25) of order to collective welfare
I [the student] collective improve the interest (SEP, (SEP,
investigate […] interest, to democratic 2007a, p. 26) 2007a,
The locality problems related be life in p. 25)
to the attention to presented [students’]
basic needs in the to school milieu
locality, the and local
The country country and the authorities
The world world (SEP,
[To analyse] 2007a,
conflicts in the p. 25)
regional, national
or international
scale, which
demand a
collective
participation […]
(SEP, 2007b,
p. 59)
involve students in these stages of participation oriented to solving problems

across different communities.
The curriculum, then, envisions an active student, engaged in decision-
making processes, involved in the resolutions of conflicts and the definition of
common problems. This active adolescent also designs strategies and courses
of action to be enacted in the school, in the local, national and global
communities. All these forms of participation can be understood as political –
even when the curriculum does not present them as such –, for instance, from
those approaches that define the political by its ends or as a particular process.
But, to what extent pupils are involved in this sort of participation?
In the case of school, a first indicator of pupils’ participation in decision-
making is the distribution of students’ scores across a summative average
index (Langbein, 2012) based on their responses to the following request in
the questionnaire: In your school, to what extent students’ opinion is consid-
ered in decision-making on the following issues? (a) The way in which

courses are taught, (b) Courses’ content, (c) Learning materials and
resources, (d) Courses’ timetable, (e) Classroom rules, (f) School rules and
(g) Extracurricular activities (for instance, visiting a museum).19
Participants were asked to respond to every option in a four-point Likert
scale: Very Much, Somewhat, Not Really and Not at All. The index ranges
from 0 to 3, and the individual respondents’ scores can be interpreted using
the original response categories (Langbein, 2012): 0 = Not at All, 1 = Not
Really, 2 = Somewhat and 3 = Much.20 The Mean of students’ score across
the index is 1.17 (SD = .68) the Mode is .86, the maximum score was 2.57,
but only 12% of respondents score between 2 and 2.57; whereas 46% score
1 or less.21 According to this distribution and the value of the mean, it is
possible to say that students perceive that their opinion is not really consid-
ered in decision-making at school, at least in regard to the aspects presented
in the seven items above.22
In relation to participation in conflict resolution, what prevails in
students’, teachers’ and principals’ testimonies is a hierarchised process of
resolution, where pupils usually have a passive role. Depending on the con-
flict’s magnitude, few of them are solved among students, and normally the
first instance of resolution is the teacher. The teacher either solves it, or
takes the students to the prefects or school counsellors. From there, they
can be channelled to the deputy head teacher, and finally to the principal. In
these different stages, there is always the possibility of calling students’ par-
ents in order to find a joint solution. Miriam, a student in the rural school,
describes an example of this hierarchised process of conflict solving:
Sometimes Jimena [a prefect] solves the problems. If someone goes to

Jimena, you know that she’s going to mediate the problem […]. Sometimes
when the problem is big, she takes us with teacher Iris or teacher Marian
[school counsellors], and if it’s really big, with the principal.
Teachers, prefects, counsellors, deputy head teachers, principals or parents,

sometimes play the role of mediators, as in the case of Jimena. Other times,
they act as decision-makers: a sort of juries or judges that decide the way in
which the conflict has to be solved, leaving students out of the resolution
process, as Pedro recalls:
Last year I had a problem with a teacher. […] He called my father […]. We
were almost finishing talking to the teacher about the problem, and then
another teacher saw that my father was there, and he started to talk to him.
The deputy head came and spoke to them also... and I got suspended […]
because they told him that I was doing nothing, and the deputy head was lis-
tening, and she said: ‘yes he’s doing nothing, if he want to be seated, let’s
send him to home.’ And I got suspended two days.
Lastly, students’ participation is very limited in regard to the resolution of

common problems. From their perspective, within the school these range
from a lack of material for educational activities or the state of the school’s
facilities, to teachers’ pedagogical styles, and the general quality of their
education. In all these areas, pupils gave me a variety of specific examples.
Conversely, experiences of student involvement in actions aiming to solve
these problems were scarce.
In regard to participation oriented to solving problems within the sur-
rounding communities, only one student in the rural school (Adrian) was
involved in the protection of the large green spaces in the area where he
lives. But this was a personal activity not related with the school. Although
students identified environmental pollution, poverty and corruption as local,
national and global problems, they could not recalled a single experience
aimed to participate in their resolution.
A quantitative approach to students’ participation within broader
communities corroborates this minimum level of involvement. I developed a
composite index constituted by students’ responses to three different
requests in the survey questionnaire: pupils’ perceptions on (a) their partic-
ipation in organisations and groups oriented to the resolution of common
problems, (b) their involvement in different forms of protest and (c) their
involvement in altruistic forms of participation; those that are exclusively
oriented to helping or supporting others, others’ causes, or to contribute to
public discussions. These three questions comprised 24 items in total. Five
were explicitly related to students’ local community, two to the international
community and three with the national one. The rest do not relate the activi-
ties or organisations to one specific context. Students were asked to respond
between three options: (1) Yes, I’ve done this within the last 12 months, (2)
Yes I’ve done this, but more than a year ago or (3) I’ve never done this
before. Three different variables were derived by counting the number of
responses ‘Yes, I’ve done this within the last 12 months’ per student within
each request. These were integrated as components in the index. The weight
of each component was determined using principal component analysis.
The index ranges from 0 to 1, where 0 means no participation, and 1
extensive participation. The Mean of students’ scores was .21 with a SD of .2.
The large SD is partially explained because the Mode was 0. The maximum
score was .85, but only 11.2% of participants scored above .5. These results
reveal that, according to students’ perception, their participation oriented to the
resolution of common problems across different communities is quite limited.
Thus, the forms of participation envisioned in the curriculum, which
could have an alternative political meaning, turn considerable idealistic.
Students, teachers and principals have appropriated them discursively. They
acknowledge the importance of democracy and participation; teachers stress
the need of creating responsible and active citizens. In class, they discuss
issues related to peaceful conflict resolution, children’s rights and the chal-
lenge of enhancing democracy in the Mexican society. But students perceive

a lack of opportunities to practice what the curriculum aims to promote:
Maria: We talk, but we aren’t listened, as it should be. Our opin-

ions, points of view, and everything we say stays in the air,
because we aren’t listened. They [principal and teachers]
say: ‘ok’, ‘we know you say that’, but they don’t take it into
account, they do nothing with it.
————————————————————
Facilitator/
Interviewer: what is political participation for you?
Adrian: to help each other, because sometimes, because we are
young, we are not included. People with money are taken
into account, or older people, and that is wrong, because,
supposedly, in political participation everyone …
Ana: (Interrupting) participates
In the last quotation, Adrian and Ana seem to recognise how PP should
be, but also acknowledge that people are actually excluded depending on
their resources or age. In practice, PP is not for everyone, and – as Maria
points out – the school is one of the closest contexts in which students
experience this marginalisation. Limited opportunities for student participa-
tion in school are so evident, that teachers and principals clearly recognised
them. For instance, in regard to adolescents’ participation in the Student
Society, Teacher Ivan says: ‘I think that [students] don’t take it seriously
[the Student Society], because the power they have is very little’. Similarly,
the following quotation from the principal in the urban school reveals that,
at least in decision-making, students’ participation is almost non-existent:
I think we are not used to it. […] We don’t even have in mind that they
[students] take a decision through a sort of survey, to see what is the most
important decision we should make in the school? How do we want to
approach a given problem? How we would like that the school shows itself
to the community? What are the things that make us uncomfortable? […] We
are not willing to participate. This participation doesn’t happen.
Thus, students seem to be excluded from practicing the forms of participa-

tion that the PCEF promotes. From different theoretical perspectives these
can be seen as practices of PP, however inaccessible to students’ everyday
life.
Conclusions
Based on a mixed methods research in Mexico City’s secondary schools,
this article has shown how the contemporary approach to CE, instead of
looking at nurturing children’s and adolescents’ politicity, contributes to stu-
dents’ depoliticisation. I have analysed two different ways through which
this process takes place. First, among different perspectives through which
participation can be regarded as political, the Programme of CEF for
Mexico’s secondary schools characterises PP as an arena circumscribed
within the formal political system. In this domain, students will only be
included in the future, because they are not entitled yet with the political
rights that are necessary for an efficacious and full participation in this
arena. Students’ representations of PP concur with the curricular view; but
the paper has demonstrated that students’ involvement in forms of participa-
tion that exemplify their own representation of PP is very unusual. This
form of depoliticisation does not need to remove the political from CE, but
rather to employ a particular meaning of it, which depoliticises adolescents’
lives in the present.
The second way in which depoliticisation operates involves the subtrac-
tion of a political character from the type of participation that CE aims to
promote in students. The curriculum envisions an active student in decision-
making, conflict solving and the resolution of common problems in school
and broader communities. While this form of participation is not conceived
as political in the programme, from alternative approaches to the political it
can be understood as such. However, the article has shown that students are
also largely excluded from these practices. The forms of participation envi-
sioned in the curriculum turn considerable idealistic: students, teachers and
principals have appropriated them discursively, but perceive a lack of
opportunities to perform them, especially in the school.
In the last years, then, CE in Mexico has prioritise the design of
programmes in which the meaning of citizenship is expanded according to a
dominant discourse about democracy, participation, children’s rights, gender
equity, cultural diversity, human rights and so on (Pérez Expósito, 2013).
As it has been the case in other countries, while there is an extensive
consensus on the desirability of teaching these subjects, this path has
undermined the political character of citizenship (Biesta, 2011; Frazer,

2007; Pérez Expósito, 2014b; Straume, 2015), and contributed to the
depoliticisation of adolescents. To conclude, I call the attention to the need
of shifting the priority of CE from the formal curriculum to the transforma-
tion of school practices. Three curricular reforms in the last 16 years have
not been able to open the school to students’ participation, to construct a
pedagogical environment where adolescents’ politicity can develop through
participation, instead of being denied. This involves the necessity of
thinking about the (re) politicisation of CE in our schools.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Funding
This work was supported by the Program for Teachers’ Professional Development,
Higher Education type (Programa para el Desarrollo Profesional Docente, Tipo
Superior) [UAM-EXB-135].
Notes
1. The normative age in secondary school in Mexico is 12–15 years old. It is part
of the basic education phase and it is located between primary education
(6–12 years old) and medium education (15–18 years old). The Mexican sec-
ondary school system offers different types of services: general (academic),
technical (vocational), tele secundaria (schools were courses are directed
through television and other technologies, principally in distant rural communi-
ties), communitarian (created for attending marginalised rural and urban
communities, as well as camps of migrant rural workers) and secondary school
for workers over 15-year olds (INEE, 2012). The general secondary school is
the most common service; half of all secondary students in the Mexican
system (public and private) attend these schools (INEE, 2012).
2. Other conceptions of the political as a process are found in Bourdieu (1991,
2001, 1979/2002), Rancière (1992, 1995, 2001), and Crick (2004). See Pérez
Expósito (2014b) for a broader analysis.
3. According to the HD index used by the annual HD report, carried out by the
United Nations. In order to protect the anonymity of the participants in this
research, I do not to provide the specific levels of HD of both areas.
4. According to the Secretariat of Environment (Secretaría del Medio Ambiente)
of Mexico City (see www.sma.df.gob.mx).
5. In the urban school, the group comprised 8 pupils; 4 boys and 4 girls. In the
rural one, there were 4 girls and 3 boys. In both cases, their age ranged
between 14 and 16 years old.
6. The questionnaire was especially designed to gather information about two
main. aspects: (1) students’ representations of PP; and (2) students’ representa-
tions of their participation in family, school, local, national and global
communities. It was tested and evaluated through a pilot study with 87
third-grade students from one urban secondary school, who answered the
questionnaire in a 45 min session Among the various methods for testing the
quality and functioning of the questionnaire (Klugman, 2011), two were
employed: (1) statistical analysis (multiple item correlation, factor analysis and
computation of Cronbach’s α coefficients) and (2) cognitive interviews (Presser
et al., 2004) with 10 students. The questionnaire was tested in some usual
problems with questionnaires pointed out by (Beatty, 2004; Willis, 2004), but
particularly in: (a) comprehension, (b) keeping interest and motivation, (c)
adequacy of response alternatives, (d) social desirability, (e) construct validity
and (f) reliability.
7. Following these strategies, the questionnaire was administrated to a sample of
850 students in six different schools, four in the urban area and two in the
rural. The sample size was calculated considering a value of 1.96 for 95% of
confidence level, a value of .5 as percentage of the population and a confi-
dence interval of ±2.84. The response rate was 94%.
8. The qualitative fieldwork took place during the academic year 2010–2011. The
quantitative stage was undertaken in the academic year 2011–2012.
9. Basic education in Mexico includes pre-school (3 years), primary education

(6 years, 6–12 years old) and secondary school (3 years, 12–15 years old).
10. I use this term acknowledging that it is the formal name of the subject only
since 1999.
11. See Forsyth, Rothgeb, and Willis (2004) and Latapí (2003).
12. See Roldán (2012), Latapí (2003), and Levinson (2004) for a historical over-
view of Civic and Moral Education in Mexico.
13. See Pérez Expósito (2013) for a distinction between formality and informality
in PP.
14. Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party).
15. This new subject replaced civics and educational orientation, a course that
was centred more on vocational, psychological and moral orientation, and was
envisaged to serve as a guide for students’ process of identity formation.
16. The PCEF contains the following sections: (a) introduction, (b) rationale and
background, (c) general purpose of CEF, (d) purpose of CEF in secondary
school, (e) pedagogical perspective, (f) teenagers and CEF, (g) the teacher’s
role, (h) relationship with other courses, (i) content organisation, (j) content
structure and (k) blocks I–V for second and third grades, which specify con-
tents, expected learning outcomes, general orientations, and suggest the
application of certain didactical situations and activities.
17. In order to guarantee the anonymity of my informants, no real names are used
in this article.
18. The model has a very good fitting according to the goodness-of-fit statistics
values. The feasibility and statistical significance of all parameter estimates is
achieved, and the correlation between the factors (latent variables) is relatively
low, suggesting an acceptable degree of independence.
19. This question was taken from the student questionnaire of the International
Civic and Citizenship Education Study 2009, developed by the International
Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA, 2010)
Spanish version.
20. The index was developed by assigning a numeric value to each of the four
response categories (Not at All = 0, Not Really = 1, Somewhat = 2 and
Much = 3). The lower limit of the index is 0, and, to establish the upper limit,
the higher value (3) was multiplied by the number of items in the battery (7).
Therefore, the index originally ranged from 0 to 21. Students’ scores were
computed by adding the value that corresponds to the category selected by the
respondent in each of the seven items. If a student scores 21, it means that in
every single indicator (item) he or she answered the category Much (=3). In
order to improve and clarify the interpretation of scores, I rescaled the index
by dividing the maximum limit (21) between the number of items (7). From
this rescaling, the range of the final index is 0–3. The construction of the
index, by treating a categorical ordinal variable (each single indicator/item in
the battery) as a numerical one, assumes that the former has an underlying
continuous scale. As such, ‘the categories can be regarded as only crude mea-
surements of an unobserved variable that, in truth, has a continuous scale
(Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993), with each pair of thresholds (or initial scale
points) representing a portion of the continuous scale’ (Byrne, 2010, p. 149).
21. n(valid) = 792, missing = 36.
22. See Pérez Expósito (2015) for a complete analysis of student participation in
decision-making at school.
Notes on contributor
Leonel Pérez-Expósito is Associate Professor of sociology and education at the
Department of Social Relations, Autonomous Metropolitan University (Xochimilco) in
Mexico, and Visiting Scholar in Education (2015–2016) at Harvard Graduate School of
Education, Harvard University. He holds a Ph D in education from the UCL Institute of
Education (previously Institute of Education, University of London). His main research
interests are citizenship and political education, adolescent participation in school,
school democratisation, and educational assessment and evaluation.
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International Studies in Sociology of Education

ISSN: 0962-0214 (Print) 1747-5066 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/riss20

Citizenship education in Mexico: the

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Download by: [Harvard Library] Date: 05 May 2016, At: 11:46

Citizenship education in Mexico: the depoliticisation of

Departamento de Relaciones Sociales, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana,

Recent contributions have argued about the depoliticisation of

citizenship education (CE), mainly through theoretical and documentary

*Emails: leperez@correo.xoc.uam.mx, leonmpe@gmail.com

realises whenever there is ‘conﬂict of interests and ideals’ and a ‘differential

community involvement or community service (Education Commission of

necessary for an efﬁcacious and full participation in this domain. Students’

The political meaning of participation: diversity and change

conceptual analysis about the variety of potential meanings of the political.

Pérez Expósito, 2014b; Pérez Expósito, Ortiz-Tirado, González, & Gordillo,

government, illustrates what Leftwich (2004) categorises as approaches to

contrasting practices as forms of PP. To select one or another implies subtle

The depoliticisation of CE in Mexico

comprised 2984 students in 17 schools: 1964 pupils in 12 schools in the

CE in Mexico: an overview of contemporary proposals for secondary

• Recognise themselves as subjects with dignity and rights, able to make

These three principal goals summarise the dominant discourse in the

lead to the development of practical skills, through which students would

curriculum incorporates an emphasis on the local scale, a commitment with

Students’ exclusion from participation in the arena of formal politics

PP in the curriculum of CEF: a future-oriented view

Participation refers to the activities orientated to pursuing the welfare of a

In order to participate in the improvement of social life, students need to

participation emerges six times. Additionally, participation is often pre-

Students’ segregation from their own representation of PP

ferent forms of PP, including different types of actors, practices, agencies

Table 1. Students’ classiﬁcation of selected images according to whether they

Notes: P designates a picture and V is used for videos.

matrix from which people construct speciﬁc images of an object. An

Box 1. Description of pictures and videos regarded as clear examples of PP

centre-right of the picture, seem to hands and if one looks at it

Box 2. Description of pictures and videos that almost create consensus

need preparation. We have lives in

Box 3. Description of two examples of images whose character is rather

Table 2. Students’ judgement on images with a clear or unclear reference to

In Table 2, I present some examples of students’ judgement on images

Box 4. Description of pictures and videos not representing forms of PP

Box 5. Description of videos that almost create consensus among students

Videos and photos classiﬁed as not representing PP (see Boxes 4 and 5)

Mario17 (urban school): [it’s not PP] because they’re only

In contrast, when I presented a video of a street demonstration of Chi-

Both organising principles (a public character and the presence of

Box 6. Statements in the questionnaire representing different forms of PP

I designed the statements based on two overlapped dimensions: (1) The

carried out. It allowed testing whether the distribution of students’ responses

MODEL A MODEL B (FINAL)

CMIN= 46.430 CMIN= 10.197

NFI= .802 NFI= .935

IFI= .873 IFI= .985

TLI= .739 TLI= .957

CFI= .862 CFI= .984

RMSEA= .042 RMSEA= .018