Education, school and construction of sexuality in indigenous groups

Abstract

This paper analyses the construction of identity and sexual imaginary through the application of two thousand basic competences exercises on sixth grade elementary school children of the Mazahua region in the state of Mexico. In those exercises, the children wrote and narrated their conceptions regarding the following questions: How do they conceive rape? What are the ‘demanded’ conditions for an action to be considered rape? In view of a sexual aggression, how do they ‘distribute’ guilt in the presence of the aggressor and the assaulted one? How do they distribute ‘rights’ and ‘responsibilities’ between men and women? How is guilt assigned and ‘handled’? Parallel to the exercises, various discussion groups with teachers, authorities and students were conducted around the axiological contents –regarding sexuality- included in the sixth grade elementary school books. This paper derives from the Ford Foundation financed research ‘Federalism and decentralization of education in Mexico’ under the general coordination of Carlos Ornelas and developed in ten entities of the Mexican Republic; in this setting, twenty thousand exercises on values competences, health, communication, and the functional use of Mathematics were applied, and there also took place 150 discussion groups with several leading people involved in the educational process.