In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Americas 61.2 (2004) 290-292



[Access article in PDF]
Church and State Education in Revolutionary Mexico City. By Patience A. Schell. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2003. Pp. xxv, 253. Illustrations. Maps. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $50.00 cloth.

This book is an important addition to studies of the educational policies and the ideological contests that were part of the Mexican revolution. Moving beyond existing works that concentrate on revolutionary projects of public education or on private or religious alternatives, Schell thoroughly examines their similarities and cross-fertilization. She employs a wide range of sources, combining material from state and Church archives, and national and foreign periodical and anecdotal reports, with theoretically-grounded analyses, including careful attention to the gender and power relations among the leadership of and participants in state and Church programs. Schell reminds readers not to look for only conflict or seeds of the Cristero Rebellion in Church and state projects immediately following the revolution. Ample evidence over eight chapters depicting educational and social programs demonstrates inclinations of coexistence, with participants from both camps assenting to Catholic schools being part of a larger schema of government-regulated education. Understanding [End Page 290] early postrevolutionary education and its diverse participants allows readers to look past the polarizations of conflictive times (and of academic constructs) to see the willingness of many to combine and compromise ideology and everyday practices in order to learn in, teach in, and support the programs that helped them achieve tangible as well as rhetorical "goals of the revolution" (p. 201).

Importantly, Schell considers Mexico City as a region unto itself rather than taking it as the exemplar of the entire country. Schell consistently reminds readers of the Federal District's uniqueness, and uses comparisons with other regions when possible. To correct the stereotype of state and Catholic programs being always in opposition, Schell describes the concurrences of Catholic and public educators' approaches. Both aimed to produce a stronger work ethic, recognition of social position before aspirations for social mobility, greater morality in social activity (at times expressed by state educators in eerily similar "commandments"), and docility, especially among working-class men and women. Schell shows that much state-led educational policy during this period was conservative, continuing programs deemed necessary for modernization during the Porfirian era rather than spearheading radical change. This, however, was not necessarily the perspective of the students enrolled in state or church schools. Schell uses attendance statistics, program descriptions, and students' commentaries to demonstrate how adult and even child students selected the teachers and courses they deemed interesting and useful, and resisted confinement into the programs crafted to mold them one way or another. Schell also shows how paid and—especially in religious schools—volunteer teachers, social workers, and other leaders worked creatively to alter curricula to fit their beliefs, to attract and retain students, and to cope with scarce resources and mounting legal and social tensions.

Inevitably, such a thorough, detailed book raises questions. Some analyses lack the parallels otherwise followed throughout; for example, if analyzing the Unión de Damas Católicas Mexicanas refusal to substitute "Femenina" (Women's [Union]) for Damas (Ladies) (p. 83), why not the Ministry of Public Education's name change of the Porfirian Escuela de Oficios y Artes para Mujeres to one for Señoritas (Young Ladies) (pp. 9, 52)? The sources may not have been suggestive, but the names are. In some sections, Schell appropriately critiques the 'scripted' nature of her sources (e.g., Chapter 6's analysis of the damas' magazine reports of Catholic adult schools), but in others, published comments are taken at their word, like John Dewey's effusive praise for Puig Casauranc's "well-adapted," "artistic"—and cheaper—open-air schools from his Impressions of Soviet Russia and the Revolutionary World (p. 106). Also, the book contains little discussion of wider social and cultural paradigms into which both state and Catholic educators fit. The panic of self-consciously "modern" state crafters and educators to regulate and police the population, especially the poor and women, is apparent, but questioning why this...

pdf

Share