Stealth diversity and the indigenous question: The challenges of citizenship in Mexican civic education

Abstract

In broad brush strokes, the story of citizenship and citizenship education in Mexico features a strongly secular, liberal, nationalist state that in the 19th century begins a project to assimilate its indigenous peoples to a mainstream, mestizo national culture. This project is then inflected, but not fundamentally altered by, the Revolution of the early 20th century, which comes to glorify the indigenous contribution to national culture but provides few differentiated citizenship rights to indigenous peoples. Since the late 1980s this project has evolved in fits and starts toward a more inclusive, accommodating pluricultural framework. Yet there is still much more work to be done.