Digital leap in the New Mexican school since the pandemic lockdown: Challenges for governance and pedagogical processes

Abstract

This paper analyzes the extent to which the use of digital education platforms (DEP), which was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, has modified educational policies for digital transition in schools in the context of the last Mexican educational reform (2019), teaching-learning processes, and school-family relations. Our main hypothesis is that the digital leap, in the New Mexican School that emerged from the last educational reform, has considerably modified the methods of educational governance, the pedagogical processes in schooling, and the ways of communication between schools and families, with implications for children’s rights. The objective is to identify, from the stakeholders’ perspectives, the effects of the growing importance of BigTech corporations in Mexico and of the expansion of digital capitalism, which deepened as an effect of school closures due to the pandemic, and to analyze the results from the gender perspective. The research methodology is qualitative based on in-depth interviews with policymakers and a survey of 70 school principals, teachers, and families from the five educational regions of the country. Our main research objective is to explore the perceptions, experiences, and opinions of women and men in urban and rural environments about the changes experienced since the pandemic in terms of digital transition and to identify the benefits and constraints of using DEP in schooling contexts.