Discretionary Implementation of Educational Policies in a Teacher Training School in Hidalgo: Insights from Theories of Institutionalization and Public Action

Abstract

This research examines the creation process of the “Escuela Normal Superior Pública del Estado de Hidalgo” (ENSUPEH) in 2001, as a result of the educational reforms of the 1990s aimed at teacher professionalization. Through a press archive review of the General Archive of the State of Hidalgo, documents from the state’s Ministry of Public Education, and the local newspaper “El Sol de Hidalgo”, as well as semi-structured interviews with teachers selected in the original call, a discrepancy was identified between the technical design of the educational policy and its implementation. The analysis is grounded in public policy implementation theories and the concept of institutional objectivation by Berger and Luckmann, using the five ethnographic instruments proposed by Bertely. The findings reveal a process of normative reengineering that blurred the original purpose of the training model by maintaining discretionary teacher selection practices through a joint union-government commission, bypassing merit-based competitive examinations. This reproduced corporatist dynamics and limited substantive improvements in teacher education. As an alternative, a merit-based selection system is proposed to attract the most qualified professionals and strengthen the continuing education offerings within the Normal education subsystem.