The Mexican Student Movement of 1968 in Latin American Code: An Approach to the Notions of Education and Social Transformation

This article analyzes the Mexican student movement of 1968 and, more specifically, the protestors' different assessments of the role of education in social transformation. Based on a historical and qualitative methodology, supported by primary and secondary sources as well as interviews of specialists, it locates the Mexican movement among the great struggles that Latin America experienced during the final quarter of the 20th century. In doing so, it identifies the features the movement shared with other great student uprisings in the region and characterizes the four main demands that it defended: protection of democratic freedoms, preservation of university autonomy, construction of university militancy, and greater popular participation in the movement. This strategy will make it possible to conclude that for many of the protestors, although never for all of them, education could indeed collaborate in the task of forming more just societies, either by contributing knowledge so as to eliminate ignorance, or by providing tools to end domination.