Epistemic Asymmetries and Institutional Simulation Practices: Power Relations in a School Technical Council in the Nueva Escuela Mexicana

relaciones de poder en un Consejo Técnico Escolar en la Nueva Escuela Mexicana

Abstract

This article examines epistemic asymmetries and institutional simulation practices emerging within a School Technical Council (CTE) in the context of the Nueva Escuela Mexicana (NEM). The study is based on an ethnographic case conducted in a public primary school in Tlaxcala. Four ordinary CTE sessions were observed between February and May 2025. The corpus included field notes, approximately four hours of partial audio recordings organized into thirteen transcript blocks, and twelve analytical notes produced during the interpretive process. The findings show conversational asymmetries associated with the principal’s conduct of the sessions and with sequences resembling the Initiation-Response-Evaluation (IRE) pattern, while moments of open discussion were also recorded. The supervisor’s participation made it possible to examine epistemic vulnerability linked to institutional hierarchy. Her account of evidence production at higher levels is treated as testimony concerning a practice outside direct observation. A shared professional formulation was also identified between school leadership and supervision, interpreted as an indication of discursive continuity between both levels. Microgestures and lateral questioning reveal forms of protected dissent, while selective appropriations express margins of agency within regulated curricular autonomy. Simulation is examined according to the evidentiary status of each case. The observed practices are interpreted as cultural manifestations of everyday collective action and are kept analytically distinct from an organized social movement.