Vicissitudes of teaching because of a criminal gang’s context of violence

Abstract

The educational institution has a social mandate. It has to transmit the culture of the community, but sometimes it is forgotten because it suffers from violence, marginalization and poverty, among other problems. The methodology of this research is qualitative, descriptive and interpretive. The objective of this research was to describe the external and internal violence suffered by teachers in a Technological Bachelorship College located in the State of Mexico. Some interviews and naturalistic observations were done. The results show external violence perpetrated by criminal gangs, as well as internal violence carried out by the principal and students. Both issues affect teacher´s work and they accept threats of some criminals and the incompetence of the State, the laxity of institutional norms, the lack of support from society, managers and parents. Violence in the institution of analysis is a reflection of the social, economic and political dynamics, similar to the results found in other investigations in the country. The school has alarming episodes of violence, like many others around the world. It has achieved naturalization status as a social phenomenon. In the same way, it is noted that formal education loses importance for students because of economic gains. They obtain easy money participating with criminal gangs.