An exploration of effective schools in rural Mexico:: Conafe primary schools of Oaxaca

Rural populations in Mexico face numerous challenges including those related to the availability and quality of school services. This has been acutely noted in the low educational attainment facing states like Oaxaca where most of its population live in rural municipalities. To date, three main school type services are found in rural settings: indigenous, general, and community‐based schools. Community based school services are provided by the National Council for Promoting Education (CONAFE) following a particular multi‐grade approach for instruction.The evidence regarding rural schools in relation to their state of effectiveness suggested by test scores has been limited and mixed as not all rural schools are consistently –or properly‐ assessed using standardised tests. Furthermore, issues of accessibility, budget, and even micro‐politics existing in rural settings do not facilitate the further exploration of inferences made by quantitative approaches. In the case of Oaxaca, the diversity of the population requires more research that can provide account of the state of schools and their effectiveness based on stakeholders’ context and needs. Thereby, research based school interventions could meet the actual capacity of schools towards educational change and improvement.This study has been conducted using School Effectiveness and School Improvement research bases as it aims to gain a deep understanding of CONAFE rural school processes and their influence in pupil achievement in recent years. A mixed method approach has been used to look at the factors explaining two opposite pupil achievement trajectories observed in ten CONAFE multi‐grade schools in Oaxaca, Mexico. Following the multilevel nature of schools, individual, classroom and school‐community levels were analysed. The quantitative findings of this study revealed important differences at pupil level such as socioeconomic status and socio‐cultural background. At a classroom level, significant differences between instructional practices of novice and return teachers were found using structured classroom observation data. Finally, the qualitative findings noted the importance of school governance, school leadership and parental involvement in their interrelationship with classroom and pupil level factors