Graduate programs in Normal Schools: challenges, tensions, and possibilities for educational transformation

Abstract

This essay analyzes the implementation of a graduate program in a Normal School as a strategy for teacher professionalization and institutional transformation. Within the context of Higher Education in Mexico, the text argues that graduate programs in Normal Schools open an opportunity to establish these institutions as legitimate spaces for pedagogical knowledge production. Drawing on epistemic justice, Epistemologies of the South, and critiques of the coloniality of knowledge, the essay holds that graduate education in Normal Schools can reconfigure institutional identity and strengthen situated research. The analysis draws from the curricular design and authorization process of the Master's Degree in Upper Secondary Education at the Escuela Normal de San Felipe del Progreso, with its epistemological foundations and the challenges of the authorization process. The establishment of graduate programs in Normal Schools constitutes a strategic project for advanced teacher education and regional and national educational transformation.