EDUCATION IN RURAL MEXICO IN THE 20TH CENTURY AS SEEN THROUGH LITERATURE.

Abstract

This article offers a hermeneutic reading of Juan Rulfo’s “Luvina” and Ricardo Elizondo’s “El fenómeno físico” as literary metaphors of the failure of rural education in twentieth-century Mexico. Drawing on key concepts from Hans-Georg Gadamer’s philosophical hermeneutics and reception aesthetics, the study argues that literature provides an alternative and complementary language to historiographical discourse for understanding educational processes from a human, rather than purely statistical, perspective. Methodologically, the analysis relies on close textual interpretation, focusing on narrative voices, rhetorical strategies—such as analogy, irony, and satire—and the dynamic relationship between reader, text, and historical context. In Luvina, the tragic tone reveals the disjunction between imposed institutional knowledge and local community realities, which is linked to the collapse of the Vasconcelist educational project and the marginalization of rural populations within the national agenda. By contrast, El fenómeno físico is examined as a satirical narrative that exposes the extreme deterioration and distortion of official educational practices, emphasizing the disregard for indigenous and local forms of knowledge. The scope of the article lies in demonstrating how literary texts can function as critical spaces that reopen dialogue about the relevance, limits, and contemporary significance of more inclusive and context-sensitive models of rural education in Mexico.