Adapting an Innovation: the Orientation and Tutorial Hour in Junior High Schools

Abstract

The 2006 education reform in junior high schools in Mexico brought with it an innovation: one hour a week of ‘orientation and tutorial’ sessions in the syllabus, and the corresponding ‘tutor’ figure. In 2012 we carried out a qualitative assessment of this innovation in eight junior high schools (four general and four technical) in four Mexican states. One of the most significant findings was that in two states, the tutorial sessions were adopted as simply another subject to be taught, but in the other two states, the hours were used to turn the ‘group advisor’ – the teacher traditionally responsible for monitoring group discipline and organizing extra- and cocurricular events – into a ‘tutor’. A clear example can be seen here of what education reform and policy analysts mean when they state that innovations are not just implemented, nor do they start on a blank slate, but they are adapted and changed by actors and institutions.