The rural education started from 1920's in Mexico is characterized as the movement of social improvement. In the rural area, the state intended to create "the Mexican nation" and accomplish the national integration through the education. It means that the school is considered as the apparatus of ideology and discipline. The inhabitants in the rural area reacted in various ways to the rural education brought by the state. Some villages received it actively, others neglected it, and others refused it violently. In other words, they were never in a passive state.
The inhabitants, for example, petitioned the state to establish school and dispatch teacher. They organized parents society and educational committee, cooperated in the construction of schoolhouse, equipment, ground etc. Furthermore, they helped their teacher with his life in every aspect, such as house, food, travel and so on. Consequently the rural teachers could not help but depend on the inhabitants in the village where they got positions. And they had to listen to the opinions of the inhabitants and follow their values and customs. If not, they could never carry out the school activities, nor even live in the village. In fact, there are many cases in which the rural teachers were attacked or killed.
At the same time, the inhabitants utilized the rural teachers in order to pursue their own benefits. For instance, the teachers were expected to proceed acquisition of ejido (communal land) for the inhabitants, to resolve a number of conflicts in the village, etc. Their works were not confined to the field of education. The school was not only a space for the education but also constituted a social space where the inhabitants negotiated over power, right, culture etc. among themselves and between the inhabitants and the local or central authorities. And the rural teachers could take a functional role as "mediators" in these negotiations.