In this article, we analyze the representations of education that Mexican economic elites uphold. Our objective is to know if such representations have changed after the impact of two shocks: on the one hand, the discursive change of the federal government in matters of social policy after the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the presidency of Mexico; on the other hand, the effects of the transition to a virtual learning modality during the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular, we are interested in investigating how elites understand the role of education within a national context marked by high poverty, little social mobility, and deep social inequality. Given that existing literature has understood educational institutions as both an enabler of overall social mobility and a tool for elite reproduction, we analyze elites’ consideration of education and their own role in it as a solution to pressing social problems and as a reproductive factor. We find their narratives to hold in essence but change in tone with the shocks unfolding.
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