Governing Climate Mobility: A Case Study of Urban Education Policies in Mexico City

Mexico’s migration landscape is shaped by internal displacement, return migration, and transit migration, increasingly influenced by the social and environmental pressures of climate change. Mexico City, as both the capital and most populous urban center, plays a central role in receiving and shaping the experiences of mobile and displaced populations.This paper uses climate mobility as an entry point to examine the intersection of migration, education policy, and integration in Mexico City.Drawing on the mobilities paradigm, the study challenges fixed categories of migration and settlement, emphasizing how movement is embedded in everyday life and reshapes both people and places. Rather than isolating climate-induced displacement, it situates climate change within the broader system of social, economic, and political processes that influence why and how people move.Through analysis of national legal frameworks and urban education policies, the research reveals how bureaucratic barriers, documentation requirements, and fragmented implementation undermine the inclusive goals of these policies. It also interrogates dominant integration models, showing how access to education reflects and reproduces hierarchies of belonging and citizenship.By framing education as both a right and a site of social inclusion, this research highlights the gap between policy and practice and calls for more responsive urban systems that recognize and adapt to the complexities of climate mobility and migration in contemporary Mexico.