Transition towards educational practices from an intercultural educational approach in La Araucanía, Chile

Abstract

The hegemony of Western Eurocentric knowledge through schooling has historically made other epistemes invisible in the educational and social environment, omitting indigenous knowledge from the school curriculum. Consequently, school education has the challenge to ensure learning is provided with social and cultural relevance for each of the students. The objective of the study is to analyze the intercultural educational practices implemented in La Araucanía-Chile arising from the experience of 21 classroom teachers belonging to 7 schools. To understand reality in the perspective of actors in the school environment, educational research is developed in coherence with the co-construction and interactive-communicative-contextual approaches through semi-structured interviews, complemented by systematization and content analysis, territorial pedagogical meetings and experiences of intercultural education. The results are organized into two emerging categories: the first, pedagogical practices in an intercultural perspective, where the articulation of school education with indigenous knowledge stands out at a discursive level, which considers the planning of experiences that allow to incorporate the intercultural seal, associated with the investigation and systematization of local knowledge. The second category refers to awareness about intercultural education; it suggests that teachers consider training in indigenous knowledge necessary, and the linking of these in the teaching-learning processes for their strengthening. The commitment of the educational community, the families and community agents is highlighted as necessary. The challenges that emerge refer to the incorporation of content, methods and educational purposes aimed for intercultural education, responding to the context and enhancing the construction of culturally relevant learning.