Intercultural Bilingual Education has been public policy in Chile for more than 20 years. One of its key components is the emergence of the Traditional Educator, an indigenous person with the linguistic and cultural competencies necessary for teaching an indigenous language in a school context. Hence, this research is directed towards examining…

The COVID-19 global pandemic presented an unprecedented challenge to the sustainability strategies and initiatives of many nations. In many countries, education strategies and funding were negatively impacted and, consequently, especially vulnerable groups were highly affected, amongst them Indigenous communities around the world. As Indigenous…

Higher-education classroom practices in Chile have historically followed the Eurocentric model in which the student is an 'empty vessel' and the instructor the one who fills it. This has led to the perpetuation of a specific model of knowledge creation and transmission that has historically ignored both non-Western cultures and knowledges but has…

This paper reports the development of a Mapuche education programme in the context of indigenous demands and claims in relation to education, specifically the Bafkehce Mapuche community who live in the Araucanía Region of Chile. The central objective defined was to systematise, jointly with the indigenous community, the components defined as…

The article analyses the Mapuche language and culture teaching practices of a rural school in the Chilean Araucanía region run by Mapuche teachers, aimed at reinforcing the language, culture and identity of children. Based on a comparative study of two school ethnographies, the article shows and discusses the ways children learn to be Mapuche by…

In rural Araucanía secondary schools, prescriptive and formal government programs for interculturalism--designed to overcome differentials between Indigenous and non-Indigenous pupils in educational outcomes--have had limited impact. Drawing on research across four schools, this article examines how the dynamics between state-led top-down…

Chilean youth are currently demanding access to better-quality education for all: greater democracy and curricula that respect the country's indigenous cultural roots form part of their petitions. This article puts forward a twofold pedagogical proposal for English Language Teaching intended to foster intrinsic motivation and democratic…