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What is educación intercultural bilingüe in Latin America nowadays: results and challenges

Taylor & Francis
Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
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  • Fundación PROEIB Andes

Abstract

This article offers a critical appraisal of educación intercultural bilingüe, an educational model with at least five decades of implementation. When this term was coined, Indigenous populations were mostly monolingual and their settlements mostly rural and distant from the seats of cultural hegemony and power. The situation is now different; Indigenous individuals have also reached the centres of power, reclaiming their indigeneity. With these profound social, cultural and economic changes in mind, the evolution of EIB is examined to determine whether it still responds to the varying needs and expectations of Indigenous individuals, as well as to different sociolinguistic settings, since they may now be either passive or active bilinguals or even, increasingly, monolingual in the hegemonic language. We look at EIB through the lens of language ideology, policy and planning, and also through an educational one. Its main contributions to public policy vis-à-vis cultural and linguistic diversity are outlined and examined through a twofold perspective: a top-down one characterising official EIB, and a bottom-up one resulting from Indigenous agency. We close with an analysis of the challenges and possible new horizons for intercultural bilingual education and other Indigenous political-pedagogical undertakings.
What is educación intercultural bilingüe nowadays: results and challenges
Abstract
Luis Enrique López
The chapter includes a critical assessment of intercultural bilingual education (IBE), an education
model with at least four to five decades of implementation in Latin America. When the term was
coined and IBE began to influence educational and cultural decision-making Indigenous
populations were mostly monolingual in and Amerindian language and their settlements were
mostly rural and distant from the capital cities and the seats of cultural hegemony and power. Now
the situation is radically different, Indigenous peoples have reached the cities and the centres of
power, are either bilingual in different degrees and even monolingual in the language of power,
although they may now claim their indigeneity more than ever. Looking through these profound
social, cultural and economic changes the evolution of IBE will be examined to determine whether
it still responds or not to the different sociolinguistic scenarios that nowadays coexist in Latin
America due to the wider visibility and political influence Indigenous peoples have gained. Indeed,
Indigenous peoples have become an undeniably key political actor in the continent and their
collective and individual rights have achieved political and social recognition.
The analysis above mentioned will then help us look into IBE from a double perspective. On the
one side, we will examine IBE from the lens of language ideology, policy and planning, while, on
the other, we will analyse IBE from an educational viewpoint. In so doing, we shall establish its
main contributions to both language policy and planning as well as to educational policy and
planning in Latin America. This will be done following a two-fold perspective, a top-down one
which characterises official or governmental IBE and a bottom-up one resulting from the initiatives
and projects carried out by Indigenous intellectuals, communities and organisations. A factor that
will cut across this analysis is the rather recent process of ethnogenesis that Indigenous individuals
and populations are undergoing and which now shapes and strengthens their agency. The chapter
closes with an analysis of the challenges IBE faces to meet the contemporary needs of Indigenous
children, youngsters and adults that now claim their indigeneity, whether they are monolingual in
an Amerindian language, active or passive bilinguals or even monolinguals in the dominant
language that claim their right to re-learn and recuperate the patrimonial language of the
communities they feel entitled to be part of.
... This vision of bilingualism in Latin America is also reflected in the approach that texts take to intercultural bilingual education (IBE), which is considered a policybacked approach to teaching minority communities, often found in rural contexts (Esteban Rivera et al., 2013;López, 2021;Oviedo & Wildemeersch, 2008;Unamuno & Nussbaum, 2017). IBE has been a cornerstone in Latin America for almost half a century, especially in the context of minority communities with native languages that are often considered inferior and marginalized. ...
... Regarding IBE, the studies of García and Velasco (2012), López (2021), Montes Serrano and Tineo Quispe (2023), and Valdiviezo (2009) provide information about the implementation of language policies in rural scenarios. These studies report that IBE is the result of Indigenous communities' fight to incorporate their schools in a model that differs from the "privileged" schools. ...
... These studies report that IBE is the result of Indigenous communities' fight to incorporate their schools in a model that differs from the "privileged" schools. López's (2021) study reports that countries like Peru, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Chile have adopted IBE to guide educational processes in Indigenous territories, reservations, and communities. Montes Serrano and Tineo Quispe (2023), Unamuno and Nussbaum (2017), and Valdiviezo (2009) describe the importance of including the community in policymaking processes to raise Indigenous people's voices and improve the implementation of IBE. ...
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This systematic literature review examines the panorama of interculturality in rural contexts of bilingual education in Latin America. It aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the current state of knowledge in Latin America and identify key themes, challenges, and gaps in the field. The review highlights the importance of recognizing and valuing linguistic and cultural diversity, particularly in marginalized rural communities. It also discusses the lack of adequate resources and educational policies as significant challenges to promoting intercultural bilingual education in these contexts. The findings underscore the need for further research and the development of effective strategies to enhance intercultural understanding and bilingual education in Latin American rural areas.
... El nuevo marco curricular de la EIB en Chile ha recogido parte de las críticas planteadas por investigaciones a nivel local y latinoamericano, las cuales señalan su escasa incidencia en espacios de menor vitalidad lingüística o directamente no indígenas (Ayala 2022;López 2021). En esta línea, la etapa actual de la política de EIB en Chile ha buscado incorporar a aquellos pueblos excluidos del SLI, por no contar con suficiente vitalidad lingüística. ...
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Resumen La educación intercultural bilingüe en Chile incorpora, desde el año 2020, la enseñanza de lengua y cultura indígena en escuelas situadas en contextos étnicos con reducida vitalidad lingüística. Esta transformación busca responder a las demandas de ampliación de esta política educativa, abriendo la posibilidad para repensar sus fundamentos y propósitos. En este marco, el presente estudio aborda las implicancias en la enseñanza de lengua kunsa y cultura atacameña en tres escuelas de la Provincia de El Loa, norte de Chile. Desde una aproximación etnográfica, se describe el proceso de enseñanza utilizando observación participante, entrevistas en profundidad y análisis documental. Los resultados indican que los procesos de enseñanza de la lengua kunsa y cultura atacameña están orientados hacia un aprendizaje testimonial y esquemático más que propiamente lingüístico y culturalmente dinámico. Además, paradójicamente, en los escenarios educativos donde predomina un perfil de estudiantes culturalmente heterogéneo, este tipo de enseñanza puede configurarse como una práctica pedagógica de asimilación o invisibilización de la diversidad cultural. Sugerimos la importancia de una enseñanza vinculada a las experiencias cotidianas de los estudiantes, promoviendo un aprendizaje más contextualizado, crítico y en diálogo con la propia y heterogénea pertenencia cultural de los estudiantes. Palabras clave: Educación intercultural bilingüe, pueblos indígenas, atacameños, lengua kunsa. Abstract Since 2020, Chile's intercultural bilingual education policy has required schools in ethnic contexts with low linguistic vitality to teach indigenous languages and cultures. This transformation responded to calls for expanding this educational policy, allowing the rethinking of its foundations and purposes. In this framework, the present study addresses the implications of teaching the Kunsa language and Atacameño culture in three schools in the Province of El Loa, northern Chile. The study uses an ethnographic approach to describe the teaching process through participant observation, in-depth interviews, and documentary analysis. The findings show that teaching Kunsa language and Atacameño culture focuses on testimonial and schematic learning rather than linguistic and culturally dynamic learning. Paradoxically, in culturally diverse educational settings where a heterogeneous student profile predominates, this type of teaching can be configured as a pedagogical practice of assimilation or invisibility of cultural diversity. We suggest that teaching should be linked to the daily experiences of students. Thus, this would promote a more contextualized and critical learning in dialogue with the student's individual and heterogeneous cultural belonging.
... Si bien desde entonces se han dado nuevas normas y sugerido estrategias complementarias, la EBI guatemalteca sigue siendo pensada, por unos y otros, como una educación dirigida únicamente a la población indígena que es predominantemente monolingüe e idioma maya, que habita en las zonas rurales y sobre todo en aldeas alejadas de los centros poblados (López, 2009(López, , 2021. El sistema educativo nacional no logra todavía interculturalizarse y su norte continúa invariable, con la mirada puesta hacia fuera, pese a que los desafíos planteados por los Acuerdos de Paz continúan vigentes y exigen una educación situada y descolonizada. ...
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Introducción Como en el resto de América Latina, la puesta en vigencia y el desarrollo de la educación bilingüe e intercultural (EBI) en Guatemala se sitúan en un escenario marcado por una brecha creciente entre una elaborada, y cada vez más compleja, retórica legal así como también política y académica (Cojtí, 2007, 2021, Crisóstomo, 2007) y una práctica social y pedagógica fuertemente signada por el ethos monocultural y monolingüe, que todavía impregna el quehacer de la sociedad guatemalteca, en general (López, 2014, 2009). Por lo demás, la distancia es cada vez mayor entre la dirigencia y la intelectualidad indígenas que reivindican y velan por una educación diferenciada y cultural y lingüísticamente pertinente para las y los estudiantes indígenas, sus familias y comunidades. En rigor, las históricas demandas al respecto que se consagraron en el
... Por eso el concepto de interculturalidad crítica es utilizado para distinguir la interculturalidad comprometida con el cambio con otros significados que pueden incluso situarse en las antípodas. En este sentido, parte de la literatura producida en los últimos años sobre el tema en América Latina se situaría bajo el paradigma de la interculturalidad crítica, con profusos análisis sobre el «mal uso» de lo intercultural, p. ej., en los propios programas de EIB, que en demasiadas ocasiones han sido utilizados como elementos de uniformización cultural bajo el prisma del Estado (Castro-Ricalde, 2013;Dietz, 2017;López, 2021). ...
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Este artículo es una revisión de la literatura académica de la última década sobre la inclusión de lo intercultural en la agenda política latinoamericana. Dicha revisión se elabora de forma descriptiva y utilizando estrategias cuantitativas de indagación, situando sus diferentes enfoques y ámbitos, entre los que destacan el análisis de políticas públicas de educación intercultural. Los resultados permiten disponer de una panorámica de la evolución de estas políticas, de sus retos y contradicciones actuales, incluidos en la discusión.
... Hoy en día, el término "interculturalidad" se constituye como una palabra paraguas que engloba a diferentes nociones conceptuales y prácticas sociales López, 2021aLópez, , 2021b. La noción de interculturalidad surgió asociada a la educación bilingüe en contextos de diversidad lingüística. ...
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... Esta perspectiva, rooted in the aconceitualização pluralista of "american, " challenges the macronarrativas eurocéntricas and the colonial impulses que historicamente marginalizaram Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and other comunidades lingüísticas (López, 2021). These insights call on us to confrontar los legados coloniales that underlie nuestras prácticas educativas and advocate for una conceptualización mais inclusiva y completa de la identidad americana. ...
... This, unfortunately, was much more successful throughout the twentieth century when indigenismo schools, literacy campaigns and both governmental and non-governmental, often church-run educational initiatives, step by step succeeded in actively minoritizing Indigenous languages and cultures, in expelling them from school instruction. After abandoning their mother tongues, formerly Indigenous persons were now counted in census data as monolingual Spanish or Portuguese speakers, assimilated to their respective national culture and identity (López 2020). ...
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The Andes stretch out along the entire South American continent. The Andean space, as traditionally referred to in social studies, especially in relation to languages and cultures present there before the conquerors arrived, is restricted to the Incan Empire’s sphere of influence (Cerrón-Palomino (Revista Andina 3:509–572, 1985)). Therefore, we herein refer to the region that spreads out from the south of Colombia to the north of Argentina and Chile and includes the coastal area, mountain range fringes, and the regions of high plateaus. Our bibliographical review of literacy is limited to Andean languages that have managed to survive Spanish language rule, which seeks to maintain certain functional spaces in national societies. A commonly accepted notion is that indigenous languages had some sort of graphic or notational, albeit not alphabetical, system. They are then called illiterate; thus typified, this deficit could be hindering the acknowledgment of different writings, like textile writing or “other forms of textual expression and graphic representation” (López, L. E. (2001). Literacy and intercultural bilingual education in the Andes. In D. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The making of literate societies (pp. 201–224). Oxford: Blackwell.). Their speakers increasingly hoist Andean languages as symbols of ethnic and political vindication (Sichra, I. (2005). Trascendiendo o fortaleciendo el valor emblemático del quechua: identidad de la lengua en la ciudad de Cochabamba. In S. Coronel-Molina & L. Grabner-Coronel (Eds.), Lenguas e identidades en los Andes: perspectivas ideológicas y culturales (pp. 211–250). Quito: Abya Yala.) in an attempt to secure prestigious and public spheres for these languages (King, K. (1997). Indigenous politics and native language literacies: Recent shifts in bilingual education policy and practice in Ecuador. In N. Hornberger (Ed.), Indigenous literacies in the Americas. Language planning from the bottom up (pp. 267–283). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.; López, L. E. (2001). Literacy and intercultural bilingual education in the Andes. In D. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), The making of literate societies (pp. 201–224). Oxford: Blackwell.). From this perspective, literacy acquires or could acquire a driving role in the social participation of sectors traditionally marginalized by these countries’ societies, i.e., it could be an empowerment mechanism for the individual, the community, and the group (Hornberger, N. (1997). Quechua literacy and empowerment in Peru. In N. Hornberger (Ed.), Indigenous literacies in the Americas. Language planning from the bottom up (pp. 3–16). Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.). Consequently, this chapter focuses on the literacy of languages characterized by their orality and seeks to contribute this volume on Language and Education, with a focus on Spanish literacy. As for the notion of literacy, we adhere to the ideological model (Street, B. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) in which literacy comprises concrete social practices with certain purposes that depend on previous political and ideological factors. Learned events, that is, activities in which literacy plays a social role, can help us observe said practices (Barton, D., & Hamilton, M. (1998). Local literacies. Reading and writing in one community. London: Routledge.).
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