The historical inclusion of Mapuche children in the educational system: challenges and tensions in policy and practice

ABSTRACT

The study presented in this paper examines the historical experiences of school inclusion of the Mapuche people in the Chilean educational system. It focuses on the tensions between securing high-quality education for indigenous children while simultaneously providing culturally relevant education in ways that their cultural identities and ways of knowing are preserved and sustained over time. A narrative inquiry approach is adopted to document such experiences and to honour the oral tradition in the Mapuche culture. We do so by retrieving the oral memory of two Mapuches in two distinct and traditional communities located in La Araucanía, Chile, the Mapuches’ historical land. This oral memory is accompanied by a documental inquiry that sought to examine the historical experiences of schooling as captured in photographs preserved in Santa Magdalena Capuchin Archive located in Altötting, Germany. We use these stories to examine the current efforts of educational inclusion for Mapuche children in Chile and to discuss their limits and possibilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Mapuche people
• school inclusion
• narrative inquiry
• educational reform
• intercultural education

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by ANID/Fondecyt under the grant #1191016. Support from ANID/PIA Basal Funds for Centers of Excellence FB0003 is gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1 In Argentina a similar government-backed campaign occurred. The Campaña del Desierto had comparable consequences for the Mapuche people in the Argentine side of the Mapuche territory.

2 The letter represents the initial of the participants’ real first names. We include the original names of places as told in the interviews.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Juan Mansilla-Sepúlveda

Juan Mansilla Sepulveda graduated from Pontifical University of Salamanca, Spain. He pursued a doctoral programme in Philosophy and Literature. His research interests relate to the historical establishment of the Chilean school in the Mapuche territory and its role in the colonisation of this indigenous population. Dr Mansilla has conducted different studies examining these issues and has published his research in national and international journals. Dr Mansilla is the current Dean of the Faculty of Education at the Catholic University of Temuco, Chile.

Gabriel Pozo-Menares

Gabriel Pozo Menares is the Chair of the Department of Early Childhood Education at the Catholic University of Temuco. He pursued his doctoral degree in American History and Anthropology at the University of Barcelona, Spain. His research examines the history of the Mapuche people. In particular, Dr Pozo is interested in intercultural education, teacher education and the linguistic revitalisation of mapudungun. Dr Pozo currently conducts a study whose main purpose is to understand the historical process called Pacificación de la Araucanía.

Luz Valoyes-Chávez

Luz Valoyes-Chavez is an Associate Professor at the Catholic University of Temuco. She holds a Ph.D. in Learning, Teaching and Curriculum from the University of Missouri-Columbia, the US. Her research interest focuses on processes of racialisation in culturally diverse mathematics classrooms. She has examined the limits and possibilities of achieving racial justice in mathematics education in Latin America.