Intercultural and Inclusive Education in Latin America: Volume 24

This chapter presents an overview of the main structural challenges facing the Latin American region, as well as the characteristics of its education systems, to provide a contextual framework for the theme of this book, intercultural and inclusive education.

In Chile, there is clear progress in inclusion policies; however, during the last decade, there is a decrease in the participation of young people with special educational needs (SEN), especially in higher education. This chapter studies the factors that influence the educational trajectories of students with SEN and their entry into higher education using quantitative and qualitative methods. It shows both how trajectories of SEN students are shaped and the relationship of educational policies in such trajectories.

This chapter examines the current educational provision in Brazil, with a specific focus on inclusive education and how this is provided in the country. Students who experience disadvantage due to disabilities, living in poverty, gender and geographic isolation are often most at risk for not accessing education, or being provided with poor quality education which may not meet their needs. Supports and barriers to inclusive education are examined within Brazil's existing political and social context. The role of technology in supporting inclusion is also examined.

Over the last decade, the discourse of inclusive early childhood education has been actively promoted in Chile. However, the implementation of appropriate models has been slow and challenging. The purpose of this study is to assess users' perceptions of the inclusive service they received in an early childhood education centre. In addition, it seeks to obtain the ex-post perspective of the education professionals who participated in this intervention, with the aim of providing information for similar proposals in the future. This study explores the fundamental characteristics of the implementation of the inclusive-ecological model in a kindergarten located in a vulnerable area of the city of Santiago, analysing the results of an opinion survey of families and the testimony of educational agents. The research findings suggest a positive perception by family members and neighbours with respect to people with disabilities; they also underline the importance of continuous training of educational staff and collaboration in networks, and show that the model implemented had a favourable impact on the early detection of educational support needs.

This chapter presents a compilation of the historical approach towards inclusive education in the Plurinational State of Bolivia. It describes the regulatory framework, the evolution and status of inclusive education in Bolivia. Consideration is given to legal implications and research that highlights inclusion in practice. A brief case study is provided of how a high school manages inclusion. While the substantial focus in Bolivia has been on the inclusion of indigenous peoples to address prior discrimination and exclusion, limited attention has been given to the inclusion of learners with disability and other special educational needs. The discussion focuses on future directions that need to address more equitable approaches for all learners.

A teacher for educational inclusion requires training to cater for difference and competences to identify and remove barriers in order to guarantee the right to education for their students. Thus, this chapter initially addresses the relationship between education, inclusion and teaching in order, in the second section, to show the main guidelines that Colombian regulations propose for social inclusion and teacher training for social inclusion through education. The third section presents three cases that illustrate innovative proposals for teacher training for educational inclusion and ends by analysing the main teaching competences for this purpose.

Currently, schools are not born inclusive, and teachers report feeling that this approach is alien to their practical possibilities, so they constantly ask for training on the subject. However, this training is hardly transferred to the school. This chapter has therefore set out to analyse how training bodies in Costa Rica are doing, and how much of this effort is permeating the educational culture. The methodologies applied were studied, as well as the background of good practices, with the final intention of guiding more effective training to make inclusion a sine qua non condition of being a school.

This chapter analyses, from the perspective of inclusion, the possibilities of participation for families in basic education schools in Mexico. Based on the analysis of articles published between 2012 and 2022, complemented by an analysis of normative instruments, the main patterns related to policies, practices and cultures were explored. The outcomes highlight a lack of recognition and appreciation of the diversity of families, restricted spaces and forms for their participation and cultural patterns that hinder their inclusion. The bases to favour inclusion are recognised and four key axes are proposed for its strengthening.

Teachers’ explanations of scientific concepts to students are essential to science teaching. While there is potential for such explanations to perpetuate societal advantage, we argue that explanation in science education can be an emancipatory practice when considering the needs, aspirations, life experiences and background knowledge of teachers’ diverse groups of students. Considering that explaining science is usually implemented as a hierarchical discourse, the purpose is to inform science education in Latin America towards teaching practices that can promote a dialogical approach to distribute the power of knowledge in the classroom. This chapter discusses research on teacher education conducted in science classrooms, focusing on how explanations in science education can offer opportunities for enhancing educational equity and access to the languages of the sciences.

From a critical and decolonial perspective, a comparative analysis is made of the intercultural and inclusive education policies implemented in Mexico and Brazil during the 20th century and the first two decades of the 21st century. We observe the tendency to generate integrationist, ethnocidal, linguistic and epistemicidal educational policies, programmes and actions, generated from modern-colonial Eurocentric approaches aimed at the political, sociocultural and linguistic homogenisation of the national population. These contrast with the initiatives generated by indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples, organisations and movements which, from counter-hegemonic conceptions, are aimed at promoting autonomy and the valuation of their own ontologies, epistemologies and educations.

The creation of intercultural education in the Quechua and Mapuche contexts, in Peru and Chile respectively, marks a milestone in the institutionalisation of equity-oriented state policies that deserves attention given the serious inequalities that still persist in these societies. In this chapter, we analyse ethnographic studies of intercultural knowledge and practices inside and outside the classroom and interpret them as catalysts for equity in education. The findings of the analysis point to the centrality of Indigenous actors as transformative agents inside and outside the classroom and the urgency of restructuring not only education but also society towards equity.

This chapter was developed with the conceptual, political, structural and pragmatic dimensions promulgated by UNESCO for an inclusive and equitable education, which would be impossible without the lens of interculturality. The research was carried out in seven higher education institutions (three public and four private) located in the Andean region of Ecuador. The sample consisted of 250 pre-service and in-service teachers who responded to an online survey and 28 interviews with eight university teachers and 20 students from higher education institutions. The results show the felt needs of university students who self-identify with Indigenous peoples and nationalities, Afro-Ecuadorian or Montubian populations, which contrast with the statements of higher education teachers. Teacher training to respond to diversity poses a challenge for the academy. The ulterior aim of this work is to invite the different regional actors to contribute to quality education without exceptions, leading to the construction of fairer, more democratic, and equitable societies, maintaining as a goal the equalisation of opportunities so that no one is left behind or left out, an aspiration and commitment that we must assume jointly.

Developed collaboratively by the Caldas Coffee Growers’ Committee, the Government of Caldas, university institutions, government agencies and public and private companies, the Rural Education with New School Model is a pedagogical proposal that has brought formal education from pre-school to higher education to rural inhabitants of the department of Caldas, Colombia. The model aims to be flexible and adaptable to the circumstances of children, adolescents and young people in this region of the Eje Cafetero, stimulating the construction of life projects that facilitate and promote their permanence in rural territories. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the scope and limitations of the Escuela Nueva (EN) Rural Education Model in Caldas by describing the general characteristics of the EN, identifying particularities of its implementation and examining the testimonies of graduates of the University in the field. The primary information that feeds the study comes from interviews with young people in various rural localities in the Department of Caldas. The results of the study analyse the possibilities for educational inclusion that the Universidad en el Campo has opened up for young people, as well as the achievements and challenges faced by this model, which has sought to be replicated in other Colombian departments and even in other countries. This chapter’s findings highlight the importance of examining educational experiences developed at the departmental level and the fact that the Rural Education with New School Model offers continuity from pre-school to university level to rural children, adolescents and young people, following certain pedagogical principles. This is uncommon in urban and rural regions of Latin America.

Working in schools as learning communities (ECA) is an effective way to make visible the articulating axes of critical interculturality and inclusion proposed in the latest Mexican Education Reform of 2022. This chapter presents an experience in a teacher training college in the south of Mexico that has begun to work as ECAs and which, despite its incipient efforts, shows how it is possible to problematise the relations of inclusion/exclusion through the collaborative learning of the students and the active listening of the teacher.

In this chapter, we propose to explore the paradigm of epistemic justice in education as an approach to inclusive and truly intercultural education among indigenous peoples, as a key element to foster epistemological dialogue in all educational spaces and as an indispensable component to dismantle racism among new generations. We explore some examples of indigenous knowledge around nature, governance, equity and education, and advance the need to promote the participation of indigenous peoples in this endeavour.