Tensions between the School and Mapuche Indigenous Families Tensiones entre la Escuela y Familias Indígenas Mapuches

Abstract

Multiple international declarations have proclaimed the right of indigenous peoples to receive a respectful education toward their cultural identity. However, schools struggle to address students' ethnicity, incorporate indigenous perspectives, and properly interact with families. The authors belong to the Mapuche people and have considered it relevant to address the perceived tensions in the educational space during their academic and professional work experience. They adhere to the perspective of cultural psychology, which proposes the mutual construction of the individual and its context. This research is aimed to understand the tensions between the school and indigenous families belonging to the Mapuche people, who live outside the ancestral territory. A qualitative data collection and analysis strategy was followed, focusing on the narratives of 14 Mapuche mothers and fathers with school-age children. The relationship between the school and the Mapuche families is characterized by mistrust and criticism from the families. The school exhibits ambivalence while trying to incorporate Mapuche cultural expressions and reproducing discrimination dynamics at the same time. These tensions are related to the legacy of discrimination left by the school as an institution and episodes of racism experienced by the interviewees. Difficulties in the management of cultural diversity are perpetuated by political and social resistance to provide and expand indigenous rights.