Monoculturalism in pedagogical practices along basic teacher education in La Araucanía, Chile

Abstract

The main topic of this article is related to monocultural pedagogical practices taking place in basic teacher training and the school education system. The problem covered is the curricular decontextualization in such basic teacher education. The aim is to analyze monoculturalism in practices that are deep-rooted in Western, Eurocentric methods and contents, a product of the colonial and post-colonial legacy in Chile. The methodology consisted of reviewing standard-setting and scientific literature on national and international level to better understand and explain the problem of monoculturalism in teacher education. The main results contribute to the current state of the art on historical development of education in indigenous and intercultural contexts, where the development of monocultural pedagogical practices at all levels of the Chilean educational system has become evident. This work provides some guidelines to transform basic teacher training through an intercultural education focus and intercultural education competences in order to overcome monoculturalism and the racism against indigenous people, in education but also in society at large. Conclusions are that 1) monoculturalism persists as commonplace in basic teacher training, which results in the lack of knowledge of the students´ social and cultural by both the teacher educators and by the future teachers; and 2) school education continues to convey prejudices and yielding racist attitudes, perpetuating the overall institutionalized racism in indigenous and intercultural contexts.