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Intercultural Bilingual Education in Latin America: Political Debates and Criticisms by Countries

In this section of the article, four specific case studies will be described and the political debates turning around these cases will be presented. The four case studies will constitute four countries: Nicaragua, Peru, Ecuador, and Chile. For each of these countries only source by one specific author will be used. Although the implementation of one author only may seem biased, it is important to remember that the purpose of this article is to simply provide a general introduction to Intercultural Bilingual Education as an educational model and political movement with a special emphasis in Latin America.

Intercultural Bilingual Education and Political Debates in Nicaragua

One of the main debates around Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) is that multilingual, inter-ethnic societies challenge the western ideology stating that societies are “internally homogeneous” entities that have sharp divisions between each other based on linguistic and cultural markers. Since the IBE model in Nicaragua was largely designed on this ideology, its design and implementation by the Nicaraguan state (and NGOs) does not accommodate communities that are “mother tongue bi-multilingual”, for it constraints people living in inter-ethnic multilingual societies to choose a limited set of cultural and linguistic-identity markers.

Criticisms of IBE implemented in the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

Freeland (2003) explains that the IBE program in Nicaragua constitutes a remarkable improvement in contrast to the cruel assimilationist Spanish-monolingual schooling model applied to indigenous populations. It also has enhanced the gain of prestige of Coastal minority languages (Miskitu, Sumu/Mayangna, English Creole: Garifuna, Rama) through educational programs and production of educational material and research in these languages.

Nonetheless, Freeland also points to significant flaws in the IBE program in Nicaragua. The first flaw is that the program applies a “one-size-fits-all” policy, which ignores social dynamics based on the co-existence of different ethnic groups in a single community and their use of two or more languages as mother tongues.Furthermore, it produces various inequalities regarding the fulfillment of the language rights of different groups: Some of them are able to achieve their rights through the program but many others do not. In addition, IBE program in Nicaragua is largely based on an early-transitional model designed for a facilitated transition into a monolingual Spanish environment and less focused in the long-term maintenance of individuals’ mother languages.

Conclusion on IBE in the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua

Freeland concludes in her ethnography that the IBE programs implemented in the various communities of the Nicaraguan Caribbean coast are effective as long as the people whom they serve have agency over these and can achieve whatever linguistic and cultural goals they desire (2003, 254). The moment the IBE, whether directed by the state or an NGO, is imposed on a community by disregarding their goals, it becomes objectified. In this sense, the members of the communities are rather seen as objects that serve as a means to a fixed, constraining end and not as individuals with collective and own aspirations hoping to get the best out of IBE programs.

Intercultural Bilingual Education and Political Debates in the Amazonian Low Basin of Peru

Lucy Trapnell (2003), co-designer of the IBE program in the Peruvian Amazonian Low Basin in conjunction with AIDESEP (Inter-ethnic Association for the Development of the Peruvian Rainforest or Asociación Interétnica de Desarrollo de la Selva Peruana in Spanish) and linguistic anthropologist, explains that this program promotes the inclusion of indigenous knowledge in schools, languages and cosmovisions, at the same time it incorporates indigenous realities of perceiving the world. Therefore, the AIDESEP IBE program opts to focus on the aspect of self-determination of indigenous peoples about their identity.  On this basis, self-determination is based on “cultural heritage”, and it allows people to have agency over the shaping of their communities instead of clinging to a romanticized past. By the same token,Trapnell argues that the AIDESEP IBE program avoids to fall in the “Myth of the Noble Savage” fallacy, which portrays indigenous cultures as pristine, static, and isolated, by treating “cultural heritage” as a socio-historic aspect and by providing a greater importance to society over culture.

Criticisms in AIDESEP IBE implementation in the Peruvian Amazonian Low Basin

Trapnell argues that, unlike the Peruvian national curriculum, AIDESEP recognizes the importance of addressing the pervasive assimilationist agenda of national education towards indigenous peoples. By training community teachers to be culturally-sensitive and have more effective pedagogical methods, AIDESEP empowers the incorporation of indigenous knowledges in communities’ schools. Furthermore, one of the most relevant aspects of the by AIDESEP project is that it serves not only as an IBE program but also as a political platform through which indigenous peoples of Peru voice their claims of rights on their lands, culture, and sovereignty.

 Nonetheless, negative outcomes are also reported in Trapnell’s study based on the opinions of the students and faculty participating in the program. Students report having spent an excessive part of their training (70%) in the theoretical reconstructing of past ideal societies but reported that did not have the sufficient ethnographic skills to understand the present reality of their own communities. By the same token, there is a disproportionate focus on the socio-historic past of indigenous communities, something against which students in the program complained. Ironically, their complaints were dismissed as “self-rejection” of students’ own past.

Another present criticism that Trapnell emphasizes about traditional IBE programs in Latin America may focus excessively on cultural aspects of a society based on tradition. This approach runs the risk, very often actually, of objectifying and commodifying culture and language revitalization efforts. Furthermore, it ultimately leads to a static, romanticized view of indigenous societies that strongly contrasts the realities indigenous peoples currently live. At the end of the AIDESEP IBE program, another negative outcome was an ethnocentrism towards other indigenous peoples by several students based on the preservation and performance of specific cultural traits—on the basis of these cultural traits, they created categories of “real indigenous peoples” as opposition to more “urbanized” peoples.

Intercultural Bilingual Education in Ecuador: The Political Arena and Organizations

Indigenous organizations like CONAIE (Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador or Confederación de Naciones Indígenas del Ecuador in Spanish) and indigenous political figures have greatly pressed for the recognition and enforcement of indigenous language rights in Ecuador by framing these rights’ legitimacy through the category of “collective” or group rights. For instance, the right of indigenous peoples to speak their languages in public and official acts and their use of public services in their languages have been promoted. CONAIE created an “administrative structure” that served as an extension whose responsibility involved the production of teaching material in Indigenous languages of Ecuador (as well as their standardization), bilingual-teacher training, and implementation of IBE programs throughout the country. This structure is the DINEIIB (National Directorate of Bilingual Indigenous Intercultural Education or Dirección Nacional de Educación Indígena Intercultural Bilingüe in Spanish).

Standardization of Kichwa in Ecuador: sociolinguistic consequences

The production of a standardized version of Kichwa (Unified Kichwa or Kichwa unificado in Spanish) has been an essential component and one of the most important achievements of the IBE program directed by DINEIIB in Ecuador.Kichwa is the indigenous language with the largest amount of speakers in Ecuador and has several regional dialects in the Andean highlands and the Amazonian Lowlands of the country. The phonological features of many dialects were simplified and unified under the standardized version of the language, which contained several new neologisms that replaced loanwords from Spanish. Despite the implementation of Unified Kichwa by indigenous intellectuals and children at schools, there are ethnolinguistic differences between speakers of the standard dialect and those who speak more traditional dialects of Kichwa, especially elders in the community and people from rural areas. These linguistic differences in both spoken Kichwa versions have provoked internal divisions among community members of different generations and social classes. These divisions have rapidly lead to conflict and sociolinguistic intolerance between groups of people within the Kichwa-speaking communities.

Criticisms in the implementation of IBE by the state in Ecuador

Despite the significant advances on indigenous education that have been made in Ecuador since the twentieth century, Haboud and King point to three essential flaws that have not allowed for IBE in Ecuador to fulfill its realization. The first hindrance of IBE in Ecuador is the lack of trained and qualified educators for indigenous languages. There are simply not enough qualified teachers in the country to impart an effective education in the academic curriculum. The second criticism stems from an unclear “definition” of what IBE entails as a bilingual model regarding the degree at which indigenous languages and Spanish are to be taught in schools. In that sense, there is an inconsistent use of “intercultural” as an ideology that wishes to be inclusive for all ethnicities in the country but that, in reality, is largely limited to indigenous peoples only. Non-indigenous people barely, if ever, learn indigenous languages or enroll in IBE schools and thus cannot appreciate the components of the IBE program. Finally, there is a heavy cut spending in social welfare sectors, including education and health. This social welfare cuts are very frequent and are more intense in Latin American countries like Ecuador.

Intercultural Bilingual Education in Chile: Incorporation of Mapuche traditional Teachers

Ortiz (2009) investigated the role that ancestral teachers of Mapuche indigenous knowledge known as Kimches played in the functioning of IBE schools in the rural community of Piedra Alta, located in the Area de Desarrollo Indigena (Area of Indigenous Development in Spanish or ADI) in Araucania, Southern Chile. He argues that the incorporation of Kimches in Intercultural Bilingual schools like Piedra Alta constitute a decolonizing methodology and “an act of epistemological resistance” (Ortiz 2009, 95). In that sense, the incorporation of Kimches is a methodology to revitalize and legitimize Mapuche culture and Mapudungun (Mapuche’s language) in response to the pervasive “Eurocentric modern” pedagogy implemented by the Chilean state in order to create a national identity based on assimilation of indigenous peoples.

Challenges faced IBE schools' incorporation of Kimches in rural Mapuche communities

Ortiz reports that in rural communities like Piedra Alta, IBE schools have incorporated traditional Mapuche teachers known as Kimches, who impart indigenous knowledge in the classrooms to their students through orality and written texts.Kimches also act as intermediaries between Mapuche parents and non-indigenous or non-Mapuche faculty and staff at the schools and are usually respected and active members in their communities. Unfortunately, Kimches have also been subject of criticism by some parents of the Mapuche community, who sees them as unfit to teach in formal schools in comparison to mainstream teachers. The teaching content of Kimches has also been criticized by some Mapuche parents opposing IBE by saying that this type of indigenous knowledge is of no use in mainstream Chilean society and that they rather prefer their children learning such knowledge at home. Kimche teachers also face challenges when they try to impart indigenous knowledge in Mapudungun to their students because many of their Mapuche students simply do not understand the language well enough to be engaged in class.Therefore, the teachers are forced to code-switch between Spanish and Mapudungun but there was a clear dominance of Spanish both in the classroom and the community and family meetings where Ortiz’s ethnography took place.

According to Ortiz, there is “a generational breakdown in the transmission of indigenous culture and language” among many younger generations in rural regions, which is a main cause of Mapuche youngsters not learning or knowing Mapudungun and other cultural aspects. On the other hand, there has been a pervasive influence of mainstream Chilean and global culture in the form of technology, thus inviting Mapuche youth to move towards a more assimilated Chilean but also global identity.

Criticisms in the implementation of IBE by the state in Chile

Despite the prevalence of IBE schools in rural areas of Chile, Ortiz reported no IBE programs in Santiago de Chile, home city of approximately fifty percent of the total Mapuche population. In the rural areas, the implementation of IBE programs is not consistent and heavily depends on the intervention of the Chilean State and the Catholic Church, which manage the resource allocation for these schools. However, there is a considerable inequality of resource allocation for IBE indigenous schools. The latter dependence of IBE schools on the Chilean State and Church is further exemplified on the limited  intercultural bilingual education these entities provide to the indigenous populations it serves at the grade level. Indigenous schools are limited to the elementary school level, which means these schools are only able to offer education until the eighth grade. As a consequence, indigenous students are forced to look for schooling outside their communities mostly in urban centers, where schools are Hispanicized and where mainstream Chilean education is imparted.

In the rural areas, the positive benefits that IBE may have for the Mapuche people are not acknowledged among various factions of the communities. One of the most present criticisms presented by Ortiz is that many Mapuche parents do not consider IBE to be an adequate program for their children in the sense that it does not equip students with the sufficient, necessary tools for them to obtain social upward mobility in mainstream Chilean society.  Furthermore, this social upward mobility is mainly conceived as getting better-paying jobs and superior education in universities.

Current political debates on the relevance and role of IBE in Chile for the Mapuche

Ortiz argues that, currently, Mapuche IBE is seen as a complement or part of a series of socio-political rights that Mapuche leaders claim regarding land rights and sovereignty. It is not seen as an individual enterprise in which considerable resources and attention should be invested in. By the same token, he also argues that there is a dissonance of agendas regarding IBE for indigenous peoples in Chile and other countries and the national Latin American states; a dissonance he calls “the assimilationist/pluralist paradox” (Ortiz 2009, 99). This paradox is a political debate in which indigenous leaders and activists expect to use IBE as a political platform in which they are able to launch their claims for land and sovereignty. Contrary to the “indigenist” agenda, Latin American states, such as the Chilean, aim to use IBE as a tool of assimilation for indigenous people into a single national identity. Ortiz concludes that IBE programs do not have the unanimous support of Mapuche communities. He argues that there needs to be a greater attention and autonomy given to IBE programs in Mapuche communities by Mapuche leaders.That is, IBE should stand on its own rather than being a complement of wider, complex political debates such as land rights and political sovereignty.

Cross-comparison between Chile and other Latin American countries regarding IBE implementation

It is important to take into account that, unlike in countries like Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru, countries whose indigenous population is substantially large, Chile’s indigenous population only constitutes more than four percent of the total population in Chile.The fact that indigenous population in Chile is so small implies that IBE has not been implemented in the same ways as in other Latin American countries, where the large indigenous populations have demanded for IBE as a political platform for their rights. In addition, the Mapuche people, the largest indigenous nation in Chile, has heavily migrated to urban centers and has been reported that only twenty percent of Mapuche still live in rural areas. The remaining eighty percent have migrated to five main urban centers, being Santiago the home of most of the Mapuche urban population.