Intercultural Education: An Alternative to Monocultural Education in a Mapuche Context

Abstract

Monocultural education is presented as a dominating and reductive approach to the indigenous knowledge. Overcoming this approach requires a position of epistemological pluralism in education, which breaks the asymmetries inherited from the colonial matrix of power. The objective of this article is to discuss the role of intercultural education, as an alternative and decolonial approach to Western monocultural education in the Mapuche context. To achieve this, we carried out an international, Latin American and national literature, review. First, we describe the principles of indigenous Mapuche education as alternative epistemic principles for Western education. Second, we conceptualize monocultural education as the dominant approach to current schooling. Third, as a proposal, we suggest the need for a decolonial turn, moving from a monocultural education to an intercultural education based on three key ideas: the raising of a critical discourse on monocultural education; the promotion of an education based on a liberating philosophy; and the building of an intercultural education system from the South. We conclude that, although monocultural education is still valid and indigenous knowledge keeps in a subordinate condition, there is an urgent need for a decolonial turn in education, which implies the prompt adoption of a dialogue of knowledge between classes, ethnic groups and nationalities, through a Latin American project that transforms the hierarchical relationship of knowledge, in a pluralistic and contextualized, intercultural and inter epistemic vision.