Indigenous epistemologies and education: Relationships and tensions in the everyday school

Abstract

This article was the result of understanding the dimensions that shape the fabric of the school experiences of young people in Argentina who recognize themselves in the Tastil indigenous people and attend a rural secondary school. It inquiries into the network of relationships and tensions between cultural capital (indigenous community and family) and school capital that underlies the social unit represented by a school configuration and that makes sense in the broader social and historical fabric.

The focus of the research was from a qualitative design (Vasilachis de Gialdino, 2007). An exploratory case study was chosen. The data collection instruments were semi-structured questionnaires, in-depth interviews and participant observations. The empirical material obtained shows that the ways of speaking, communicating, conceiving and occupying the social space that students bring with them, keep significant distances with the cultural capital that the school imparts and legitimizes. More than a dialogue of epistemologies, there is a tension and confrontation that reveals the inequalities of power between indigenous groups and the school institution. Inequalities that are expressed through processes of minimization and discrimination that devalue student subjectivities