Transcending the periphery: Multilingual intercultural policy in Colombia

ABSTRACT:

One of the main actors in the conceptualization and implementation of Intercultural Education (IE) public policies is the teacher. IE, which includes ethnoeducation, refers to education in contexts of cultural diversity and interculturality. This reflection article highlights the role of teacher education and its impact on the implementation of multilingual IE policy in Colombia, especially in Afro-Colombian ethno-educational schools, mostly in the periphery. To this end, the advances, stagnations, setbacks and challenges of IE will be analyzed from Bronfenbrenner’s Ecosystem Theory (1977) and the contextual dimension proposed by Braun et al. (2011). It is concluded that Colombian teachers are key agents whose transperipheral practices have favored the strengthening of cultural identity, autonomy, the global life project and the linguistic diversity of native populations.

KEYWORDS:
multilingual intercultural education; ethnoeducation; interculturality; teacher professional development; Colombian ethnic groups