Prelims

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Intercultural and Inclusive Education in Latin America

Series Title Page

International Perspectives on Inclusive Education

Series Editor: Chris Forlin

Recent Volumes

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International Perspectives on Inclusive Education Volume 24

Intercultural and Inclusive Education in Latin America: Trajectories, Perspectives and Challenges

Edited by

Silvia Romero-Contreras

Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, México

Ismael García-Cedillo

Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, México

And

Luz María Moreno-Medrano

Universidad Iberoamericana, México

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2024

Editorial matter and selection © 2024 Silvia Romero-Contreras, Ismael García-Cedillo and Luz María Moreno-Medrano.

Individual chapters © 2024 the authors.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. Any opinions expressed in the chapters are those of the authors. Whilst Emerald makes every effort to ensure the quality and accuracy of its content, Emerald makes no representation implied or otherwise, as to the chapters' suitability and application and disclaims any warranties, express or implied, to their use.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83753-141-7 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-140-0 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-142-4 (Epub)

ISSN: 1479-3636 (Series)

Corrigendum: It has come to the attention of the publisher that the chapter del Valle, S.S. (2024), “The Implications of Epistemic Justice for Intercultural and Inclusive Education”, Romero-Contreras, S., Garcìa-Cedillo, I. and Moreno-Medrano, L.M. (Ed.) Intercultural and Inclusive Education in Latin America (International Perspectives on Inclusive Education, Vol. 24), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 227–240. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-363620240000024015, incorrectly listed the author Sylvia Schmelkes del Valle as del Valle, S.S.; the correct author information is as follows: Schmelkes, S. This has been amended in both the published version and metadata. The author sincerely apologizes for this mistake.

About the Editors

Silvia Romero-Contreras, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Mexico, is a Research Professor at the Faculty of Psychology at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, México (UASLP). She holds Doctorate in Education from Harvard University and is National Researcher Level II in Humanities and Social Sciences in Mexico. She is the Founder of the Degree in Psychopedagogy at the UASLP and Coordinator of the Catherine E. Snow LabLit Literacy Lab at the Faculty of Psychology-UASLP. She was an advisor to the National Project for Educational Integration in Mexico and academic coordinator of the Postgraduate Programme for Teacher Training in Inclusive Education in Paraguay. She has adapted and developed culturally appropriate intervention models of oral language, reading and writing for typical and atypical students. Her research interests focus on language assessment and intervention, inclusive education policy and practice, teacher preparation and sustainable community education.

Ismael García-Cedillo, Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Mexico, is a Research Professor at the Faculty of Psychology at the Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, México (UASLP). He gained his Bachelor, Master and Doctorate in Psychology from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM); is National Researcher Level II in Humanities and Social Sciences in Mexico. He directed the National Project of Educational Integration in Mexico and the Postgraduate Programme in Teacher Training in Inclusive Education in Paraguay. His research interests focus on national and comparative studies on special and inclusive education policies and teacher preparation. He is the first author of three national courses and a diploma course on inclusive education for Mexican teachers. His publications include the book chapters Understanding the Mexican paradox on inclusive education: Continuities and discontinuities between public policy and educational practices. Routledge and Where Does Mexico Stand Regarding the Agenda 2030 Goals for Inclusive Education? Emerald.

Luz María Moreno-Medrano, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City, holds Doctorate in Education from the Cambridge University, Director of the Research Institute for the Development of Education at the Universidad Iberoamericana (INIDE), Mexico City. She teaches in the PhD in Critical Gender Studies, the Inter-institutional PhD in Education and the MA in Research for the Development of Education. Her research interests focus on intercultural education from the anti-racist and feminist agenda and the search for educational alternatives from the movements for the rights of indigenous peoples in urban contexts. She has experience in teacher professional development from collaborative perspectives and learning communities. Her recent research includes the articles The Otomí autonomous educational project: supporting children's literacy and agency. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, and Avances y retos para desarrollar investigaciones comprometidas con la justicia educativa, Revista Latinoamericana de Estudios Educativos.

About the Contributors

Rukmini Becerra Lubies, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, has extensive experience in intercultural and childhood issues in educational centres. She has developed the Fondecyt de Iniciación 11160746 ″Construir, aprender y compartir un lugar: el desafío de la educación intercultural bilingüe para jardines infantiles y comunidades mapuche en la Región de la Araucanía" (Building, learning and sharing a place: the challenge of intercultural bilingual education for Mapuche kindergartens and communities in the Araucanía Region). She has directed the Explora project ‘Huerteando cultivo mi cultura’. She is currently directing the Fondecyt Regular ‘Repairing relationships’. In these projects, she has mainly used qualitative and ethnographic methodologies in educational centres to understand and analyse the experiences, practices and perceptions of pedagogical teams. In her work, she has collected the voices, opinions and experiences of school actors. This work has created instances of dialogue between schools, families and community actors. Recently, she has specialised in research methodologies for implementation with diverse children, especially children under 10 years of age from minority groups, including Indigenous peoples, migrants, foreigners and gender-differentiated groups.

Valeria M. Cabello, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, is an Associate Professor, Faculty of Education at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC Chile). Her experience combines teaching and research in learning and development with focus in science in the lifespan. She has worked in public and private organisations aimed at improving teaching skills. As her background is in educational psychology, her interests focus on peer learning, discursive practices for teaching in diverse settings and assessment for learning, which can promote high order thinking and social skills. She was Vice-president of the Chilean Society for Science Education (SCHEC) and served as a head of the PhD in Education program at UC Chile.

Gloria Calvo, National Pedagogical University, Bogotá, Colombia, is a Honorary Professor at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional in Bogotá, Colombia (1983–2006). Her basic training is in Philosophy and Psychology. She has more than 30 years of experience in educational research on topics such as teacher training, equity and educational policies, educational reform, systematisation of pedagogical experiences, citizenship education and the use of information. She is a consultant for international organisations such as UNESCO, IDB, EUROSOCIAL, OEI and PREAL. She has several publications – articles, book chapters and books – in her fields of research. Her most recent article, published in the June 2023 issue of Aula Pyahu, is based on the coordination of the IIEP/UNESCO team to advise the National University of Asunción on a project supported by the European Union for the transformation of teacher education in Paraguay in the year 2022.

Dianne Chambers, Hiroshima University, Japan, has been working in inclusive education for 25 years and has published broadly in this area. She has a special passion for assistive technology, particularly after seeing the changes it made to so many children in their ability to access the classroom. For 18 years Dianne was the coordinator of Special and Inclusive Education at the University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle. She is now starting a new role as Professor in the Institute for Diversity and Inclusion at Hiroshima University in Japan, where she will continue to teach, research and publish in the field. Previous publications can be found in the areas of inclusion, assistive technology, service learning, initial teacher training and transition. She has worked as a consultant with UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning (COL).

Mónica Delgado-Quilismal, Independent consultant – Ecuador, has a degree in Psychology with a major in Education, a degree in Primary Education and is currently studying for a master's degree in Educational Administration. She is the author of school textbooks. In 18 years of professional experience in educational institutions, both urban and rural, she has worked as a teacher, academic coordinator and director of primary education centres. As an independent consultant, she develops social projects and interventions in children and adolescents' mental health. She does voluntary work and gives free advice in charitable and social aid institutions.

Rocío Deliyore Vega, Universidad de Costa Rica-Instituto de Investigación en Educación (INIE)-Observatorio Nacional de Educación Inclusiva (ONEI), Costa Rica, is a Research Professor at the Faculty of Education and at the Institute for Research in Education at the University of Costa Rica, and also a member of the National Observatory of Inclusive Education (ONEI), of the Ibero-American Network of Intercultural and Interdisciplinary Studies and of the Research Team on Equity, Diversity and Inclusive Education at the Autonomous University of Madrid. She has worked as Coordinator of the Special Education Major at the University of Costa Rica. She holds a PhD in Education from the Universidad Nacional en Educación a Distancia of Spain, a master's degree in Psychopedagogy from the Universidad Estatal a Distancia of Costa Rica, and also in Pedagogy with emphasis in Early Childhood Care from the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica, with a Post doctorate in Education from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. She is the author of the book ‘ Alternative and Augmentative Communication. Actions and reflections to break the silence in the classroom’ (2018), and several articles on this topic.

Chris Forlin, The University of Notre Dame Australia, is a Professorial Research Fellow. She has extensive consultancy, research and publications over the past 40+ years with a strong focus on equity and diversity; inclusive education; change paradigms in education; systemic support for children and youth with disabilities; education policy and practice; along with curricula and pedagogy for teacher education. She has led innovative research in working with systems, governments and schools to establish sustainable inclusive education. Professor Forlin is the Series Editor of the International Perspectives on Inclusive Education which has published over 20 volumes. She has also published more than 120 articles, papers and books about inclusive education. She has been the principal/co-investigator of numerous research projects and Government and NGO tenders for 20+ years, and a consultant on government and Australian funded projects providing systematic reviews, data collection, analysis, report writing and recommendations about inclusive education.

Gisselle Gallego, The University of Notre Dame Australia, is a Senior Research Fellow and health professional educator at the School of Medicine Sydney at the University of Notre Dame Australia. Her research and teaching focus on the experiences of marginalised populations. This includes the experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) people and those living with disability as well as the intersection of these. She also utilises innovative mixed-methods approaches and interdisciplinary perspectives to support multidimensional understandings of the lived experience, health outcomes and ways to improve well-being. Dr Gallego's expertise in the area of marginalisation and health is also recognised by the publication of her research in journals and national policy documents. Dr Gallego's achievements include building productive research collaborations with international, national and local community partners, demonstrated by her record of grant funding, publications and presentations. She has authored over 200 research papers, reports and conference papers.

David Geelan, The University of Notre Dame Australia, is the National Head of the School of Education at the University of Notre Dame Australia. His research interests span science education, educational research methods and educational technology, with a particular focus on the ways in which science teachers explain concepts to students. David has been a teacher educator in Papua New Guinea and Canada and led professional development for teachers in South Africa and Philippines. He is past-President of the Australian Science Education Research Association and has active research collaborations with colleagues in Germany and Chile. David's published books (some co-authored with colleagues) include ‘Simplicity and Complexity in Science Education’, ‘Theorising Personalised Education’, ‘Connected Science: Strategies for Integrative Learning in Science’ and ‘Weaving Narrative Nets to Capture Classrooms: Multimethod Qualitative Approaches for Research in Education’.

Alexandre Ferraz Herbetta, Universidade Federal de Goiás (UFG) (Brazil), is an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Goiás (UFG). He is an anthropologist at the Takinahaky Nucleus of Indigenous Higher Education (NTFSI) and at the Postgraduate Programme in Social Anthropology (PPGAS). He is a researcher at the Centre for Decolonial Practices and Knowledge/NTFSI and at IMPEJ – Nucleus of Indigenous Ethnology/PPGAS/UFG. He is the Vice-coordinator of the Takinahaky Nucleus, Coordinator of the Programme of Supervised Teaching Studies of the Intercultural Indigenous Education Course (NTFSI/UFG) and member of the Latin American Society of Intercultural Studies. He has experience and publications in the area of Critical Interculturality, Anthropology, Politics and Education, with emphasis on Decoloniality, Participatory Methodologies and Indigenous Ethnology, as highlighted in the project Alfabecantar: cantando el Cerrado Vivo (www.alfabecantar.com.br).

Diego Juárez Bolaños, Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City, Mexico, is a Full-time Academic at the Research Institute for the Development of Education (INIDE). He has doctoral studies in Social Sciences in the area of Rural Studies at El Colegio de Michoacán. He is a member of the National System of Researchers (SNI) and responsible for the Thematic Research Network on Rural Education. His research interests are rural and multigrade education.

Luis Adolfo Machicado Pizarro is the Principal of the Unidad Educativa Sagrada Familia school of the Mecapaca District in Bolivia. He has been teaching for over 26 years and the Principal at the school for the last 12 years. Prior to this he was a teacher for 14 years. He is Aymara and was born in the Manco Kapac Province, Copacabana community on the shores of Lake Titicaca. He migrated to La Paz when he was five-years old. He trained as a mathematics and computer teacher at the Simón Bolívar teacher training school. He has a degree in education administration and a master's degree in teacher training policies.

Verónica Gabriela Maldonado-Garcés, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador – Ecuador, is an Educational Psychologist and holds a master's degree in Early Childhood Education and Special Education. She is currently doctoral candidate in Psychology. She has extensive experience in educational institutions at all levels. She is a Lecturer and researcher at the Faculty of Psychology of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador. Her line of research and publications is related to the areas of education, educational psychology, disability and inclusion of people in vulnerable situations. She leads the research group Psychology, inclusion and coexistence (PSICO).

Lady Meléndez Rodríguez, University of Costa Rica-Instituto de Investigación en Educación (INIE)-Observatorio Nacional de Educación Inclusiva (ONEI), Costa Rica, is the member of the National Accreditation Council of SINAES, of the National Observatory of Inclusive Education (ONEI), Professor at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and at the State Distance University of Costa Rica (UNED). She is a Research professor of Doctorate in Education at the UCR, tutor of the Doctoral Program in Education at the Don Bosco University in El Salvador. She has worked as National Advisor on Special Education for the Ministry of Public Education, as a coordinator of the Special Education Programme at UNED, as a researcher for the State of Education Programme in Costa Rica and also as a University Lecturer for more than 30 years. She is a national and international consultant and speaker. She is the author of ‘La inclusión escolar del alumno con discapacidad intelectual’ (2000), ‘Inclusión educativa: una perspectiva de la Didáctica de las Ciencias Naturales’ (2013), ‘Fundamentals and evolution of Special Education in Costa Rica’ (2016), Inclusive Education in Latin America’ (2016) and ‘Education and Inclusion in Pandemic’ (2021).

Rodrigo Hübner Mendes, Instituto Rodrigo Mendes, Brazil is the Founder and the CEO of the Rodrigo Mendes Institute, a non-profit organisation (NGO) whose mission is to guarantee that every child with disability has access to quality education. The institute develops research and teacher training programs in several countries aiming to transform the public education systems into environments that respect and value human diversity. Hübner Mendes began his career in 1998 as a business consultant at Accenture. In 2004, he decided to dedicate his efforts for the social sector, assuming the management of the Rodrigo Mendes Institute. He holds a bachelor's degree in Business Administration and a master's degree in Human Diversity Management from the Getulio Vargas Foundation. Hübner Mendes is a Young Global Leader (World Economic Forum) and a fellow of Ashoka. He has received numerous awards and serves on the board of several Brazilian organisations.

Dayna Andrea Moya Sepulveda, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, has a background in early childhood education and a PhD in Neuroscience and Education. This interdisciplinary training has allowed her to move between different perspectives and methodologies of analysis, from educational applications with evaluation consultancies to foundations in methodological proposals. She uses her experience to teach courses on the use of media and data collection at a distance. She has experience in intervention analysis, considering inclusion from the development of research with autistic population and its neuromarkers. She has international partnerships that have allowed her to analyse different educational realities in Latin America, such as Colombia and the Dominican Republic, and in the United States, especially in early childhood. She has published in the SCOPUS journal and in books on interculturality and inclusion. She is currently involved in projects in the intercultural area in early childhood, educators training and neuroscience and education.

Yarela Muñoz López, Universidad Finis Terrae, Chile, is a Differential Educator with a Bachelor's Degree in Education from the Metropolitan University of Education Sciences (UMCE), Master in Neurosciences applied to Education at the Universidad Finis Terrae (UFT) and Diploma in Early Intervention Strategies at the Universidad del Desarrollo (UDD). She has more than 10 years of classroom experience in special schools, schools with integration projects, nursery schools and kindergartens, both public and private, as well as the management and coordination of inclusive projects and work with families. In 2015, she started teaching in the UFT's Early Childhood Education course and currently works as an Academic and Coordinator of the students' area in the same course. Her interests are mainly focused on quality education for all, diversity in the classroom, initial teacher training and continuing education.

Cristina Perales Franco, Instituto de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo de la Educación, Universidad Iberoamericana Mexico City, Mexico. PhD in Education from the Institute of Education, University College London, UK. She holds a degree in Educational Sciences from ITESO and a master's degree in Social Sciences from FLACSO-Mexico. Her research interests are school convivencia, inclusion and educational equity, peace building and the relationships between schools, their communities and environments. She also works on qualitative methodologies in education. She has been a middle-school teacher, undergraduate and graduate level professor and has created teacher professional development processes. She has collaborated with the Mexican Ministry of Public Education in the curricular design of the Civic and Ethics Education curriculum. Two recent publications are the article ‘School and community relationships in Mexico. Researching inclusion in education from a critical and decolonial perspectives’ published in 2023 in the British Journal of Sociology of Education, and the book School-community relationships published by the Universidad Iberoamericana in 2022.

Pilar Samaniego-Santillán, Independent consultant – Ecuador, is the author of studies and publications related to human rights, education, disability and public policies for national, regional and multilateral organisations. The Ministry of Labour of Ecuador awarded her the national decoration ‘Labour Merit’ for ‘studies that have contributed to the development and strengthening of social peace’. She has taught in universities in Ecuador, Spain, Nicaragua and Panama. She has directed primary and secondary schools and promoted and led associative movements in favour of the rights of people with disabilities at national and Ibero American. http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5266-3928

Stefano Claudio Sartorello, Iberoamerican University of Mexico City (Mexico), is a Political scientist from the Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy). He holds Master in Social Anthropology from the Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social (CIESAS) and PhD in Education from the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico City. Since August 2015, he has been working at INIDE-IBERO as a researcher in the line: ‘Interculturality, power and diversities’. He currently conducts studies on intercultural relations and intersectional dynamics in a private university. From 2004 to date, he has been collaborating in intercultural educational projects with a critical and decolonial approach with the community educators of UNEM AC (Unión de Maestros de la Nueva Educación para México) and the teachers of REDIIN AC (Red de Educación Inductiva Intercultural). The project ‘Milpas Educativas para el Buen Vivir’ (Educational Milpas for Good Living) (https://inide.ibero.mx/assets_front/assets/libros/2020/milpas-educativas-para-el-buen-vivir-nuestra-cosecha.pdf) stands out as a product of this international collaboration.

Sylvia Schmelkes del Valle, Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico, is a Sociologist with a master's degree in Educational Research and Development from the Universidad Iberoamericana. She has published more than 400 papers on the topics of quality education, adult education, values education and intercultural education. She founded and was General Coordinator of Intercultural and Bilingual Education at the Ministry of Public Education. She received the Joan Amos Comenius Medal, awarded by the Czech Republic and UNESCO, in 2008. She holds Honorary doctorates from the Autonomous University of Baja California in 2017, from Concordia University in Montreal, Canada in 2019 and from the University of Colima in 2023. She was the first president of the National Institute for the Evaluation of Education. She was Academic Vice-Rector of the Universidad Iberoamericana Cd. de México until February 2022. She is a retired researcher at the Research Institute for the Development of Education at the Universidad Iberoamericana.

Mario Segura Castillo, University of Costa Rica – Instituto de Investigación en Educación (INIE)-Observatorio Nacional de Educación Inclusiva (ONEI), Costa Rica, is a National advisor of the Department of Educational Support for Students with Disabilities of the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica, Professor at the School of Orientation and Special Education of the University of Costa Rica, member of the National Observatory of Inclusive Education (ONEI). He has worked as national advisor of Educational Evaluation of the Ministry of Public Education of Costa Rica and is also a Professor. He holds a PhD in Education with emphasis in Pedagogical Mediation from La Salle University of Costa Rica, master's in Educational Evaluation from the University of Costa Rica, master in Democracy and Values from the University of Barcelona, bachelor's in Educational Administration and bachelor in Teaching of Social Studies from the University of Costa Rica.

Patricia Soto de la Cruz, Universidad Finis Terrae, Chile, is an Early Childhood Educator, Licentiate in Education and Psychopedagogue from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She holds Magister in Cognitive Development from the Diego Portales University, Magister in University Teaching from the Finis Terrae University and Doctor in Social Sciences, Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences, FLACSO, Argentina. In addition to her educational experience, she has more than 10 years of classroom experience in national and international contexts and seven years of experience in the management of public and private educational spaces. In 2014, she took over the direction of the Early Childhood Education degree at the Universidad Finis Terrae. Her research interests are mainly focused on the training of future kindergarten educators, early childhood education, in the areas of justice and diversity.

Paula Tapia Silva, ANADIME, Chile, is a Specialised Dance Teacher at the University of Chile. She holds Bachelor in Aesthetics at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile and Master in Liberal Arts in the field of Cultural Anthropology at Harvard University. Her training has allowed her to move through various professional spaces, teaching, nationally and internationally, with a focus on aesthetic and artistic education and the development of critical thinking. Within the field of pedagogical management she has worked in managerial and advisory roles. She currently works as a researcher for ANADIME (National Association of the Mentally Disabled) and teaches in Chilean universities. Her research interests focus on inclusive education, educational innovation and reflection on corporal expression and its aesthetic connotations, taking the body-culture relationship as a fundamental axis.

Ernesto Treviño Villarreal, Faculty of Education, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, gained Doctorate in Education from Harvard University. He is a Professor at the Faculty of Education of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, director of the Centro UC para la Transformación Educativa (CENTRE UC) and principal researcher at the Centro de Justicia Educacional. He has collaborated with UNESCO, UNICEF, OEI, OAS and other international organisations.

His research includes the project ‘Good citizenship around the world: Using IEA data to understand the next generation of citizens’ for which he was responsible, and his most recent publications include the book chapter ‘Segregation of Indigenous Students in the Chilean School System’, the book Ciudadanías, educación y juventudes. Investigaciones y debates para el Chile del futuro (2021); and the articles ‘Effects of Between-Class Ability Grouping on Secondary Students' Academic Achievement: Quasi-experimental evidence from Chile’.

Laura Alicia Valdiviezo, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, USA, began as a classroom educator at the secondary level in a public school in Peru and then in public primary and secondary schools in the United States, where she taught in bilingual and Spanish programmes, respectively. For more than two decades she has been an ethnographer dedicated to researching educational policies, programmes and actors in state institutions implementing intercultural bilingual education curricula in Peru and, more recently, in ethnic studies programmes in the United States. Her work focuses on the analysis of state discourses, actions and initiatives created to serve minority populations such as Indigenous communities in South America, and Latino, Native American and African American students in the United States. She analyses ideologies of power and inequity at the macro level and alternatives generated from local action by historically marginalised actors. She publishes her work in English and Spanish in academic journals, books and educational documentaries.

Eugenia Victoriano Villouta, Mis Talentos Foundation, Chile, holds Doctorate in Education from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Master in Educational Psychology from the same institution and Psychologist from the Universidad de Concepción.

She has taught in various higher education institutions, currently works as a diversity analyst at the Quality Education Agency of the Chilean Ministry of Education and provides consultancy services to Fundación Mis Talentos, an institution that works for inclusion.

Her publications include the article ‘University access policies for persons with disabilities: Lessons from two Chilean universities’ published in the International Journal of Educational Development.

Series Editor Preface

The adoption internationally of inclusive practice as the most equitable and all-encompassing approach to education and its relation to compliance with various international Declarations and Conventions underpins the importance of this series for people working at all levels of education and schooling in both developed and less developed countries. There is little doubt that inclusive education is complex and diverse and that there are enormous disparities in understanding and application at both inter- and intra-country levels. A broad perspective on inclusive education throughout this series is taken, encompassing a wide range of contemporary viewpoints, ideas and research for enabling the development of more inclusive schools, education systems and communities.

Volumes in this series on International Perspectives on Inclusive Education contribute to the academic and professional discourse by providing a collection of philosophies and practices that can be reviewed by considering local, contextual and cultural situations to assist governments, educators, peripatetic staffs and other professionals to provide the best education for all children. Each volume in the series focuses on a key aspect of inclusive education and provides critical chapters by contributing leaders in the field who discuss theoretical positions, quality research and impacts on school and classroom practice. Different volumes address issues relating to the diversity of student need within heterogeneous classrooms and the preparation of teachers and other staffs to work in inclusive schools. Systemic changes and practice in schools encompass a wide perspective of learners to provide ideas on reframing education to ensure that it is inclusive of all. Evidence-based research practices underpin a plethora of suggestions for decision-makers and practitioners, incorporating current ways of thinking about and implementing inclusive education.

While many barriers have been identified that may potentially constrain the implementation of effective inclusive practices, this series aims to identify such key concerns and offer practical and best practice approaches to overcoming them. Adopting a thematic approach for each volume, readers will be able to quickly locate a collection of research and practice related to a topic of interest. By transforming schools into inclusive communities of practice all children can have the opportunity to access and participate in quality and equitable education to enable them to obtain the skills to become contributory global citizens. This series, therefore, is highly recommended to support education decision-makers, practitioners, researchers and academics, who have a professional interest in the inclusion of children and youth who are potentially marginalising in inclusive schools and classrooms.

Volume 24 in the International Perspectives on Inclusive Education series offers a unique opportunity to explore different aspects of intercultural inclusive education, specifically within the Latin America region. This is the first book in the IPIE series to focus on one region and in addition, to publish the book both in English and in Spanish. This convergence of perspectives provides an exclusive chance to delve in greater depth across the Latin America region. Being bilingual, it also gives access to this information in the local language, thus allowing a greater number of people to benefit from the shared research and perspectives about inclusion across eight countries.

The collection of distinguished authors has presented detailed information on their countries' context and status regarding implementing inclusive educational practices. These highlight the enormous variety in how inclusion is enacted within the region and some of the distinctive issues and challenges that they face. While all countries are aiming for equity in education, the additional challenges encountered by indigenous populations, large numbers of immigrants, those living in rural areas, culturally diverse families and those who experience disadvantage results in different opportunities for establishing effective inclusive schools. Many countries are aiming to better include families in partnership in education decision-making, to support more inclusive communities. Teacher training is also considered critical as a mediator of change towards inclusion across all jurisdictions, with an emphasis on ensuring teachers have the necessary knowledge and skills to translate policy into practice.

Advances in education and the use of technology are evidenced across all regions. The authors report that many countries have implemented inclusive legislation or policy, but that competences to promote and implement effective inclusive practices are still underdeveloped. The authors all provide a realistic critique of how their countries have sought to adopt a more inclusive approach, often within difficult political changes, with many providing effective examples of how this is occurring. Although these positive outcomes allow for other countries to reflect on whether these findings can help them to better facilitate inclusion in their own region, examples of highly effective practices are still seen to be in the minority.

Though this book focuses on a specific region, there are few similarities in how individual countries are working towards implementing inclusion in practice. Education across the region is highly complex, very diverse and manifold. What each country has in common though, is a clear understanding of what needs to be done with a strong focus on equity. To do this the challenges vary both across and within nations, but by providing examples of how each country is meeting some of these challenges enables the astute reader to gain insights into practices that may be appropriate for responding to some of their own challenges.

I strongly recommend Volume 24 in the International Perspectives on Inclusive Education series as essential reading for anyone interested in reflecting upon how the unique regions across Latin America are moving towards establishing sustainable inclusive educational practices. The editors are to be commended on being able to bring together such an eclectic group of authors able to provide detailed and considerate information about such diverse countries; and the chapter authors on their sincerity in reporting practices that aim to enhance an equitable educational approach for all. So many pertinent issues are raised and treated with genuineness, thoughtfulness and integrity. This gives readers a range of perspectives to utilise to reflect upon their own regions, with a critical review of how these ideas may help them in their own goals to achieve effective, equitable and sustainable intercultural inclusive educational practices.

Chris Forlin

Series Editor

Preface

In the panorama of inclusion and interculturality in 21st century Latin America, political, economic, social and epistemological tensions and conditions converge and interact at different levels and in different educational spaces in complex ways. The study of these manifestations is the subject of this volume in which renowned researchers participate to offer an overview of these processes – inclusion and interculturality – necessarily imbricated in education with a human rights perspective in the Latin American region.

This book is composed of 15 chapters written by 30 authors, who present different facets of inclusive education and intercultural education in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico and Peru.

The first chapter is an initial approach offered by two of the editors, Silvia Romero-Contreras and Ismael García-Cedillo, regarding the current contexts and determinants of inclusive and intercultural education in Latin America. Next, regarding inclusive education, issues related to its implementation at the basic and higher education levels and teacher education and training for inclusion are addressed; the relationship between families and schools is also analysed from the perspective of inclusion and the role of explanation in science education in promoting equity. In relation to intercultural education, the evolution of interculturality in Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Peru and Ecuador is presented. In addition, the implementation of the rural education model with escuela nueva in Colombia and the study of lessons through learning communities in rural Mexico are discussed. The final chapter is on the promotion of epistemic justice and intercultural learning communities.

In relation to the chapters related to inclusive education, Ernesto Treviño Villarreal and Eugenia Victoriano Villouta analyse educational opportunities at higher education level for students with special educational needs associated with disabilities in Chile. Through the educational trajectories in higher education of students with disabilities, they report on the barriers they face in transition (low expectations and insufficient guidance in their entry process), access (they are not selected through an exam, like other applicants) and permanence (they face physical, social and academic barriers).

Dianne Chambers and Rodrigo Hübner Mendes analyse the situation of persons with disabilities and the inclusive education process in Brazil. They highlight advances in legislation to promote inclusion. The authors analyse the progress and challenges facing inclusive education in the country, particularly in relation to students with disabilities and the provision of technological support.

Paula Tapia Silva, Patricia Soto de la Cruz and Yarela Muñoz López describe the experience of the ANADIME-CEA Educational Centre, located in a disadvantaged neighbourhood of Santiago, Chile, which aimed to provide quality learning spaces for all its students. It was ensured that 12% of its enrolment was made up of students with disabilities, although the space was also opened to immigrant students and students from different sociocultural backgrounds, and a transdisciplinary work team was formed. The community participated very actively.

Chris Forlin, Luis Adolfo Machicado Pizarro and Gisselle Gallego describe how, despite advances in education in Bolivia, persons with disabilities face many challenges. Five-year-old children with disabilities start school in regular schools, but without accessibility and inclusion-oriented training for their teachers, who lack the fundamentals to implement inclusive education.

Gloria Calvo reports how, despite the fact that inclusive education has a solid legal basis in Colombia, teacher training needs to be improved, because although topics related to diversity and inclusion are reviewed, competencies to promote inclusive education are not developed. However, she documents several valuable experiences in her chapter: the experience of a teacher training school (Escuela Normal) where, among others, Braille and sign language strategies to manage indiscipline and pedagogy for peace are taught; a school that seeks to recover students who have dropped out of school and; a higher level pedagogical proposal that addresses initial teacher training with an innovative perspective and high social commitment.

Also, in the context of teacher training, Lady Meléndez Rodríguez, Rocio Deliyore Vega and Mario Segura Castillo describe successful experiences of teacher training for inclusion in Costa Rica. They identify the features of an inclusive school and its curricular dimesion, and describe research conducted by the National Observatory for Inclusive Education to identify good practices in training for implementing inclusive education.

Cristina Perales Franco presents research on the role of families in the inclusion of their children in Mexico. She analyses the school–family relationship under an inclusion approach, i.e. the possibilities and barriers for the participation of all families. She reviews the three main practices linking school and families: firstly related to participation in parents' associations; secondly related to cultures, for example in the construction of gender roles; and thirdly related to families' contributions: economic and cooperative through manual work or food preparation.

Valeria M. Cabello and David Geelan report a study in which they analyse the ways in which science is taught, particularly in relation to the explanations of teachers in Australia, Canada and Chile. The explanations offered in class can be emancipatory when they are done as intentional teaching, which requires a deep knowledge of the students and not just a focus on correct answers. They found that there is a relationship between the type of explanations and socio-economic status.

In relation to intercultural education, the chapter by Stefano Claudio Sartorello and Alexandre Ferraz Herbetta provides the context in which intercultural education has evolved in Mexico and Brazil. They consider the substitution of the paradigm of critical interculturalism for that of inclusive education to be harmful for the indigenous population, given the deficient nature of the population served by the latter. They consider that it remains to be seen whether recent political changes in these countries will lead to the development of intercultural and inclusive policies that are also critical and decolonial.

Laura Alicia Valdiviezo, Rukmini Becerra Lubies and Dayna Andrea Moya Sepulveda point out that the Peruvian state has dismantled intercultural bilingual education and describe how the Chilean state has failed to implement the legislative framework that protects the rights of minority groups. In their work, they address the experience of the Quechua and Mapuche populations.

Pilar Samaniego-Santillán, Verónica Gabriela Maldonado-Garcés and Mónica Delgado-Quilismal mention that, especially in higher education, there is still a long way to go to achieve the goals set years ago, as Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations show interrupted educational trajectories and much higher poverty rates than the general population.

Diego Juárez Bolaños analyses rural higher education in Colombia. He specifically describes the experience of implementing the Rural Education Model with Escuela Nueva in Caldas, Colombia, through the testimonies of graduates of the Universidad en el Campo; given the good results, he points out some recommendations for replicating the experience in other regions.

Luz María Moreno-Medrano, co-editor of this volume, points out, based on the framework of critical interculturality, that teachers must know their students in depth, so that they can perceive the dynamics of exclusion produced by differences of class, ethnicity, gender and disability in order to offer them a relevant education. In order to make these differences visible and overcome them, she proposes lesson study, a pedagogical approach that allows teaching collectives to reflect on how they learn, how to improve the classroom climate and how to promote collaborative learning not only among students, but also among teachers themselves, and presents an experience in which the proposal to create schools as learning communities is successfully implemented in a rural teacher training college on the southern border of Mexico.

For Sylvia Schmelkes del Valle, one of the strands of interculturality proposes that inclusive education should include minorities through an environment free of discrimination and prejudice and offer culturally and linguistically relevant educational content. She advocates for an education for indigenous peoples characterised by epistemic justice, i.e. that their knowledge and ways of constructing it should be given on an equal footing with Western knowledge and the scientific way of producing it, in order to achieve a more complete understanding of the world. She analyses some contributions of indigenous knowledge: the relationship with nature and the understanding of the cosmos, the conception of community, governance and the style of democracy, the containment of inequality and the conceptions of educating and learning.

Education in Latin America has made substantial progress, but major challenges remain related to inequality, poverty and, in some cases, the unwillingness of some governments to address and overcome them. The implementation of intercultural and inclusive education will allow the education offered to all students to be of progressively higher quality. When ‘all’ is mentioned, it means that the personal, social, family and school conditions in which children live should not be used as an excuse to avoid offering them a quality education, as this is precisely what they need most to transcend these conditions. For indigenous children, moreover, an intercultural and critical education is required.

As can be seen, the contributions presented in this book reflect a multifaceted picture of inclusive education and critical interculturality in Latin America. In all the texts, the difficulties of Latin American students are made visible and successful experiences or strategies for overcoming difficulties are outlined.

We are grateful for the enthusiastic and generous collaboration of all the authors. We believe that reading these works will bring about changes that will benefit the people of the region, particularly those living in vulnerable conditions.

Silvia Romero-Contreras

Ismael García-Cedillo

Luz María Moreno-Medrano

Mexico, 2024

Acknowledgments

Editorial Board

All chapters in the text have been peer reviewed by two academics or practitioners in the field of intercultural and inclusive education. The reviewers formed the editorial board of this text.