Indigenous school education and interculturality in Brazil and Mexico

Abstract

This article conducts a historical and conceptual analysis of the antecedents of indigenous school education in Mexico and Brazil, in the context of public policies and national and international legal frameworks that guide indigenous policy in both countries. The research, of an exploratory and documentary nature, is based on legislation, guidelines and theoretical productions that address indigenous school education from the perspective of interculturality. The study differentiates indigenous school education — linked to the formal and Western model of education — from traditional indigenous education, which takes place in the daily life of villages, involving community practices, work, coexistence and spirituality. This distinction is fundamental to understanding the challenges of implementing an intercultural indigenous education that respects ancestral knowledge and practices. It highlights the indigenous and indigenist actions aimed at teacher training, the production of bilingual teaching materials and the institutional strengthening of schools in indigenous territories; as well as the Mexican policies committed to expanding bilingual intercultural education and implementing indigenous undergraduate degrees in several public universities in Brazil. Despite the observed advances, resulting from the achievements of indigenous movements, obstacles related to infrastructure, the valorization of native languages and the pedagogical autonomy of communities persist. Indigenous school education still operates under colonialist and epistemological tensions, facing the challenge of articulating cultural diversity and educational equity. A critical and transformative perspective of intercultural education is defended, based on the dialogue of knowledge, the valorization of identities and the construction of a decolonial pedagogy that contributes to the strengthening of indigenous peoples in their struggle for recognition, autonomy and self-determination.