Intercultural Education: The Training of Teachers for Inclusion

Abstract

Inclusion has become a keyword in education. UNESCO SDG 4 proposes to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. However, it is a fact that, in general, minorities face many more difficulties in attaining schooling and particularly in achieving learning outcomes. Although exclusion from schooling and learning are mainly due to contextual variables such as poverty, rurality, parents’ education, and native language when it is different from that in which education is carried out, what seems to be true is that teaching is not compensating for inequality but rather aggravating it. Inequality and exclusion are becoming exacerbated by the pandemic, and the need for educational policy to face their probably long-term consequences. A significant part of the problem is because teachers are not being trained to deal with diversity and to treat it as a pedagogical advantage. This chapter will look into how teachers are being trained in some countries in Latin America to deal with diversity and inclusion. A comparative approach is used, and the chapter draws on previous research carried out in four Latin American countries regarding the training of Indigenous teachers. Ethnical and linguistic diversity will be the main focus. A look at how other countries with Indigenous populations around the world are training teachers for inclusion will be considered as a point of contrast with what happens in initial training in Latin America.