Challenges of the incorporation of indigenous knowledge in early childhood education from an intercultural perspective

Abstract

The article presents a proposal for the articulation of nuclei of Early Childhood Education learning content proposed by the Chilean Ministry of Education and Mapuche educational knowledge, for the training of indigenous and non-indigenous children, from an intercultural educational approach. The problem posed by the article is that in the Early Childhood Education curriculum there is an absence of indigenous educational knowledge, to support the formation of children with social, cultural and territorial relevance, which affects the loss of the Mapuche sociocultural identity and which results in the construction of ethnic shame as the formal schooling process progresses. The theory is discussed from a critical approach that questions the relations of power and training in future nursery educators focused on a monocultural Eurocentric approach that does not provide them with the didactic and methodological tools to function in contexts of sociocultural diversity that allows them to offer a training that incorporates their own educational knowledge and knowledge present in the indigenous territories in which they work. We conclude that incorporating indigenous pedagogy and education into Early Childhood Education ensures their school and educational success, since it allows offering teaching and learning processes with sociocultural and territorial relevance based on the development of sociocultural identity to form new emotionally strong citizens with a sense of belonging and territorial roots, which allows them to develop adequately in a globalized world characterized by diversity.