Abstract

MELENDEZ, Cecilia Evangelina; DIAZ, Marcela Emilia  and  D’AMORE, Leandro. Disencounters between Secondary School and Interculturality Policies in Rural Catamarca. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2023, n.51, pp.159-185.  Epub May 15, 2023. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda51.2023.07.

The enactment of the National Education Law in 2006, made secondary education compulsory in Argentina. This prompted actions to expand coverage and guarantee access to this level of education to sectors and contexts that had not been reached until then. The legislation also provides for the creation of intercultural bilingual education and rural education modalities -cross-cutting to all educational levels- in order to reach the diversity and distinctiveness of communities throughout the country. However, federalism allows each province or jurisdiction, in this case the province of Catamarca, to implement general educational policy guidelines in its own way. A few years on from the creation of rural secondary schools in indigenous territories, we analyze the relationship between the secondary school and the native communities. The fieldwork for this qualitative research with an interpretative approach was undertaken in two native communities located in rural contexts in the province of Catamarca, and involved interviews with representatives of the native communities and teachers of the schools. Our research revealed the demands and tensions surrounding the realization of the right to education and the policies for intercultural education, specifically at secondary level. We also identified asymmetries in decision-making; contradictions between the postulates of intercultural education and the classic mandates of the secondary school; and, fundamentally, tensions surrounding the notion of education held by state institutions and that held and demanded by the people who receive it.

Keywords : Demands; identities; indigenous communities; intercultural bilingual education; rural education; secondary education.

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