First-Generation Indigenous Students and Intersectionality in Chilean Universities

• In Event: 31.019 - Intersectionality and Transnational Education Research for a New World Order?

Abstract

This paper explores the challenges and outcomes obtained in a Chilean project focused on First-Generation Indigenous University Students (FGIUS). In Chile, seven out of ten university students are considered first-generation students (SIES, 2012). Regarding data indicating about a 50% dropout rate in higher education (MINEDUC, 2012), scholar failure is significantly higher in students who belong to the first two income quintiles. Among these, Indigenous students representing 6.7% of enrollment have shown consistently greater illiteracy and less educational coverage (Blanco and Meneses, 2011). Furthermore, even though the higher education system has grown, the number of Indigenous students remains low (Oliva & Zapata, 2011). Previous studies (Arancibia et al., 2014; Flanagan, 2017) highlighted the absence of intercultural perspectives to recognize and value their identities, affecting therefore their academic success. Apart from a few efforts on promoting adjustment and persistence, the challenge expands to assist their families and teaching instructors about cultural diversity and world vision, not only for keeping FGIUS in the system but also to recognize their inclusion makes the system better.
This paper analyzes the findings of the project "Supporting Indigenous First-generation Students" awarded with the Alumni Engagement Innovation Fund (AEIF) 2017. Its model is based on promoting equity and diversity, which includes working on a systemic way (e.g. FGIUS, their families and professors), generating a platform of inclusive and holistic education. The project reveals the intersection of diverse identities, especially those related to race/ethnicity, gender, social class, and urban/rural experiences, and how intersectionality impacts FGIUS’ academic success. The participants’ understandings illuminate how being a FGIUS co-occurs with other life challenges (like raising a child or earning an income). Other accounts shed light on how indigenous identity at overwhelmingly non-indigenous institutions make the sensing of discrepancies between school and home even more acute.
Chilean universities usually have policies that reinforce inequality and replicate dominant relations to preserve the interest and supremacy of dominant groups (Bowles & Gintis, 2011/1976; Gillborn, 2013). Their structures and norms, despite of and along with their allegations of being the bridges towards the transplanted neoliberal equality ideal (Abarca & Becker, 2011), would be designed for serving the interest of non-Mapuche students and those who can afford it. Even though most Chilean universities have Mapuche students, these post-secondary institutions usually do not have special programs for them, and do not recognize the complexities of being an indigenous person in a non-indigenous setting. In this context, the study explores how there would be a double hidden in which the system ignores both being the first person in the family attempting to complete higher education, and being a part a historically oppressed minority group. Thus, this project will support a discussion on how transnational analyses of higher education, as a tool for equal opportunities, should focus not only in increasing the inclusion of FGS into the system but also on how the system shall benefit on valuing and incorporating their cultures into its own goals.

Authors

• Andrea Flanagan-Borquez, Univeridad de Valparaiso

• Silvana del Valle Bustos, Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano