Intercultural Bilingual Education School and Migrant Indigenous Populations: The Case of the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador

• In Event: Latin American Educational Foundations and Multicultural-Bilingual Education: The Necessary Connection

Abstract

Objectives
In recent years, individuals belonging to the Kichwa nationality from the Andean region of Ecuador have made Galapagos their home (Vervloet, 2013). As other migrant indigenous communities around the world, this indigenous population had to start a process of adapting to their new geographic, social, and cultural context and develop strategies to preserve their traditions, language, and culture (Hornberger, 2014). This community was able to negotiate with the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education (MOE) the creation of a bilingual Kichwa-Spanish school in one of the islands of the archipelago. Since its creation, this school has been following the Ecuadorian Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) program implemented in IBE schools across the country. Yet, does the IBE program consider the needs of migrant indigenous communities? And in particular, how has the IBE program been adapted by the indigenous community (e.g., by indigenous parents, teachers, and administrators) to serve their socio-cultural, linguistic, and educational needs?

Theoretical Framework
Using a critical sociolinguistics of globalization lens (Blommaert, 2010; Hornberger, 2014), this study reports the perspectives of indigenous and non-indigenous teachers and administrators who work at the IBE school and indigenous and non-indigenous parents who have chosen to enroll their children there and parents who do not have children attending that school.

Data Sources
We conducted 20 interviews and 10 classroom observations during the summer of 2017 and collected audio and video data. In addition, we analyzed the official documents produced by the MOE describing the IBE program.

Methods
Interviews were transcribed and all data was coded using NVivo. We developed codes that sought to examine 1) whether the IBE program includes provisions and guidance on how to accommodate the needs of migrant indigenous communities who are not living in their ancestral lands, and 2) whether the teachers, parents, and administrators working at the Galapagos IBE school have modified the program to reflect their new socio-cultural and linguistic context.

Results
Our preliminary findings indicate that the IBE curriculum was developed conceptualizing language and other cultural and intercultural resources in-place rather than in-motion. In other words, the IBE curriculum does not provide sufficient guidance into how it could be adapted to serve the needs of migrant indigenous groups. In the case of the indigenous group in the Galapagos Islands, they adapted the IBE in three ways: linguistically, culturally, and environmentally. Linguistically, our interviewees reported that their goal is not to produce bilingual and biliterate Spanish-Kichwa children, but rather children who know vocabulary that have important cultural meanings (e.g., Pachamama). Culturally, our participants reported that the creation of the IBE school allowed them to have a formal space and been officially recognized in their new land. Finally, in relation to environmental issues, indigenous teachers and parents reported having to reconceptualize nature as an entity to be protected rather than only a provider.

Scholarly Significance
Implications for education of migrant Indigenous groups are discussed will be discussed in the presentation. This work could be used in the professional development and training of teachers working with multicultural populations.

Authors

• Diego Xavier Roman, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Karla Del Rosal, Plano Independent School District, Plano, Texas

• Harvey Luna

• Maria Angeles Ceballos, Research Office, Ministry of Education, Quito, Ecuador

• Amparo Naranjo, Independent researcher

• Luis M Gonzalez-Quizhpe, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Sarah Scallon, University of Wisconsin - Madison