The Challenges and Opportunities of an Intercultural Bilingual Education School in the Galapagos Islands

• In Event: Transnational Migration, Refugees, and Education: Case Studies from Across the Globe

Proposal

In the past two decades, a demographic change has been taking place in the Galapagos islands. Due to the economic factors, individuals belonging to the Kichwa nationality, whose ancestral lands are located in the central-Andean region of the Ecuadorian mainland, have made Galapagos their home (Vervloet, 2013). As other migrant indigenous communities around the world, the indigenous people who have moved to the Galapagos have had to start a process of adapting to their new geographic, social, and cultural context, while at the same time, developing strategies to preserve their traditions, languages, and cultures (Hornberger, 2014).

As part of their efforts to preserve their culture and language, the migrant Kichwa-speaking community of the Galapagos was able to negotiate with the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education (MOE) the creation of a bilingual Kichwa-Spanish school in the island of the archipelago inhabited by the majority of that indigenous community. Since its creation, the school has been following the Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) program implemented in IBE schools across the mainland Ecuador by the MOE. The IBE program promotes the revitalization and maintenance of ancestral languages, cultures, and traditions of the various indigenous nationalities living in 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 of in a completely different socio-cultural, ecological, and linguistic context such as the one of the Galapagos?

Using a critical sociolinguistics of globalization lens (CSG; 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. To gather the perspectives of our Galapagueño participants, 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. Our goals were twofold: 1)To examine 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) to investigate 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.

Theoretical Framework

Following the work of Blommaert (2010) and Hornberger (2014), we chose a critical sociolinguistics of globalization (CSG) lens because it allows for the examination of the multiple mobile linguistic, intercultural, and cultural resources exhibited by migrant indigenous individuals and communities. Specifically, CSG conceptualizes language and other cultural and intercultural resources as in-motion rather than in-place due to globalization forces. Therefore, for migrant groups in particular, a CSG lens considers “a sociolinguistics of mobile resources, framed in terms of trans-contextual networks, flows, and movements” (Blommaert, 2010, p. 1). In other words, CSG does not see language and other social and cultural resources as fused to a particular community, time, and place, but conceptualizes these resources across spaces and time.

Methods
We conducted 20 interviews with indigenous and non-indigenous teachers, parents, and administrators. We also observed these teachers conducting instruction. We also examined the IBE curriculum to identify whether it includes provisions for IBE schools where Kichwa is not the majority language in the community. The interviews were transcribed and coded using NVivo.

Results and Discussion
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. Therefore, adapting the IBE curriculum becomes the responsibility of the migrant indigenous community.

In the case of the indigenous group in the Galapagos Islands, our findings indicate that they adapted the IBE in three ways: Linguistically, culturally, and environmentally. Linguistically, our interviewees reported that the goal of their program 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 in the Galapagueño society, in which they have been able to be officially recognized not as recently arrived immigrants, but also as established members of the Galapagos society. In this formal space, they have been able to perform their ceremonies, dances, and cultural events in formal spaces for locals and tourists. 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. One indigenous teacher reported that in their homeland in the Andes, nature was their Pachamama from where they draw all the necessary resources to live. Because Galapagos is a natural protected area and national park, this indigenous teacher indicated that her community now conceptualizes nature as an entity to be protected. This has translated into using fish and plants from the market for dietary and ceremonial events rather than harvesting quinoa and raising guinea pigs, chickens, and other animals that were employed in their community in the Andes.

The study of IBE schools in the Galapagos Islands is significant to the field of international and comparative education as it recognizes the migration of indigenous groups and how this groups have been maintaining their languages, cultures, and identities.

References

Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Hornberger, N. (2014). “Until I became a professional, I was not, consciously, indigenous”: One intercultural bilingual educator’s trajectory in indigenous language revitalization. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 13, 283–299. doi:10.1080/153484

Vervloet, L. (2013). Salasacas en Santa Cruz: Aspectos culturales, sociales y ambientales. Galápagos, Ecuador: Fundación Charles Darwin.

Authors

• Harvey Luna, Southern Methodist University - CORE

• Diego Roman, Southern Methodist University

• Greses A. Perez-Jöhnk, Stanford University

• Zaynab Amelia Gates, UCSD

• Amy Doherty, Galapagos Conservancy

• Heny Agredo, Dallas Independent School District

• Adrian Soria, Aves y Conservacion/BirdLife in Ecuador

• Amparito Naranjo, Consejo de Gobierno de Galapagos

• Melissa Mesinas, Stanford University

• Sebastian Pinto, Aula Maestra