MAPUCHE EDUCATION KNOWLEDGE: EPISTEMIC CONTRIBUTIONS FOR AN INTERCULTURAL EDUCATIONAL APPROACH

This article presents Mapuche education knowledge that forms part of a family's education. The aim is to contribute to the epistemic debate on the indigenous educational content of intercultural education for the purpose of overcoming ignorance of this content in schools located within contemporary Mapuche life. Ignorance of the Mapuche's educational knowledge hinders the implementation of an educational approach best suited to the sociocultural knowledge, for both Mapuche and non-Mapuche students. In fact, the schooling of both Mapuche and non-Mapuche children has been based almost exclusively on the monocultural curriculum of Western society. The methodology is based on educational research from a qualitative perspective through interviews with a sample of 16 kimches (sages). The results reveal categories of knowledge linked to concepts of time and space in the annual cycle, concepts of geographical-territorial origin (tuwun), and parental descent (kupan). The Mapuche family incorporates each of these aspects into the education of children and adolescents. It is concluded that this knowledge may constitute an epistemic contribution that favors a contextualized education and strengthens the education of students through the dialogue of knowledge systems from an intercultural approach.