Education and Community Engagement in Schools in the Communities of Contulmo and Tirua, Chile. Interculturality, Micropolitics and Territories

Abstract

This article describes three factors that foster the link between educational models and community engagement processes in Mapuche communities in Chile. In this context, the article reveals, through the analysis of various experiences, how communities have done a progressive re-signification of the schools: defining them as a space for participation and collective confluence, where diverse community tensions and agreements are manifested; positioning them as strategic nodes for the definition and appropriation of the territory. This allows us to deepen the analysis of the relationship between schools and communities, by identifying and characterizing the factors that enhance and inhibit it, in order to identify how they operate and how schools are perceived within the Mapuche communities in the communes mentioned above. Several testimonies were collected from members of the three schools that participated and other communities' stakeholders. These testimonies where analyzed qualitatively, which allowed the identification of diverse community engagement dynamics that affect, on a small scale, in the design and execution of educational proposals with cultural and territorial relevance, positioning the schools as spaces of community confluence.