Indigenous Education in Rural and Remote Areas in Chile: Exploring teacher and community experiences

The current research brings together the fields of Indigenous and rural education with teacher education in the Chilean Northern Territory. The main aim of this research project is to improve teacher preparation by listening to the voices of teachers working in remote contexts and most importantly listening to community member’s experiences of teachers. The study aims to better understand both groups perceptions of the pedagogical skills and knowledge that teachers need in order to teach in an isolated context with a high population of Indigenous students in the Chilean Northern Territory. To achieve this aim, the study explores both teachers and Indigenous community perceptions about their experiences of education in rural Indigenous settings. This research seeks to contribute further knowledge of social research to disadvantaged rural communities (White & Corbett, 2014). The project is significant because it seeks to reveal from the voices of those in context (teachers and Indigenous community members) about how to improve teachers practice. Therefore, this project will contribute to Atacameños student’s education improvement, allowing them to have more opportunities to continue further studies.Atacameños are one of the eight recognised Chilean Indigenous groups who live mainly in the Atacama Desert. Atacameños students assist in isolated rural schools. These schools are combined, which means that the same classroom have students with different ages and levels. This represents a main challenge to teachers, who are not prepared to perform adequately in these settings.Indigenous people have the right to a high-quality level of education that enables them to improve their well-being and to enhance their quality of life (United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2008). However, in some Latin American countries like Chile, Indigenous education needs some improvement (Mendoza & Sanhueza, 2016; Nahuelpán et al., 2019; Quintriqueo et al., 2017). The lack of teachers’ preparation to teach in this context might be causing the high rates of teacher attrition and rotation affecting rural Indigenous students’ education (Carrasco et al., 2017; Hardre & Sullivan, 2008; Sharplin et al., 2011). Additionally, this research explores teachers and Indigenous communities’ viewpoints about teacher preparation to teach in an Indigenous, rural context