Teacher Professional Identity: Pedagogical Practice in a Mapuche Context

Abstract

This article explores the construction of professional identity of teachers trained in Basic Intercultural Pedagogy to work in a Mapuche context. The construction and re-construction of identity presents challenges that are associated with the contexts of performance, as well as social, historical and territorial characteristics that provide the teacher some particular ways of conceptualizing him/herself, conceptualizing the education and the work as professionals. A descriptive and comparative design was implemented using educational method-ology. The involved teachers responded to a survey of professional identity. The analysis employed considered quantitative and qualitative factors. The results identify axes upon which the processes of teaching identity are organized; among these context, language and ethnicity highlight. Also, the construction of intercultural teaching identity implies a constant challenge to overcome the latent racism, as the disdain for Mapuche´s epistemological knowledge.