Abstract

MENDOZA-MENDOZA, Ilsa; QUINTRIQUEO-MILLAN, Segundo  and  ARIAS-ORTEGA, Katerin. A general approach to epistemological colonialism in the Chilean education system. Sinéctica [online]. 2025, n.64, e1708.  Epub June 23, 2025. ISSN 2007-7033.  https://doi.org/10.31391/jael8429.

This article discusses and reflects on the persistence of epistemological coloniality in the Chilean school system, which not only silences the knowledge of the indigenous population, but also the way in which foreign students construct and develop their way of knowing and conceiving reality; in other words, it also silences their episteme. The methodology is qualitative and descriptive, based on a theoretical and systematic review of the scientific, normative and dissemination literature on the school system and the practices that sustain it. A content analysis of the selected literature was carried out to discover nuclei of meaning and significance about the object of study. The main results show that the Chilean education system, through the school curriculum and initial teacher training, imposes an order of disciplinary knowledge that excludes any possibility of incorporating one's own knowledge and know-how into educational practices. The main conclusions support the urgent need to incorporate educational content based on epistemological pluralism into the school curriculum and initial teacher training programs to progressively counteract epistemological coloniality in the Chilean education system.

Keywords : epistemological coloniality; Chilean education system; foreign and indigenous students; intercultural education.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )