The educational situation of the indigenous population: figures, debates, uncertainties and social categorization

Abstract

In this essay the statistics on the educational level of the indigenous population are problematized, in order to review the complexity of the realities that are to be measured. Some perspectives are proposed on the need to rethink how the “indigenous” is defined in a changing world, marked by centuries of homogenizing politics, and questions whether or not what we measure is the growing process of assimilation that this policy has produced. It also addresses the problem of the high illiteracy rates that the figures show, and which, as presented, leave the idea that the indigenous language speakers face the same challenges as the non-speaking population, that is, that it would be the same illiteracy than for the rest of the population. The specificity of this is analyzed, from what it means to become literate in a second language.