Higher education, indigenous peoples and Afro-descendants. A reading about affirmative actions in Brazil and university ethno-education in Colombia

Abstract

At the end of the 20th century, the issue of cultural diversity and education gained relevance in many areas of the Colombian university life. Programs, research groups and even undergraduate programs emerged to address the issues of interculturality, cultural difference, and educational inclusion. Indigenous university students and from Afro-descendant communities (black), now recognized as “ethnic groups” (GE), were received in some higher education institutions (IES) at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, under the differential approach. Currently, higher education policies in the continent have very important experiences in different countries. This article seeks to address two relevant experiences in the case of Brazil and Colombia. The first scenario deals with affirmative actions and university openings for black peoples in the country with the largest Afro-descendant population in Latin America. In the second scenario, university ethno-education is analysed as a process that covers teacher training from a model of cultural control and access for indigenous and Afro-Colombian students. In this article we want to offer a reading on the impacts and lessons learned in Brazil and Colombia as experiences of transformation of the Latin American university.