Interpreting and Implementing Interculturality: EIB Educators and In-Service Teacher Training Programs

Built on the premise that there is a gap between policy design and policy implementation, this paper seeks to understand how Peruvian teachers make sense of and implement Intercultural Bilingual Education (EIB) policy. EIB policy, introduced in 1991, recognizes the linguistic and cultural rights of marginalized indigenous students in schooling. This paper explores how in-service teacher training workshops influence teachers’ interpretation and implementation of interculturality by looking at experiences of the teacher training workshops run by Fundación HoPe Holanda Perú (HOPE) and Asociación Pukllasunchis in Cusco, Peru. Through this analysis, the paper shows how in-service teacher training workshops can contribute to the ways in which teachers reproduce and/or challenge the historical marginalization of indigenous languages and cultures. It also shows that although in-service teacher training workshops influence the actions of teachers they do not determine them, as individuals’ beliefs, attitudes, and past experience, as well as the socio-historical context in which teachers find themselves, also come into play.