Introduction

Argentina is a country that historically since its consolidation has denied and invisibilized its ethnic matrix, despite there being twenty-some indigenous peoples – speakers of at least fourteen languages with heterogeneous types of bilingualism – who statistically represent 2.4% of the total national population (National Institute of Statistics and Censuses [INDEC], 2010). In regard to the rights of ethnically plural populations, only since democratic restitution (1983) has a series of legislative reforms been produced motivated by the activism of indigenous movements and international declarations of specific rights. Thus, through legal regulation, respect for and valuing of Argentina’s indigenous peoples has been achieved and, consequently, official discourse has attenuated its historically ethnocentric vision to recognize ethnic plurality. Legislative and academic discourses of political reaffirmation and ethnic revindication call upon the Nation-State to review and include nuances in the treatment of the indigenous question. That is to say, the issue is no longer to deny indigenous otherness as part of the models of Argentine citizenship, but rather to think of alternatives that offer space for its inclusion and recognition within a framework of respect for differences.

The relation between the languages spoken in a jurisdiction and the school system that regulates them is very complex and evokes countless debates in educational management and research. Language policies are closely associated with educational policies, as through educational planning assumptions are expressed as to how it seems feasible to modify, prescribe and hierarchically arrange the asymmetrical relations between languages that coexist in a State. Through the designs of monolingual, bilingual or plurilingual educational policies, the status and positive valuing of certain languages is promoted, while the social visibility of others is reduced, or a balance is simply maintained among a linguistic multiplicity. Of these multiple analytical dimensions, this text contemplates designs for the schooling of those persons (such as indigenous peoples) who speak minority languages other than the official one.

In Argentina, indigenous languages were included in education policies only very recently. Since the Reform of the National Constitution (1994), a shift took place from an integrationist-homogenizing model to another based on inclusion of the right of indigenous peoples to Bilingual Intercultural Education (hereinafter, BIE). Currently, school institutions postulate the modification of their historical bet on linguistic unification in Spanish, shifting to the incorporation of other languages (in addition to the hegemonic-official language) and other intercultural views that question curricular contents, with the aim of overcoming still-present colonialism and settling the historical debt with indigenous peoples.

Contemporary BIE policies promote plurilingualism and the inclusion of the cultural practices and knowledge of indigenous peoples to strengthen their cultures, worldviews and ethnic identities. The recipients of BIE are indigenous children, who tend to find themselves in socio-educational contexts of extreme inequality and poverty. Therefore, for indigenous peoples access to BIE forms part of a broader body of rights whose aim is to guarantee their social inclusion, the self-determination of their peoples and the preservation of their languages and cultural patterns in the contemporary context. In sum, to paraphrase the theoretical contributions of Hornberger (2008), the indigenous population would face the paradox of the transformation of a standardized education, but in the spirit of a “diversification” that would suppose the construction of a multilingual and multicultural national indigenous identity.

BIE schools in Argentina are characterized by a “pedagogical pair” model, i.e., there are two teachers in the classroom (or school): one non-indigenous teacher with a normal educational background and the figure of some indigenous teacher. The indigenous teachers can be defined as the teachers of minorities insofar as they are minoritized/undervalued vis-à-vis the inequality and asymmetry in terms of accessing a series of basic rights, though numerically they represent a significant swath of the regional population. The formative experiences of indigenous teachers are very heterogeneous and differ according to geographical contexts and generations of teachers. Indigenous teachers are charged with teaching the indigenous language and so-called “cultural content,” while the normal grade teacher is in charge of teaching Spanish and the other subjects (mathematics, social sciences, natural sciences, literature, etc.). These teacher roles were designed more for the beginnings of BIE and we are currently facing thoroughly diverse scenarios among Argentina’s provinces, and among the different indigenous peoples within each province.

Regardless of the different sociolinguistic contexts and regions of Argentina, the impact of school interventions for the maintenance or displacement of indigenous languages is undeniable (Censabella et al., 2013; Hecht, 2014). In other words, the sociolinguistic situations of indigenous languages are impacted by pedagogical interventions in schools. Therefore, the present vitality and status of many indigenous languages are linked to the modes of teaching in schools, the place of indigenous languages in the school curriculum and the indigenous teachers’ practices.

Research Objective

From the conceptual framework of educational anthropology and linguistic anthropology, the objective of this chapter is to try to understand current school contexts, based on systematizing the practices of indigenous teachers in relation to the status and management of languages (Toba and Spanish) in classrooms. In other words, this chapter is interested in documenting and understanding the practices of indigenous Toba/Qom teachers for teaching the indigenous language within the framework of BIE schools in Chaco province.

Context of Research

This chapter addresses the particular case of the Toba/Qom people of the province of Chaco (northeast Argentina), which is one of the numerically largest of Argentina (they represent 13.3% of the total national indigenous population). The Toba/Qom belong to the Guaycurú linguistic family. Currently there are an estimated 80,000 individuals who consider themselves Toba in the provinces of Chaco, Formosa, Santa Fe and Buenos Aires (National Institute of Statistics and Censuses [INDEC], 2010). Persons who self-recognize as Toba/Qom residents in Chaco, in only three decades, have reversed the predominance of the indigenous language and the hegemonic language in their bilingualism: from dominance of the Toba language to the present supremacy of Spanish (Hecht, 2010; Medina, 2014; Messineo, 2003).

In Chaco province at the end of the ‘80s, when the specific rights for indigenous peoples began to be generalized, these were embodied in a pioneering, integral Law on the indigenous question (Ley N° 3258/1989). In those years, as regards schooling, the central concerns of indigenous families and of school institutions called for an intervention that facilitated the communication of Toba/Qom children with the teaching staff during their time in school, as for the majority of them the indigenous language was their first language, and their first contact with Spanish took place at school (Messineo, 1989). At that time, the figure of the minority indigenous teacher occupied the key role within BIE because it officiated as translator/mediator between the school, the community and the children given that it was its intervention that sought to bridge that linguistic distance between children – centrally monolingual in Toba – and non-indigenous teachers – speakers of Spanish only.

In recent decades, this scenario changed radically in the province of Chaco. The Toba/Qom language is losing vitality and is no longer the privileged means of communication in families’ private settings, but rather Spanish has installed itself as the language of day-to-day life (Censabella, 1999; Hecht, 2012; Medina, 2014; Messineo, 2003). Currently, Toba/Qom children entering school practically do not speak the native language, thus leaving it in a condition of vulnerability. At present, with the aim of teaching the indigenous language, indigenous teachers have special hours dedicated to the subject “Toba language and culture.” This class works on writing in the native language and teaches knowledge linked to the indigenous worldview that is considered significant to the people, such as legends, mythology, outdoor resources, traditional music, artisanal products, etc. Given that there is no uniform curricular design as to what content to teach in this space, that which is registered varies greatly according to the minority teachers’ profiles, the school institutions’ characteristics and the demands or requirements of the indigenous fathers/mothers.

In the case of Chaco, bilingualism was handled in different ways over time: from a transitional model, at the beginning, to the aspiration to an additive model currently.Footnote 1 Although promising legislation regulating BIE has emerged in the last thirty years, its application in projects and concrete actions depends exclusively on the will of local governments and even on the initiative of teachers and school administrators or on the demands and claims of indigenous parents (Hecht, 2015, 2020).

Since the implementation of BIE in Chaco (from the late ‘80s to the present), far from maintaining or increasing the amount of Toba speakers, different sociolinguistic diagnoses performed by specialists and speakers themselves have coincided in indicating that the vitality of this language is in jeopardy (Censabella, 1999; Medina, 2014; Messineo, 2003). That is, an accelerated process of language shift in favor of Spanish is evidenced, most of all in the cities where a large percentage of this population lives and in the majority of daily communicative events in which the children and youth participate (Hecht, 2010). In spite of efforts to value the indigenous language in schools, the social stereotype that denigrates the status of ethno-linguistic minorities’ languages continues to predominate, at the same time that the majority language is treated with prestige as the vehicle for social development. Hence, though the BIE models in Chaco have been generalized and consolidated through legislation that promotes the validity of indigenous languages, they are nonetheless “threatened.”

The correlation between these sociolinguistics aspects and school practices within the BIE framework still needs to be investigated. This chapter focuses on the repercussions of this change in bilingual communicative practices in the daily experiences of school institutions, surveying first and foremost the role of minority Toba/Qom teachers, and Toba Language status.

Methodology

The general research that I conduct on the Toba/Qom people began in the year 2002. However, during the first fourteen years I took as empirical reference a community in the province of Buenos Aires that is the product of migration from Chaco to the metropolitan area. From 2016 to 2019, I have focused my fieldwork in one school situated in a Toba/Qom neighborhood in the heart of Chaco province. Therefore, while the corpus of this chapter appears to be brief, it bears mentioning that it is part of a further-reaching research trajectory.

The fieldwork is composed of a corpus of thirty-six in-depth interviews with indigenous teachers (men and women between 27 and 60 years old) and more than forty-eight records of observations of classes dedicated to the teaching of the Toba/Qom language in different levels of education. The interviews were mainly oriented to characterize: ideas about the indigenous language, teaching practices, school trajectories and contexts of language use (Toba and Spanish).

Along with the interviews, I conducted class observations in one school, at different school levels and in different subjects, although priority was given to indigenous language classes. The observations focused on: teacher behaviours and activities; linguistic interactions of adults with each other and of adults with children; and ways of teaching in different subjects. All information was recorded on audio and/or video and recorded in field diaries and photographs.

Likewise, I complement this information with that from observations of daily routines in extracurricular contexts, recorded through field notes, which offer contextual information of interest for framing the interpretation of narrative of the interviewees and class records.

In terms of ethics, I worked with the informed consent of all subjects in this research. This ethnographic field material is exhaustive and, although it does not claim to be statistically representative, it brings together a set of situations that account for common aspects in BIE schools in Chaco.

Results and Discussion

To understand the daily bilingual communicative practices at the heart of a BIE school, nothing better than to read ethnographic field notes resulting from observation of a Toba/Qom teacher’s class. It bears mentioning that this is not an isolated record, selected for its specificity or originality. Quite the contrary, this record is repetitive, just like many other results of years of observation of classes in which the same questions as will be analyzed below were always surveyed. I agree with Rockwell (2009) in that we see how representative what we survey is, from among things that frequently occur, thanks to prolonged fieldwork which is what allows us to appreciate recurrences. That is why these field notes condense all those recurrences and deserve to be the focus of our analysis:

I am in the third grade of the Public Primary School of Indigenous Community Management, and in the entrance there is a sign that reads No’on ra Qarviraxac (Welcome). Most of the students are from the Toba neighborhood where the school is located; however, there are several criollo (non-indigenous) children from adjacent neighborhoods. Inside the classroom there are some posters about oral hygiene in Spanish, about school anniversaries in Qom and some letters of the acechedario (Qom alphabet). Sergio, the teacher, is very patient with the children, he gives them ample time for each activity and there is an environment of happiness in the classroom. A constant bustle accompanies the daily work. Sergio does not sit at the head of the class, but rather in the back. As the children work, they come near to show him their progress and in a gentle tone he congratulates them and urges them to continue. All the interactions are in Spanish, and at times there seems to be a stray Qom word uttered by a child telling a joke, as the reactions of the other children are to laugh shyly as accomplices. At one point Sergio says, “Open your mother language workbook, we’re going to look at the Qom language.” Then on the blackboard he writes an enormous bilingual list with terms of kinship: mother, grandmother, grandfather, father, brother, uncle. The proposal consists of the children copying what is written and reading it collectively under the guiding voice of the teacher. This is the moment in which one can detect the ethnic belonging of some children, whom Sergio personally calls on to participate with phrases like: “Come on, Nayra, your grandfather talks in Qom a lot,” “Nicolás, don’t laugh, it’s our language,” and “Look at how well Julia reads and she’s not Qom.” Spanish predominates even in this subject as the explanations and instructions are given in that language. (Author field notes, June 2017)

The conceptual framework that this research is set in takes up anew the contributions of educational anthropology and linguistic anthropology, insofar as it is interested in the place of linguistic practices as social practices in a specific socio-scholastic context. In this sense, for the analysis of this record I must point out at least two large dimensions that I will analyze separately. Therefore, this section will be divided into three subsections to exhaustively systematize the different aspects that are condensed in this ethnographic record. These are, on the one hand, the teacher’s practice in relation to the use and teaching of the Toba language; and, on the other hand, the status of the indigenous language inside the classroom. Lastly, both aspects are linked with the purpose of rethinking the scope of schooling for linguistic maintenance.

Monolingual Teachers for Bilingual Intercultural Education?

The first dimension refers to the practice of the teacher in relation to the use and teaching of the Toba language. In this respect, I can also point out two aspects: one in terms of their role and another with regard to their linguistic competencies. As concerns the former, in many contexts the task of indigenous teachers is to teach the indigenous language to indigenous children who do not speak the language and possess very uneven levels of competence (some understand, others produce isolated phrases, others yet neither speak nor comprehend). Their role has shifted from promoting literacy in the indigenous language to revitalizing, recovering and strengthening the language in children who self-recognize as indigenous, yet who are not speakers.

In that sense, the teachers experience a certain lack of curricular content to be taught because their function is more precisely to raise awareness among students that they are indigenous and the language is inscribed as just another diacritic of that identification. In that regard, it is important to textually quote an indigenous teacher reflecting on their role in the current contexts in which fewer and fewer children speak the indigenous language:

(Teachers) are the fundamental pillars for teaching children that they are not speakers of their own language. And it is a right and it is an identity. Because we as indigenous teachers can’t not teach the language, which with time is disappearing and we’re to blame for not teaching the Qom language at school to our indigenous children. (Interview with a teacher, September 2018)

In their role as teachers, the use of the indigenous language as a means of communication of teachers with students is clearly discarded. The teacher-student interactions are in Spanish, and at most one can observe the use of the Toba language in certain abetting conversations among bilingual teachers, though outside the classroom space (as, for example, in the teachers’ lounge or in the courtyard). In the “Toba Language” classes the Qom teachers interact with the children in Spanish and the Toba language becomes an object of reference.

Minority teachers shifted from being fluid bilingual speakers to possessing fewer competencies in the indigenous language than in Spanish; thus, their teaching function is no longer to generate literacy in the indigenous language. The minimal linguistic competence in the native language of many teachers becomes rather evident in these classes, as there is a notable constraint on the contents they can teach. Therefore, as specialists have already warned previously (Biord Castillo, 2018; Meek & Messing, 2007; Suina, 2004), the decisions made by teachers while intervening in the use of language can end up undermining the possibility of minority community empowerment and hinder development of communicative competence without achieving a reversal of language replacement.

As I have documented in prior work, one of the most notable characteristics of those currently studying to become indigenous teachers and of recent graduates is their limited communicative competence in the Toba language as opposed to teachers of an older age (Artieda & Barboza, 2016; Enriz et al., 2017; Hecht, 2015; Hecht & Schmidt, 2016). Many Toba/Qom teachers indicate that the basic notions they have of the native language were learned only when they studied to become teachers. That is, these teachers undergo a process of recovery of the native language in their professional training, as in many cases they represent a first or second generation that does not speak Toba as their first language and they have varying levels of competence (some produce simple utterances, others merely comprehend, others manage to pronounce some words and others neither speak nor comprehend).

Teachers who are not speakers of Qom while teaching it tend to develop very limited and simple didactic plans, which greatly adhere to writing and let oral production fall by the wayside. Yet this is not an isolated phenomenon, but rather part of the historical intervention BIE was intended to have in indigenous languages. These teaching perspectives centered on writing conceive of language as a homogenous code and of the purpose of teaching it as the simple fact that the student acquires this code (Rebolledo, 2014). The pedagogy seems to be centered on the code, while in a context of language replacement as that of Toba, a pedagogy that focuses on use would be important (Rebolledo, 2014).

Likewise, as argued by Sichra (2005), worldwide, linguistic policies on indigenous languages have been guided by the objective of the written form of said languages and this has redounded in certain obstacles in day-to-day school activities. In other words, teaching indigenous languages in schools entailed the development of their writing systems (unified and agreed by consensus) and, consequently, a certain discrediting of orality. However, the founded methodological proposals theoretically postulate an oral phase prior to writing in language learning processes, and those considerations are currently being omitted in BIE (López, 2015). Discarding orality in school linguistic planning is an affront against the modes of circulation and use of indigenous languages themselves, which are of an oral tradition. That is, indigenous languages have historically maintained their vitality through orality; therefore, current linguistic ideologies that associate “language maintenance” with “writing” end up jeopardizing their daily use. Communication has always encompassed much more than normalized and written language (Hornberger, 2014).

In the “Toba Language” classes, surveyed through participatory observation, only writing is exercised – some vocabulary from a specific semantic field or greeting formulas – and there is no real communicative context. For example, Figs. 15.1 and 15.2 show what was written by certain teachers during their classes in which grammar and lexicon are treated as the central topic. It should be added that this manner of conducting the class is not only constrained by the teacher’s scant bilingual competence, but also because no didactic materials exist that the teacher can rely on to fulfill their task. Therefore, the language-teaching planning is dependent on the minority teacher’s expertise in their classes, generating great inequality in the type of teaching received by the children based on the linguistic competence of the teacher in charge of the course. The indigenous teachers’ practices are conditioned by the contact they have had with the indigenous language in their life experiences (according to their age group, place of birth and/or residence, family of origin, etc.).

Fig. 15.1
A photograph of a blackboard with text written in a foreign language.

Blackboard with the notes of the class of the teacher Toba/Qom

Full size image
Fig. 15.2
A photograph of a blackboard with text written in a foreign language.

Blackboard with the notes of the class of the Toba/Qom teacher

Full size image

Minority Language, from School Subject to Object?

The second analyzed dimension refers to the status of the Toba language in the classroom, which in this case appears to have two senses: one that is associated with its functionality and another that is more symbolic. In the field notes I read that the indigenous language is included as a subject, since a specific curricular space exists that is aimed at teaching the language and aspects of the indigenous culture. While conducting this fieldwork, I have recorded classes in which the “mother language” or “Qom language” or “qom laqtaqa” is taught as a separate subject independent of the school curriculum. According to other research on this matter, in the interactional dynamic of these classes there is a prevalence of bilingual uses and a metalinguistic use of the indigenous language that is the object of study, though not necessarily the vehicular language (Censabella et al., 2013). Coincidentally, in the Qom language classes in which I participated, I detected that the interactions and communications were produced in Spanish and Qom was used above all in written form and perhaps in reading aloud. That is, as stated in the field notes, the blackboard was used to write lists of greetings, family-related vocabulary or the names of plants and animals (Figs. 15.1 and 15.2). Teaching of the language is conceived as an isolated lexicon and the pedagogical activity consisted in the children copying what was written and collectively reading it under the teacher’s guidance.

In my field experience, I also surveyed that the indigenous language occupies a place as a symbol within school institutions, i.e., although the language is not habitually used by the students, it is invoked as a symbolic resource for identity. In these cases its use is materialized in posters, drawings and the use of greeting formulas or expressions referring to the weather (Figs. 15.3 and 15.4). In contrast with the practices of the minority teachers analyzed in the previous section in which I documented the scarce use of the language as a means of communication in terms of orality, there was an overabundance of the written language in the schools. Figures such as 15.3 and 15.4 are just a sample of the visual omnipresence of the indigenous language writing in institutional contexts. The reified language in written words is a constant presence and an indisputable emblem of BIE schools.

Fig. 15.3
A photograph of a woman reading a paper on a microphone A group of people is at the back, and a woman standing at the side holds a flag. There is a tapestry with text in a foreign language and a painting in the background.

School event with scenery in Toba/Qom language

Full size image
Fig. 15.4
A photograph of a whiteboard. A few posters are pasted around the billboard with text written in a foreign language.

Bilingual billboard in school (Toba/Qom – Spanish)

Full size image

All of those cases present symbolic uses of the indigenous language in the midst of a dominant sociolinguistic exchange in Spanish within the school. These situations are clearly exemplified in the fragment of class transcribed and in the reiterated notes compiled in which the children copy indigenous language words into their notebooks (even without understanding their meaning) – for example, what the weather is like (rainy, sunny, cloudy) (Figs. 15.1, 15.2, 15.3 and 15.4). Also very recurrent is the use of the Toba language at the start of all school events in which significant historical anniversaries are commemorated, as a way of marking the indigenous spirit of the event. In my field notes on school events at BIE educational institutions, there are reiterated descriptions of how on those special days the school is decorated with posters offering welcoming messages in the indigenous language and all the events begin with a greeting in the indigenous language, and usually a community or religious authority is invited who tends to give an opening speech in the native language. Such an example appears in Fig. 15.3, in which the flag of the indigenous peoples is accompanied by speeches of referents of the indigenous community, whereby they enter the school and occupy a space that they do not normally have in the school’s day-to-day routine.

In synthesis, the status of the Toba language in the classroom is reified and reduced to the formal structure of language, and at most occupies a symbolic place as the patrimonial language of heritage. Thus, coinciding with the assessments of Suina (2004), it seems that native languages have not yet found the place they deserve in schools, especially if we do not begin to question that language is not an abstract identity, but is updated through the practices of its speakers (Vigil, 2011). The Toba language class is reduced and limited to the discursive resources of Spanish. In this regard, we have contributions such as those of Meek and Messing (2007) who have warned us of the dangers of the indigenous/minority language being reduced to the logic of the hegemonic/majority language. In other words, if the dominant language is the matrix for teaching the “endangered” indigenous language, it will be difficult for the latter to be revalued in those communicative routines. The framing of the hegemonic language does nothing but reaffirm the asymmetrical and unequal power relations between the languages and their speakers.

Indigenous Languages Versus the School?

Though schools historically appear to have been the place where non-official languages were banished, currently they present themselves as the space for revitalizing them. Schools are assigned great power of action over languages, both as a result of their negative and positive power: they go from being the instrument for eradicating non-dominant languages, to being the place for their maintenance and revitalization due to their inclusion in teaching programs (Hagège, 2002; López, 2015; Moya, 2012; Suina, 2004). That is, the possible repercussions that school institutions have on the possibilities of linguistic rejection or maintenance due to simply including them in the curriculum is overstated. The mere presence of the minority language in classrooms is potentially necessary though not sufficient for linguistic vitality.

With respect to this last point, the presence of the minority language in the school is not sufficient precisely because it depends on the teachers’ daily practices. The teachers exert influence not only through their classes and teaching methods, but rather also in their daily routines related to the use of languages. That is to say, whether or not they speak in the indigenous language with their students and colleagues, whether they identify their ethnic belonging with a certain language, whether they learned the indigenous language during childhood or whether they only developed their linguistic competencies while studying to become a teacher, among other aspects. The reflections on the practices of minority indigenous teachers within the classrooms of BIE schools have not been addressed with the depth that they deserve. Oftentimes, the BIE policies (and even the very indigenous peoples) have conformed themselves with the mere inclusion of the indigenous language in the school curriculum, disparaging the importance and influence of the trajectories and training of the indigenous teachers for the development of those languages.

Furthermore, there are other out-of-school areas of use that should also be stimulated (religious, communications media, domestic, among many others) (Sánchez Avendaño, 2012). Therefore, schools, like any social institution, can contribute to the linguistic maintenance of those languages subjected to hegemonic powers, though not necessarily through pedagogical actions, but rather through the positive effects entailed by their presence in terms of the linguistic-cultural valuing and prestige of that language community.

Conclusions and Implications

This chapter is an approximation to a very complex issue as is the role, the expectations and the challenges of Toba/Qom indigenous teachers in the current sociolinguistic context of Chaco, where it is evident that the dominant bilingualism of Toba has been inverted to Spanish. My review of how change in the scenarios of vitality of indigenous languages impacts teachers’ functions has caused multiple questions to arise. Indigenous teachers emerged to address the communicative barriers between indigenous languages and Spanish, though at present this is no longer so because the children’s requirements and teachers’ profiles have been modified. Even the premise and basic aptitude for every bilingual educator has been challenged, to wit: that they be truly bilingual. Contrarily, I have surveyed complex sociolinguistic competencies of teachers, with diverse bilingual mastery of the indigenous language; therefore, it seems that it is an outstanding debt that such work be in favor of bilingualism.

Minority indigenous teachers charged with teaching the indigenous language are in their majority not speakers thereof because they belong to subalternized sectors that underwent complex processes of social submission and linguistic displacement by Spanish. This is a very complex problem set since it evinces the chasm that exists between what is planned in school legislation and that which can be observed through ethnographic fieldwork in indigenous schools. That is, there is an ostensible distance between what is postulated as part of the design of an educational policy whose aim is to address the linguistic and social needs of Argentina’s indigenous peoples and what actually occurs with teachers in the current framework of “bilingual and intercultural” schools.

As is well noted by Acuña (2010), BIE in Argentina, despite its name, has failed to ensure bilingualism itself as it is something that must be planned, built up and not taken for granted. Furthermore, this is especially so in indigenous contexts, where teaching the children’s language is not only a pedagogical issue, but is the recognition of a right (Vigil, 2011). Hence, in order to keep ‘bilingual’ and ‘intercultural’ from becoming empty or ornamental adjectives for schools in the indigenous education category, it is necessary to contemplate:

The fundamental role of teachers in implementing any educational innovation (…). Without the support and conviction of teachers, BIE runs the risk of getting stuck in political and academic discourse and, although it may lead to a few interesting actions, it will not effect the radical change that is desired and necessary. Given that its main sphere of application is still schools, this is the place where teachers can contribute to strengthening the processes of social change that the communities are demanding. (Serrudo, 2010, p. 269)

Since the incorporation of indigenous teachers into the educational system, there have been many uncertainties about the requirements demanded of them as educators and, as a result, they have been charged with different interventions over the years, without this having been accompanied by the training received. The training program for indigenous teachers has stayed the same since its creation, impervious to changes in the use of the native language and the expansion of Spanish. For that reason, the teachers find themselves lacking the tools to confront the new sociolinguistic reality that both their students and they themselves face.

At present the revitalization of the patrimonial language is associated with writing and, hence, with school (Hecht, 2012). But the fossilization of writing does not allow to amplify the conception of bilingualism as something dynamic, associated with orality, which emerges in heterogeneous competencies and uses, and in intimate connection with identity. In my case, all that which is related to the orality of indigenous languages is not considered content to be addressed in BIE schools. In the contexts I observed through the ethnographic fieldwork, I can highlight the symbolic presence of the indigenous language (in greetings, signage, school events, formal presentations, etc.) and the reified language as a subject that is alien to the interactional dynamic. The Toba language is not used as a means through which the teachers communicate with the children, but rather as an emblem or diacritic of heritage.

This language conception is not BIE’s only currently outstanding debt, but rather it finds itself at a crossroads since it needs to evolve from being a discursive reality to a factual one. To that end, it must redefine its goals and beneficiaries, taking into account the accumulated potential of indigenous movements’ experiences, advances in terms of the methodologies for teaching languages and the scope that interculturality is having in relation to quality of education (Biord Castillo, 2018; Hecht, 2014, 2016; Valiente Catter, 2011). BIE must not be understood as an end in itself, but a means to produce changes in society (Dietz, 2012). Therefore, it is fundamental that we rethink BIE as an educational policy, to keep it from being a subordinate project within the official system, but to do so we need not only to answer pedagogical questions, but also political ones (Alonso & Díaz, 2004). As Hornberger (2014) put it, multilingual education is potentially an ample and fortuitous doorway toward the recuperation of oppressed peoples and the overcoming of colonial conditions that have so obstinately pursued us through to our times.

That is, BIE has to be recognized as a field of rights that were fought for and won by indigenous collectives. It is impossible to proceed as if schools were isolated from the historical and socio-cultural context, thus omitting the inferiorization and subordination that affect indigenous groups. This decolonizing focus is important because it allows for a break with colonialist discourses that cancel out differences. Therefore, in future research it is important that the problems to be studied help reverse that socio-educational inequality that affects indigenous peoples and permit collaboration for the maintenance of the linguistic-cultural heritage of their peoples.