Initial University Teacher Training in Cultural Diversity. Perspectives from the Araucanía region in Chile

This research aims to contribute in the comprehension of the complexity of initial teacher training in cultural diversity, in order to re-think teacher training programs in this field. The main focus is in the knowledge construction from the meanings and senses that teachers and students in pedagogy develop from their initial training experiences around cultural diversity, identifying the conditions that allow or block these learning processes from their own perspective.

Therefore, this study embraces a methodological approach between Phenomenology and Grounded Theory, since it assumes the value of the subjects being investigated as protagonists of the social and cultural contexts they belong, both for its special-temporal distribution, and for the assumption that it is the subject who constructs and give meaning to its own reality.

An intentional sample of 24 teachers and 23 students was designed; these subjects were closer to the studied phenomenon, and developed their activities in a university of the Araucanía region in Chile. The main research technique in this qualitative study has been in depth interviews. Fruit of the constant comparative analysis and the sample diversity, different dimensions and elements that characterize initial teacher training in cultural diversity are identified, as well as a diversity of perspectives with respect each one of them, from the own voices of the participants and their meaning of living this training in this sociocultural context.

The results show the social factors and educational policies that influence in the construction of concepts of cultural diversity to educate in culturally diverse societies. Both aspects have an impact in the training itinerary design of the pedagogy students, as well as an impact on the place and form that cultural diversity has within it.

Hence, the main conclusions are oriented to the understanding of these meanings where the figure of the university teacher and its education arises as a transversal condition to assume the challenges of an initial training in cultural diversity; at the same time, the idea of teachers as agents of change in teacher training in general is reinforced. As well as guidelines to consider in designing a program that assumes FID cultural diversity