Immigrant students in the Chilean school system: Interculturality and inclusion

Abstract

According to current estimates, there are 244 million migrants worldwide, corresponding to 3.3% of the world’s population. In the Americas, the number of migrants increased by 36% during the year 2015. The purpose of this bibliographic study was to explore and describe the state of the art of social inclusion of immigrant students in the Chilean school system. The method in this article was a review of scientific evidence updated out in the main databases available MedLine and The Cochranre Library Plus (PubMed, Lilacs, Scielo, EBSCO, Google Scholar), without date restriction, in Spanish, Portuguese and English. There were no restrictions regarding the type of study, without a date limit), 62 articles were selected. The increase of the foreign population in short periods of time exposes the migrant population to difficulties such as living in disorganization, and the need to adapt to the culture and customs of the host society, as well as traumatic events like abuse, discrimination, difficulties in access to health, educational and social services, lack of support networks and social articulation, which can have an impact on the physical and mental health of migrant populations. In Chile, it is still necessary to work to achieve intercultural education; indigenous people are still related to bilingual intercultural education. In conclussion, the diversity is a natural fact, therefore in this context it is suggested to create a vision of a culture of relations between diverse groups. Likewise, topics such as nationalism, identity, institutionalized attitudes of discrimination, xenophobia and racism, that still exist in the national culture, should be addressed.