The policies and politics of Indigenous education in Peru

This chapter examines the trajectory of language-in-education policies for Indigenous language speakers from the early twentieth century through to current times, in Peru. Attention is paid to the effect on Indigenous education programmes of the changing political junctures over the period: from a view of education as a matter of “civilising the Indian”, through the neoliberal multiculturalism of the 1990s, the anti-Indigenous turn of the new millennium, to the more diverse politics of today. An ethnographic study of teachers’ responses to policy implementation is included, and the problematic nature of language mapping as a basis for language rights legislation is highlighted.