Abstract:

The aim of the article consists in reveal the pedagogical beliefs about teaching, learning and assessment that underlie to the classroom practices in a rural Mapuche school, in the Araucanía region, Chile. This work corresponds to a case study that subscribes in educational research. The participants are teachers who work from transition level to 6th grade in the subject of Language and Communication and History, Geography and Social Sciences. To collect information about teacher beliefs, a questionnaire Likert scale was used. In addition, classes were observed using ethnographic records for a content analysis. From the results of the test, it appears that coexist in the thinking of the teaching staff contradictions about teaching, learning and assessment beliefs from behavioral and constructivist educational approaches. However, observing the classroom practices a behavioral approach prevails with decontextualized rural and Mapuche activities, centered on teachers, in the reproduction of information and emphasizing the summative evaluation as learning results. In conclusion, this case reflects that in classroom predominate behavioral of teachers over those representations associated with constructivist approach.

Keywords:  pedagogical beliefs; behavioral approach; constructivist approach; rural education; teacher beliefs; mapuche community; Chile.