Explaining and overcoming marginalization in education: a focus on ethnic/language minorities in Peru

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss empirical information on the educational opportunities and outcomes of indigenous speaking children as compared to their Spanishspeaking counterparts in Peru. This paper is organized as follows: after this brief introduction we present several social and economic indicators for indigenous and Spanish-speakers in Peru. The third section presents descriptive information on diverse educational outcomes for these groups and a multivariate analysis of the determinants of achievement, decomposing the factors that predict the gap between indigenous and Spanish-speakers. The fourth section describes intercultural bilingual policies and its implementation. The final section presents some preliminary conclusions and suggestions for further research and policies. For the analysis we rely on several secondary data sources; however all estimates presented below were calculated by the authors. References to previous studies on relevant topics, performed in Peru and Latin America, are included throughout the paper.