Concepciones del profesorado de ciencias de secundaria y media sobre la sensibilidad intercultural en el fenómeno migratorio: un estudio exploratorio en cinco ecorregiones culturales de Colombia

Abstract

This research is situated within the field of intercultural science education and addresses the need to understand how lower- and upper-secondary science teachers conceive of and mobilize intercultural sensitivity in relation to migration within school contexts shaped by cultural diversity and difference. In Colombia, both internal and international migration dynamics have created settings that directly challenge pedagogical practices and the frameworks through which science is taught. The study aims to characterize science teachers’ conceptions of intercultural sensitivity in relation to migration across five cultural ecoregions of the country. To this end, an exploratory-interpretive approach was adopted through a sequential mixed-methods design (qualitative–quantitative), building on previous work conducted by Interculturalidad, Ciencia y Tecnología Research Group (INTERCITEC). During the exploratory phase (qualitative), three semi-structured interviews based on eliciting situations were conducted. The resulting narratives were analyzed through coding and systematization processes that made it possible to identify meanings, tensions, and contradictions in the participating teachers’ discourse. During the systematization phase (quantitative), a Likert-scale questionnaire was designed, validated, and administered to 519 teachers across the country. The data were subjected to principal component analysis (PCA), which enabled the identification of collective patterns of thought and the configuration of the emerging conceptions. The findings revealed seven teacher conceptions: pedagogical–humanizing–intercultural, dialogical–knowledge-integrating, socio-environmental, and language–interculturality tension (oriented toward intercultural openness); functional–assimilationist and scientistic–standardizing (intermediate positions); and school-based–ethnocentric–exclusionary (an expression of cultural denial or resistance). Taken together, these conceptions constitute a field of dynamic tensions surrounding migration. The analysis across the Fluviomining Caribbean, Central Andean, Fluviomining Pacific–Valle del Cauca, Paisa, and Santander cultural ecoregions revealed a predominance of the pedagogical–humanizing–intercultural and dialogical–knowledge-integrating conceptions in all territories. By contrast, the scientistic–standardizing and school-based–ethnocentric–exclusionary conceptions remained at mild levels of denial, whereas the functional–assimilationist conception varied in intensity, particularly in the Santander cultural ecoregion. Overall, a cross-cutting tendency toward conceptions of intercultural openness was observed, with nuances in the intermediate and resistance positions. It is concluded that intercultural sensitivity is not a fixed competence but rather a relational and territorially contextualized configuration whose intensity varies across ecoregions, although it remains predominantly oriented toward intercultural openness. This configuration is shaped by institutional conditions associated with teachers’ professional and educational trajectories, as well as by the curricular and cultural frameworks within which meanings concerning migration and the recognition of diversity in science education are negotiated. The study contributes a critical understanding of science education as a non-neutral space and offers relevant conceptual and methodological references for teacher education, curriculum design, and the formulation of intercultural education policies.