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University of Wyoming

Rios receives Fulbright Scholar Award

College of Education faculty member Francisco Rios faced an interesting teaching challenge during his recent Fulbright exchange to Chile: sharing experiences and ideas for introducing multicultural education to an academic community where the concept remains, with some notable exceptions, largely unexplored.

   Rios, professor of educational studies, spent five months at Catholic University of Valparaiso. While there, he split his time between teaching and research on multicultural education and came to appreciate the special challenges facing educators there who wish to address issues of diversity.

    “It’s (Chile) geographically isolated and, because of that, it’s also culturally isolated,” he says.  Issues raised around diversity have largely been localized to date.

   “Most of that push is coming from the indigenous communities,” he says. “They don’t have quite the history of race relation issues that we have here in the United States that always keeps issues of culture and diversity on the table.”

   “The larger questions for them center around class – questions of poverty, which are much more observable in nearly every community, are more of a central issue.”

   However, Rios found ample evidence of growing interest in addressing multicultural issues in schools. Contributing to the open environment is national focus on education reform.

   “They are engaging in a national dialogue around developing standards and a national curriculum, along with considering all of the implications for teacher education,” Rios says.

   It was in that environment that Francisco taught an undergraduate class, facilitated workshops for university faculty and school teachers, and engaged in research focusing on multicultural education in Latin America.

   Rios taught a course on international perspectives of multicultural education during his visit. Most of the 30 undergraduates enrolled in the class were Chilean; one student came from Colombia, and another four were North Americans participating in study abroad programs.

   “They were very open to talking about diversity,” he says of his students. “They were very interested in seeing how other Latin American countries looked at multicultural education.”

   The classroom environment was intellectually rich. Chileans are politically astute and great critical thinkers, according to Rios. Having the perspectives of students from other settings also fostered lively discussions.

   Francisco adopted a posture of curiosity in responding to requests for peer workshops. Sessions with fellow faculty members and public workshops with K-12 teachers were treated as sharing sessions, where he offered himself as a resource and facilitator. Rios tried to respond to every request for such forums for exchange of ideas. While not officially part of his Fulbright responsibilities, he says they were welcome opportunities to discuss common interests and concerns.

   Rios engaged his students as fellow researchers in work designed to profile multicultural education in Latin America. Students and Francisco investigated efforts in 12 countries, beginning with a core set of questions. They drew upon existing resources, including information available from libraries and the Internet, to profile each country. Those profiles opened at a broad, national scale and narrowed to include examples of programs that exist at individual institutions. In the process, the research team created a useful work describing Latin American efforts to provide multicultural education. It also created a rich learning environment for the researchers themselves, offering a fresh perspective on how other countries have approached the issue.

   “We tried to make sense of how that country understood multicultural education,” he says of the student-produced profiles. In the process, “They (the students) had a sense of what was possible for their own country.”

   Rios’ family accompanied him to Chile. Finding time to appreciate Chilean culture and to explore neighboring countries was a high priority. The family traveled to such destinations as Buenos Aires, Peru and southern Chile. They journeyed south along the western slope of the Andes, returning on the eastern (Argentina) side. On alternating weekends, the family took day trips away from Valparaiso to appreciate the local culture and expanded their understanding of Chilean life.

   The Fulbright experience was a rewarding one for Rios.

   “Faculty should seriously take a look at the possibility of going on a Fulbright,” he says, “being able to think, reflect, and share with people – to work with them, live with, and laugh with them as much as possible.”

   The support provided by the Fulbright organization, from Rios’ selection to the family’s return to the U.S., played a major role in making his time in Chile a quality experience.