Paper short abstract:

Attention is a critical point in the school learning of indigenous children, since the school does not always consider the cultural attention that they use to learn. This occurs with rural Mapuche children who have sustained social attention and that the school system omits as a form of learning.

Paper long abstract:

The cognitive abilities of children are variable and adaptable to the contexts in which they develop (Keller & Kärtner, 2013). Considering this, this study looked for the differences in attention between Mapuche children from rural, urban and non-Mapuche urban areas, aged 9 up to 11 years, from Chile.

The attention it is a critical point in school learning that children with heritage indigenous have, since they must share the efforts to have sustained attention, with a selective attention (related to school) (Correa-Chávez, Rogoff & Mejía-Arauz, 2005).

Based on the study by Correa-Chávez and Rogoff (2009), the children were present at the demonstration of how to build a toy, but without an interaction directed to them. Mapuche rural children (whose mothers have an average of 9 years of Western schooling; 19 couples) had more sustained attention than non-Mapuche children (whose mothers average 13 years of Western schooling; 19 couples), and more than urban Mapuche children (whose mothers have an average of 12 years of participation in Western schooling; 13 couples). In addition, the urban non-Mapuche children interrupted more frequently than the other children.

The results are consistent with the research developed under the LOPI model, which shows that the organization of learning in indigenous communities emphasizes attention and observation in ongoing interactions (López et al., 2010). The implications of the findings for the theoretical field are discussed.