Análisis de las prácticas y discursos de las IES sobre la interculturalidad y su impacto psicosocial en estudiantes y docentes indígenas, de universidades privadas en la ciudad de Quito durante el 2025.

Abstract

The research aims to analyze the practices and discourses on interculturality in private Higher Education Institutions in the city of Quito and their psychosocial impact on Indigenous students and faculty during the year 2025. Although interculturality is part of universities institutional discourse, tensions persist between its normative formulation and its implementation in everyday practices, which affect experiences of belonging, recognition and well-being among Indigenous students and faculty. The study seeks to understand, from a qualitative descriptive-interpretive approach, the practices and discourse related to interculturality, favoring the production of situated knowledge based on the lived experiences and narratives of Indigenous students and faculty. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, allowing the identification of perceptions, meanings, and experiences associated with the interculturality, as well as the ways in which institutional discourses are translated-or not- into concrete practices within the university context. The findings reveal a gap between the intercultural discourses promoted by private Higher Education Institutions and the practices implemented, generating psychosocial impacts associated with feelings of exclusion, increased adaptative efforts and cultural devaluation. In this sense, responsibility for adaptation largely falls on indigenous individuals, in the absence of sufficient institutional strategies that recognize and value cultural diversity