Higher education and ethnicity: A case study with Aymara students

We aim to understand the strategies that Aymara students have developed to overcome the vulnerability in access and permanence in higher education. For Aymara students, references external to the institution act as protection factors of the support network that decisively determine their adaptation to the educational environment. Methodologically, this study accounts for a case study in northern Chile regions, using biographical interviews to build the narrative regarding the university experience of the students. Main highlights establish that though ethnic–racial and socioeconomic dimensions intersect in the significance of student's vulnerability important sources of identity reinforce their resilience, subjectivities, and empowerment processes. We conclude that the learning experience is not developed exclusively in the educational institution, but it is the socioaffective space linked to the peers, the family and the community which have a decisive role, which in the case of the Aymara students, acquires an intercultural nature.