A critical, environmental and intercultural education model based on Latin American indigenous worldviews is a hopeful alternative to the narrow, capitalist-oriented SDG for education

This article looks at the problems with the global United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4) on education. The authors argue that SDG4 pushes a narrow view of education that mainly serves the interests of a capitalist "development" system. As an alternative, they suggest that indigenous Latin American ways of knowing, called "Epistemologies of the South", can support a better model – a critical environmental and intercultural education.

The article contrasts two educational models in Latin America. The study employs a qualitative approach combining secondary research and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork. The authors conducted extensive literature reviews on critical intercultural education, Latin American critical environmental thought, and epistemologies of the South. The ethnographic component involved prolonged fieldwork with the Qom people in Rosario, Argentina, and the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico. Data collection methods included participant observation, individual and group interviews, and analysis of documentary materials. In total, 35 interviews were conducted with Qom community members, and the Zapatista fieldwork spanned two decades, involving dialogical relationships with adults, youth, and children, as well as educational interventions and teacher training activities.

The first model studied is Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) for Qom people in Rosario, Argentina. This state-designed model is criticized as "functional interculturality" that fails to challenge systemic inequalities. Despite some progress, it remains a "ghetto school" model that isolates indigenous students and knowledge, perpetuating racism and “epistemic violence”. It neglects Qom ecological knowledge and fails to address the interconnection between ecosystem destruction and cultural oppression.

The second model studied is autonomous Zapatista education in Chiapas, Mexico. This grassroots model represents "critical interculturality" designed from within indigenous communities. It rejects state control, instead basing education on Zapatista political demands and Mayan culture. Key features include community-elected teachers accountable to local assemblies, curriculum emphasizing indigenous knowledge, history, and agro-ecological practices, a focus on defending territory and sustaining life, and integration with the broader Zapatista autonomy project.

The Zapatista schools provide inspiration for rethinking education beyond typical schooling focused on economic development. They point to Latin American Indigenous visions of education centered on the interdependence of diverse ecosystems and cultures. Paying attention to these "undiscovered possibilities" hidden by academic blind spots can help construct alternatives coming from non-Western peoples themselves. Implications for educators include a need to critically examine how curricula and teaching practices might reinforce neoliberal ideologies or perpetuate cultural biases; the integration of more diverse perspectives and knowledge systems into the classroom, particularly those of Indigenous American and minoritized communities; increasing student voice in curriculum development and school governance; and making education more relevant to local environmental and social issues.