Indigenous women: experiences and meanings about the university

Abstract

Our research topic is the result of the second part of a study with indigenous women at the Universidad Autónoma Chapingo (UACh). The study analyzes the motives that led indigenous students to study a major at the UACh, their admission to the university, personal and academic obstacles in their stay at the university, and finally their personal and professional expectations. It is a qualitative, exploratory, descriptive research conducted under the phenomenological method. In-depth interviews were applied to nine indigenous women students of the UACh. The interviews were processed using Atlas ti 8.4 software, a program that facilitates the qualitative analysis of textual data. The methodological analysis of the results is based on the phenomenological posture, whose primary interest is centered on the individual's experience. We concluded that there are a variety of expectations and meanings around the university, and that these students expect to contribute to their families and communities of origin at the end of their studies.