Chile: Cultural Identity, Social Justice, and Community Development

Explore Chile’s recent political and social history and discover how Chileans are working to reconcile with the past and create a more equitable and culturally inclusive society.

Program Highlights

• Explore how Chileans today are using social, cultural, and political means to achieve representation, communication, and identification.
• Examine the challenges facing Chile’s indigenous peoples.
• Work on a community project with an NGO in Valparaiso.
• Rapidly improve your Spanish.
• Develop on-the-job skills with an internship or conduct independent research during the final four weeks of the semester.
• Witness the debate between truth and justice and reconciliation in the context of the human rights violations during the Pinochet regime.

Please visit the SIT Study Abroad website for details on the program courses (including syllabi), educational excursions, and housing.

Independent Study

During the final four weeks of the program, you can choose to use your new language and cultural skills and the academic knowledge you have acquired to complete an Independent Study Project (ISP) on a topic of interest to you.  You may pursue research that produces a non-traditional ISP, such as a photography exhibit, a video, or another digital or creative platform. Conducted in Valparaíso or in another approved location, the ISP offers you the opportunity to conduct field research under the guidance of an advisor.

Sample Topics:

• Memory and political violence
• Social movements
• Gender and sexuality
• Indigenous beliefs and culture
• Migration and ethnic minorities
• Conflicts, political parties and processes

SIT internships are hands on and reflective. In addition to completing the internship, you will submit a paper processing your learning experience on the job and analyzing an issue important to the organization you worked with, and/or you will design a socially responsible solution to a problem identified by the organization.

Sample Internship sites:
 

• Strengthening vulnerable populations through art, sports, and respect for diversity at School Laguna Verde, a primary school in rural Valparaiso
• Working on political and international issues at think tank Libertad Institute
• Promoting on Chilean students’ mobility and study abroad opportunities with Universidad de Valparaíso International Relations
• Working on human rights issues within vulnerable communities at INCITA Corporation
• Providing advocacy, education, and support for people living with HIV/AIDS at ACCIONGAY
• Supporting indigenous populations through methods based on Mapuche cultural practices at Guacolda, an intercultural high school in Chol Chol

Key Topics of Study

• Chile’s “successful” economic model, development, and social inequalities
• Community responses to Chile’s socioeconomic changes
• The Pinochet regime, human rights violations, and Chilean history 
• Truth, justice, and reconciliation  
• Current civil socies) at your college or university to learn if your school’s scholarships and grants and federal and state aid programs can be applied to an SIT Study Abroad program.

Contact SIT Study Abroad

• Visit our website: studyabroad.sit.edu
• Request more information or email us: studyabroad@sit.edu
• Call an admission counselor: 888-272-7881
• Contact a former student.
• Apply to SIT