Principal Leadership in the Resignification of the Institutional Educational Project Toward Intercultural Education: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

This reflective article analyzes theoretical contributions on culture, interculturality, and intercultural education, with the aim of establishing conceptual elements for understanding their incorporation into the Institutional Educational Project (PEI). A qualitative documentary review was conducted following PRISMA 2020, based on a corpus of 30 articles published between 2020 and 2026 and selected through the phases of identification, screening, eligibility, and inclusion. The thematic analysis yielded five interpretive categories: school culture; interculturality; curriculum and PEI; inclusion and coexistence; and ancestral knowledge and territory. The findings reveal that, although the literature widely acknowledges cultural diversity, there remains a weak explicit articulation between intercultural education and the PEI. They also show that interculturality goes beyond the recognition of difference and requires transforming the ways in which knowledge is legitimized, the curriculum is organized, coexistence is fostered, communities are engaged, and institutional decisions are guided. It is concluded that the PEI can serve as an integrating framework for intercultural education when it incorporates cultural diversity and community knowledge into curricular, pedagogical, coexistence-related, and institutional management, thereby fostering their recognition as a principle of epistemic and social justice.