What does decolonising education mean to us? Educator reflections (original) (raw)
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Confronting the complexities of decolonising curricula and pedagogy in higher education
Third World Thematics: A TWQ Journal
Recent critiques voiced by students in both the Global South and North have turned attention to the ways in which higher education practices have been informed by, and continue to perpetuate, a series of assumptions that favour particular epistemological perspectives. Across the world, students have criticised universities for the content of their curricula, institutional cultures, and pedagogic practices that perpetuate the attainment gap and exclusion. In response, curricula and pedagogic change is being debated and promoted on campuses. This introductory article lays the theoretical groundwork for a volume that brings decolonial theory into concrete engagement with the structural, cultural, institutional, relational, and personal logics of curricula and pedagogic practice. The article examines the relationship between decolonisation as a theoretical concept, and the practices of decoloniality unfolding in pedagogical practice.
South African Journal of Education
This article is an attempt to bring theoretical concepts offered by decolonial theories into conversation with 'humanising pedagogy.' The question that drives this analysis is: What are the links between humanisation and the decolonisation of higher education, and what does this imply for pedagogical praxis? This intervention offers valuable insights that reconfigure humanising pedagogy in relation to the decolonial project of social transformation, yet one that does not disavow the challenges-namely, the complexities, tensions and paradoxes-residing therein. The article discusses three approaches to the decolonisation of higher education that have been proposed and suggests that if the desired reform is radical, educators within the sector in South Africa will need to interrogate the pedagogical practices emerging from Eurocentric knowledge approaches by drawing on and twisting these very practices. These efforts can provide spaces to enact decolonial pedagogies that reclaim colonised practices. The article concludes with some reflections on what this idea might imply for South African higher education.
Development, Decolonisation and the Curriculum: New Directions for New Times?
Curriculum Challenges and Opportunities in a Changing World
While decolonisation is not a new idea, recent events around the world have significantly raised its prominence in discussions about what we teach and how we teach in the contemporary university. These eventsmost notably the #RhodesMustFall (#RMF) and #FeesMustFall student protests in South Africa, which erupted for three years between 2015 and 2017, and the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States which sprang up after the brutal killing of black men in the United Statesbrought, not for the first time, of course, the intellectual legitimacy of the university sharply into focus. Animating the protests, especially in the South African context, were distinctly local social realities, such as the costs of higher education. Underpinning them, however, and so making
Alternation - Interdisciplinary Journal for the Study of the Arts and Humanities in Southern Africa, 2020
The article discusses the complexities of decolonising curricula and humanising pedagogy in South Africa's Higher education. It is based on the secondary data source and empirical evidence of existing researches that have focused on the decolonisation of higher education. Since knowledge is produced in higher education where teachers are trained to develop the curriculum for the whole education system, decolonisation of the curriculum requires the system to consider the important role played by the teacher. The article examines decolonisation as a theory, concept, and pedagogical practices. The main argument herein is that since decolonisation has proliferated at a theoretical level, its operationalisation at higher education is just beginning. There is no theorist best known to the writers who have adequately provided the theoretical meaning of decolonisation for South Africa's higher education pedagogy and praxis. As such, the article lays the theoretical groundwork that brings decolonial theory into concrete engagement with pedagogic practice. The Freirean humanising pedagogy was used in an attempt to explore the relationship between humanisation and decolonisation of higher education in South Africa. To this effect, the main argument advanced in this section is that decolonial thinking of higher education in South Africa requires the development of pedagogical and intellectual spaces that respect Freirean problem-posing philosophy. The initial part of the article discusses the historical view of decolonial thinking and the theoretical gist of Complexities of Decolonising Curricula and Humanising Pedagogy 419 the article. The penultimate part of the article discusses the impact of COVID-19 on the decolonisation project. It unpacks the complexities of decolonising curricula and pedagogy in South Africa's Higher education as set against the background of COVID-19.
Decolonising curriculum in education: continuing proclamations and provocations
London Review of Education
There is no denying the importance and increased significance of interest in decolonisation in education and the wider social sciences. This article aims to bring a continuing contribution to an evolving and important discussion. The methodology of this work allows a range of academics from different cultural contexts to voice their decolonising proclamations. The authors of the article are a combination of White, Black, Asian and mixed-race academic researchers in higher education who have come together to proclaim their viewpoints. They draw upon their research and apply professional practice in relation to differing aspects of generally decolonising education and specifically decolonising curricula. As a group, we believe that the notion of decolonising applies to all sections of education – not only to primary schools, but also to nurseries, secondary schools, colleges and universities. We hope this article will encourage more research, advocacy and action within education and i...
Pedagogy - Challenges, Recent Advances, New Perspectives, and Applications [Working Title], 2021
This chapter presents views, opinions, and perceptions about the curriculum theories that propagate educational perspectives of social injustice, cultural exclusion, supremacy, socio-economic inequality, and inequity. The data collection method was question and answer and deductive reasoning conducted in small groups in education studies classes. Pieces of information recorded in video clips during the COVID-19 lockdown were analysed through qualitative procedures, transcribing verbal data, and sorting coded categories of data. First, the frequencies of statements indicating trends in thoughts form themes classified as convergent and divergent perspectives. The interpretation of themes identified during data analysis seeks to address the problem statement in this chapter, which is the paradigm shift for a conceptualised decolonised curriculum in South Africa. Thus, the research question asked in the study is “what principles should underpin pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) of pre...
Review of Educational Research, 2022
Drawing on the global interdisciplinary literature on decolonizing curriculum and pedagogy (DCP) in higher education, we critically examined the idea of decolonizing in the context of disciplines and universities around the world. Based on a critical analysis of 207 articles/book chapters published in English and centering a geopolitics of knowledge frame (Mignolo, 2003, 2011), we present three themes: (a) decolonizing meaning(s), (b) actualizing decolonization, and (c) challenges to actualizing, all related to DCP. We observed three major meanings of decolonization and four ways to actualize DCP that were associated with geographical, disciplinary, institutional and/or stakeholder contexts. We argue that, while there are similarities within the literature, ultimately the meanings, actualizations and challenges of DCP are contextual, which has political and epistemological consequences. We end by offering directions for educational research on DCP, revealing the possibility for a field or discipline of decolonial studies.
Journal of Education, 2021
Universities in the Global South continue to grapple with the ethical demands of decolonising and transforming the public university and its episteme orientations. In this paper, we contribute to the emerging body of work in the Global South that attempts to make sense of the transformation and decolonisation discourses by exploring academics’ understanding of decolonising curricula in South African higher education. Using purposive sampling, we interviewed eight academics from the school of education who teach in a research-intensive university in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. We relied on the field theory of Pierre Bourdieu to think through the notion of a research-intensive university being a contested and structuring field constituted of various actors and agents who are struggling to make sense of, and understand the calls for, decolonising and transforming curricula. The findings suggest that, largely, academics understand the decolonising of curricula as a response to the need...
Equity in Education & Society, 2022
Given the current resurgence of interest in decolonisation in education and the wider social sciences, this article aims to bring an original contribution to an evolving and important discussion. The methodology of this work is possibly unique in the sense that it allows a range of academics from an English university to voice their decolonising proclamations. The authors of the article are a combination of white, black, Asian and mixed raced colleagues who have come together as part of a support group entitled: ‘Beyond the Threshold: dismantling racism together’. They draw upon their research and apply professional practice in relation to differing aspects of generally decolonising education and specifically decolonising curricula. We believe as a group that the notion of decolonising applies to all sections of education and not only schools, but nurseries, colleges and universities. The objective of this paper is to proclaim our advocacy of the need to decolonise and provoke the r...