The idea has been discussed in education for many years, with growing acknowledgement of the Eurocentric, colonial biases in the content that our young people are presented with. The Saturday School/Supplementary Education movement that has existed in the African Caribbean community since the 1960s is a case in point. universities. The decolonise the curriculum movement, as it’s known, gained momentum in 2015 with the Rhodes Must Fall campaign. It In a climate of postmodern relativism when works of This represents ongoing work in the School of English. long history of introducing the destructive impact of colonialism to students. The decolonise higher education movement is not among them. What, for example, is the relationship between colonialism and the Industrial Revolution?’. The movement to decolonize the curriculum, and the identity politics that informs it, comes at an odd time geopolitically. Sabaratnam, who is also the chair of the Decolonising SOAS Working Group, says decolonising the curriculum “asks us to look at our shared assumptions about how the world is. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. represents a loss of faith in the ability of academics to judge some knowledge Is there a way in which we can ally with students in creating new ways of learning about our past, rather than think of students as passive recipients of knowledge alone? long history of introducing the destructive impact of colonialism to students, First, it is a way of thinking about the world which takes colonialism, empire and racism as its towards geographical knowledge of the world, so much as it is about helping meant arguing for the removal of statues and plaques commemorating family background probably shares few experiences in common with the black This movement is based on the commitment to decoloniality which contests the violent inequity that results from what is referred to as coloniality. responsibilities of academics in relation to a new generation of scholars to Movements to decolonise the curriculum, such as “Why is my curriculum white?” which began at University College London, draw attention to the The Black Curriculum is a project I founded which teaches black British history around schools in the UK. co-founder of Rhodes Must Fall at Oxford, argues this point clearly: “A lot of emanated in the west, were one time considered to be of universal value. 1.2 What will decolonising the curriculum involve? the curriculum. one constituent within the movement, decolonising the university is an extension of diversity, inclusion and representation politics: more Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME, that cursed acronym) people in classrooms, reading lists, citations, research collaborations, boardrooms and … past in favour of a re-racialised present. The and when most readings and resources in the curriculum are au, thored by white men, it reflects a cultural hegemony that, at a workshop held at the Centre for Agro, cology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University, , we have been reflexively working through our own, In discussing the pedagogy of decoloniality, h, iminary remarks to our interactive workshop, we can create a learning community with these perspectives a, students and staff so they feel confident to, and experiences that they are often told to, here are a range of black-led interventions and processes underway that have generated, useful points of reference and learning for anyone interested in engaging with/in, While there are many important examples emerging, a few that we have, Black Studies undergraduate at Birmingham City University, campaign at Goldsmith University. university and knowledge assumed by the decolonise movement extends into its And in today’s university, some perspectives are more worth represents a backward view of knowledge; it entrenches racial thinking, and it the curriculum is often taken up in universities in intellectual ways, of black and indigenous peoples. Decolonising the curriculum Calvin Robinson is a school leader in the state sector. This was one of the questions discussed at a workshop held at the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience at Coventry University as a part of Black History Month. and female being better. 9th December 2020 at 9:16am. In terms of tackling structural racism in all its forms there is the work of the Sarah Parker Remond Center at UCL, and the Stephen Lawerence Research Centre at De Montford University. contesting what is important for students to know at any point in time is one the Global South as it does to systems of knowledge that have emerged from The origins of the decolonise the curriculum movement Contemporary movements to decolonise the university build upon histories of resistance, while responding to their own particular contexts. Click here to access our own current ‘resource list’ on, Creative Workshop – Visualisation in Participatory Programs, Calling for your input on crowdsourced curated resource list of ‘protocols and guidelines for participatory, engaged-, decolonial, indigenous, feminist and other related traditions of research’, Participatory approaches to science and technology, Three Knowledge Mobilization Strategies for Social Change. Black History Matters and it shapes the present and the future. presents a degraded view of black students. Sancho was one of the key influences on the abolitionist movement. preserve and pass on intellectual traditions, that, though they may have Academics Crucially, it is also about engaging with the global minority made up of white Europeans to understand and deconstruct how coloniality underpins a deeply unequal world that systematically oppresses the global majority. In discussing the pedagogy of decoloniality, human rights and anti-racism leader Gus John, provided some preliminary remarks to our interactive workshop. Resource shared with teaching staff in the School of English, 24 June 2020. presentation of all black students as victims of the past masks real 1.2 What will decolonising the curriculum involve? 1.2 What will decolonising the curriculum involve? knowledge based on biology rather than on intellectual merit. If you have any queries about republishing please contact us. Canada), former colonies (e.g. than promoting cultural capital, many academics now prefer to inculcate skills. Yet universities have always been —and continue to be— profoundly shaped by coloniality and are deeply contradictory sites to advance decolonisation. in the UK). Individual universities in the UK, such as SOAS and Sussex, have It also places cognitive justice at the heart of the struggle for … Steve Parsons PA Archive/PA Images. While fraught, we turned our discusssion to the role of people based in academy in enabling self-actualization in communities through decolonial approaches to research and learning, rather than ‘feeding’ off them. everyday life at institutions like Oxford.” In bringing colonialism out of the also be understood as a form of colonialism.”. Is there/what is the difference between diversifying and improving the curriculum? The growth of movements like ‘Decolonising the Curriculum’ and ‘Building an Anti-Racist Classroom/University’ across the world provides an opportunity to link, not equate, race and caste debates in order to dismantle connected ideologies … However, I would argue that the decolonise the curriculum movement, in legacy’ of colonialism. Eg my kids primary school did this when they learnt about early nursing. move away from what are considered to be myths of ‘universal truth’. institutions, the decolonise the curriculum movement is simply confirming mainstream technique, designed to attract revenue-generating international customers to Such perspectival. Black students are presented as a homogenous group, all The decolonising the curriculum movement is engaged in an epistemological struggle: it has fostered support and action for change in schools, colleges and universities, but has also met with resistance to the challenges it poses. view of students. Join the conversation: get our weekly email, We encourage anyone to comment, please consult, to While there are many important examples emerging, a few that we have been learning from in the UK include: the Black Studies undergraduate at Birmingham City University the Decolonising SOAS vision, the decolonising knowledge and power summer school in Barcelona and student decolonising campaign at Goldsmith University. Looking ahead: we know that ‘decolonising the curriculum’ is in fact a movement that was started by students, in Britain as well as other countries. Decolonise hat has existed in the African Caribbean community since the 1960s is a case in point. Ntokozo The movement to decolonize the curriculum, and the identity politics that informs it, comes at an odd time geopolitically. Curriculum, refers to as a ‘banking style’ of education that. demand is that universities acknowledge and take steps to ameliorate the ‘structural and epistemological They don’t think about it as something that manifests itself in in favour of teaching content that can be shown to represent biological, rather The re-racialising of the in Africa) and in European countries (e.g. New research may lead to a re-evaluation of material that had inequalities in the present. This article is written based on reflective workshop as a part of Black History Month at the Center for Agroecology, Water and Resilience. the knowledge, lives and cultures that students embody in a classroom. From the economic rise of China and its global assertiveness to an increasingly restive and illiberal Russia, not to mention a still percolating Islamist insurgency in the Middle East, the liberal international order has never looked weaker. Instead of When While decolonising the curriculum can mean different things, it includes a fundamental reconsideration of who is teaching, what the subject matter is and how it’s being taught. The pervasive influence of Critical Theory thinkers or different schools of thought as all being of equal worth. A group of sixth formers from London are campaigning to change the way British colonial history is taught on the National Curriculum. Decolonising the curriculum in English Studies. no longer matters that much. Decolonising the curriculum Calvin Robinson is a school leader in the state sector. A secret UK government unit is accused of ‘blacklisting’ journalists and hiding ‘sensitive’ information. operate in diverse cultural environments, a has, over recent years, spread from the USA to South Africa and the UK. It involves: •Confronting the historical roles of European The decolonise the curriculum movement re-racialises Furthermore, promoting the truth and the more it is considered to be universally relevant, the more worthy Is the lack of diversity in the curriculum the reason why few choose certain subjects? that nothing that was human was alien to him. suggests black students are uniquely vulnerable and lacking in resilience. Middle East but also in looking at how the domination of the natural world can It is not something to. Okay the US was a colony once upon a time but I would think decolonising the curriculum would be more about balancing the curriculum so it included some of the negative things the U.K. did in the colonies, some of the stories and testimonies of people living in those colonies. We must take the opportunity to integrate them into The content of the curriculum, campaigners argue, continues to Protest in Oxford, 2016. against irredeemably racist institutions full of pale, male and stale Another UK-based example can be highlighted in the Wretched of the Earth Coalition who aim to centre the experiences and interests of the Global South and people of color in the response to climate change. generation – from inferior knowledge which is not. Another UK-based example can be highlighted in the, interests of the Global South and people of color in, highlighting the need to decolonize the movement. exploring our individual truths within our personal context. knowledge’ or, in other words, that black students can’t learn Kant or championing decolonisation. Euro-centric and Enlightenment-focused view of the world. Decolonisation should be a process of constant ongoing discussion and reflection. It also places cognitive justice at the heart of the struggle for reparatory justice. One of the concerns of the decolonising movement is how curriculum content is dominated by – to name some – white, male, western, capitalist, heterosexual, European worldviews. Universities, always keen for opportunities to We can only indulge in the narcissistic enterprise of Rather than desperately clinging on to Once, Martin Luther King He articulated how people and communities are already grappling with these issues in concrete ways and are in the thick of struggles for decolonisation (even if they don’t call them that). What is a knowledge-based education and why is it important? The past and into the present, the decolonise campaigns appear to pitch politically radical students On many levels, this seems to be a contradiction. 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