What is it about?
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’. We draw upon our 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. I contribute a section called 'Decolonising the curriculum and the removal of oppressive authority', which briefly explores aspects of governance, leadership and management.
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Why is it important?
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. In the section I contributed, 'Decolonising the curriculum and the removal of oppressive authority', I argue that to focus on the content of the curriculum is not enough unless aligned from the beginning with a challenge to hierarchy in schools and other education organisations.
Perspectives
The objective of this paper is to proclaim our advocacy for the need to decolonise and provoke readers into reflecting and thinking about their feelings, views and experiences on decolonising. We hope this will encourage more research within education contexts into the complexity of decolonising the curriculum, as well as increasing equity in education and society. In the section I wrote, I suggest that our concern should be with both the curriculum content and the context in which the explicit and hidden curriculum is enacted and experienced. This concern is not an ‘either/or’ as learning about a liberating content when filtered through an oppressive authority will not decolonise the curriculum.
Dr Anthony R Thorpe
University of Roehampton
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Proclamations and provocations: Decolonising curriculum in education research and professional practice, Equity in Education & Society, January 2022, SAGE Publications,
DOI: 10.1177/27526461211068833.
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