conversations can take place and progress can be made when we move to a blame-free and evidence-based context. 2019. It is not simply about the token inclusion of a few BAME writers, but an underlying transformation from a culture of denial and exclusion to a consideration of different traditions of … This movement has been slowly spreading in the UK, and there is an ongoing movement of higher education institutions (HEIs) reviewing their curricula and using the decolonizing lens to do so. The term ‘decolonizing the curriculum’ is of high currency in higher education in the UK and in local students’ unions at these institutions. It concludes that there is a need for academia to now move past just identifying that there are issues about retention and progression of BAME and othered students and staff, and for both the library and information and scholarly communication sectors to act to address this now. Insights, 32(1), 24. Students are taught to stay abreast of their field/subject area, but are we really just saying focus only on global north ideas, publications and research, and that the rest of the world has nothing to offer? Is that sustainable, is that just, is that how we want new researchers to see their output having an impact – only on a subsection rather than the whole? Government plan still leaves education workers, families, and students in the dark Wholly inadequate planning is a pattern with this government and, unsurprisingly, this week’s government announcement fails to address the challenges faced by families in the province. Insights, vol. Complete your high school education, regardless of your educational system in the world, e.g. Its major focus is on international themes in the delivery of services. If you only ever read research outputs and monographs from global north authors and publishers, then you are not exposed to other approaches, voices and ideas from those in the global south. Indigenous peoples’ experiences with education in Canada has been a contentious one. Do something different, make changes, review your organization with a critical lens and map actions to address if not remove barriers that impact on recruitment, retention and progression of the diverse voices that are wanted in this sector. There is growing research that shows that BAME students in HEIs may have entry qualifications similar to those of their non-BAME peers, but there is still a gap in the quality of degree attained that can only be explained by a less than neutral effect of race or racism. “Decolonizing the Curriculum”. The point that you are the product of your society also applies to researchers in that you are what you read. The Innovating Pedagogy 2019 report12 that charts trends in pedagogy/education identified decolonizing the curriculum as a key driver for change in the next ten years. Scheme for Promotion of Academic and Research Collaboration (SPARC) aims at improving the research ecosystem of India’s Higher Educational Institutions by facilitating academic and research collaborations between Indian Institutions and the best institutions in the world from 28 selected nations to jointly solve problems of national and/or international relevance. As librarians, we should reflect decolonization in the content that we purchase or subscribe to and in the tools that we use to categorize and label knowledge (from classification schemes to discovery layers). Certainly, what we currently have with the leaky pipeline of othered students, othered academic, library and information professionals and scholarly communication staff, is not sustainable, and we cannot continue to ignore this issue. The aim to self-decolonize is not limited to simply reading or support materials for teaching, learning and research, but includes ensuring that this critical ‘liberation lens’ examines all aspects of the pillars that makes the institution what it is: the student, staff, and the organizational cultural constructs and departments by, and in which, it operates. students and what steps some libraries have already taken. Insights 32 (1): 24. Harvard University Implicit Association Test for Imperial College London “Pride and Prejudice in Higher Education – countering elitist perspectives in Imperial College London,” accessed May 29, 2019, personal correspondence. In the UK, though university presses are seeing a slight resurgence and with globalization from a smaller number of key publishers, the publication of academic knowledge is still predominantly of the global north. Beyond traditional health measures, Aboriginal peoples also endure a disproportionate burden of disparity related to workforce participation, low income, education, and sub-standard living conditions. 1, 2019, p. 24. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. ... Higher Education. More importantly, if you as the non-expert want to start a discussion about this lack of inclusivity, how do you phrase this so that it is seen as contributing to a discussion rather than disrupting the orderly flow of the class? I work in the Library at Birkbeck, University of London, a research-led institution where most of our courses (UG, PGT, PGR) are taught in the evening to mature students. The articles submitted to newspapers will be under the title "Full Circle - Returning Native Research to the People" Submissions of current research in the areas of Environment, Public Health, Psychology, Education, and General Health are invited. Literacy and Languages. Sandlanee Gid is an instructor of Reconciliation Studies at the University of British Columbia and the Haida Gwaii Higher Education Society. I am sure that the mere mention of trying to start a debate about what an academic teaches in their subject discipline, and how, will raise cries of ‘academic freedom’ being infringed, but that is a discussion for another article. What happens to the student when they do not hear their voice at all, or when they do, it is glossed over or framed as a negative? In the 1990s the focus was on an ‘inclusive curriculum’.1 ‘Decolonizing the university’ has been in currency since at least 2011, following on from the Malaysian conference on this, with its quest for non-Eurocentric paradigms.2 The recent prominent ‘decolonizing the curriculum’ movement can be seen as a continuation of this, originating at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. The issue for students who are other (BAME, LGBTQ, etc.) We are #1 in child poverty, and we rank 49th in education; over 40% of our Native youth live in poverty here. High School: Graduate with your diploma. Based on John Dewey’s philosophy that education begins with the curiosity of the learner, inquiry in the classroom places the responsibility for learning on the students and encourages them to arrive at an understanding of concepts by themselves. Martha Tesema, “Why We Need to Talk About—and Recognize—Representation Burnout,” February 1, 2019, https://advice.shinetext.com/articles/we-need-to-talk-about-and-recognize-representation-burnout/ (accessed 18 July 2019). It draws attention to how often the only world view presented to learners is male, white, and European. Two presentations from the plenary session provided a good starting point and the article touches on how decolonizing the curriculum may impact research/researchers. The term ‘decolonizing the curriculum’ is of high currency in higher education in the UK and in local students’ unions at these institutions. June 4, 2020. Charles, Elizabeth. Amit Chaudhuri, “The real meaning of Rhodes Must Fall,” The Guardian, March 16, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall (accessed 18 July 2019). DPU, Aarhus Universitet, er Danmarks største universitetsforskningsmiljø for grundforskning og anvendt forskning i uddannelse og pædagogik og udbyder bachelor-. Does the student have the confidence to start being critical on a topic they are just starting to understand; and how will it be perceived by the academic and other students? If we only allow ourselves to be aware of and be influenced by a very narrow view, rather than a broader perspective, that could result in synergies not imagined being missed as a result. In any case, why should the task of diversifying the voices included in the curricula rest on the shoulders of students who are marginalized or other?11. To kick-start the Working Group, we held an event in February 2019 – Decolonizing the Curriculum: what’s all the fuss about?9 – to test the interest and appetite. HGSE's Ethnic Studies and Education course is a whole community, as its culminating symposium showed. Publishers should actively support the next generation of diverse authors by mentoring, providing workshops, etc., to facilitate them, making that connection and developing potential, recognizing that those current students going through the education system will be the authors of the future. About this journal. “Decolonizing the Curriculum”. This isn’t simply about removing some content from the curriculum and replacing it with new content – it’s about considering multiple perspectives and making space to think carefully about what we value. We have everything to gain in revealing the different voices and connections that have produced knowledge and in acknowledging that the implicit messages that institutions communicate do impact on the individual, be it staff or student. The higher education system in Africa and South Africa in particular, is still too academic and distant from the developmental challenges of African local communities. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.475, Charles E, ‘Decolonizing the Curriculum’ (2019) 32 Insights 24 DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.475, Charles, Elizabeth. William Gaudelli, dean of Lehigh University’s College of Education, apologized for a recent college memo that included sections from a course description from another university, without attribution. As they do so, they are more focused on finding faculty who have experiences and competencies that can contribute to these efforts. Jan Etienne, “Decolonising the Curriculum: What’s all the fuss about?,” Events Blog, http://blogs.bbk.ac.uk/events/2019/02/11/decolonising-the-curriculum-whats-all-the-fuss-about/ (accessed 18 July 2019). It is an approach that includes indigenous knowledge and ways of learning, enabling students to explore themselves and their values and to define success on their own terms.’13. 2019. Femi Otitoju, “Unconscious Bias,” slide presentation, https://www.slideshare.net/UKSG/unconscious-bias-141007093, UKSG 2019 Conference (accessed 18 July 2019). The time is right for decolonizing the curriculum to reinvigorate what is being taught in HEIs. This article seeks to give a very brief history and context for why this is fundamental for academic institutions and what role libraries and the scholarly communication sector can play in this movement. Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education and social movement that developed and applied concepts from critical theory and related traditions to the field of education and the study of culture.. Femi Otitoju, “Unconscious Bias,” recording of the presentation, https://tv.theiet.org/?videoid=12916, UKSG 2019 Conference (accessed 18 July 2019). Project Implicit, https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html (accessed 18 July 2019). Meera Sabaratnam, Senior Lecturer in International relations at SOAS and Chair of the Decolonizing SOAS Working Group, also highlighted this issue at the Birkbeck event. It aims to disseminate high impact, evidence based research across disciplines in higher education that could ultimately support high level learning, teaching and research. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.475, Charles, Elizabeth. After all, knowledge is not a finite commodity. Fran M Collyer, “Global patterns in the publishing of academic knowledge: Global North, global South,” Current Sociology 66, no. The College Fix's higher education cartoon of the week (1/12/21). As the two papers in The Lancet's Series on Canada1,2 make clear, the country's health-care landscape is made up of multiple people, places, and policies with often overlapping—and sometimes conflicting—jurisdictions, priorities, paradigms, and practices. This echoed a similar event held at SOAS10 in 2017. film5 and Mariya Hussain’s Why is My Curriculum White?6 in 2015. It structures the ways in which we are taught to think and talk about the world. The Anxiety and Depression Association of America’s (ADAA) mission is more critical than ever. Canada's health-care system, like the country itself, is a complex entity. The Role of Teacher Educators’ Personal Histories and Motivations in Shaping Opportunities to Learn About Social Justice by Mike Metz In this comparative case study, the author examines how teacher educators’ personal histories shape opportunities to learn about social justice in teacher education … For some HEIs, working towards the Race Equality Charter17 in conjunction with decolonizing the curriculum has ensured that a systemic analysis of the whole institution and its norms takes place. Transformation in Higher Education is an international, transdisciplinary journal that seeks original contributions that reflect upon and theorise transformation in higher education in all its different nuances. 2019;32(1):24. In what became known as the Rhodes Must Fall movement,3 students demanded that the Cecil Rhodes statue prominently and centrally on display at that University be removed for what it symbolized and the history it represented in a place of education. Equality Challenge Unit now part of Advance Higher Education, ECU’s Race Equality Charter (REC) aims to improve the representation, progression and success of minority ethnic staff and students within higher education, https://www.ecu.ac.uk/equality-charters/race-equality-charter/about-race-equality-charter/ (accessed 19 July 2019). Like The College Fix on Facebook / Follow us on Twitter. Decolonizing the curriculum. Though curriculum review is taking place in the Schools at Birkbeck, the Library has not yet been involved. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.475, Charles E. Decolonizing the curriculum. Change is being demanded by the student unions in the University of Cambridge; the University of Oxford; the University of the Arts London; Goldsmith University; Keele University; the University of Kent; the University of Leeds; the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS); Birkbeck, University of London; Queen Mary University of London; the University of East London; the London School of Economics; the University of the Arts London and the University of Westminster, to name but a few. I joined the Decolonizing the Curriculum Working Group part of a research centre at Birkbeck. DOI: http://doi.org/10.1629/uksg.475, Charles, E. (2019). Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni, “The dynamics of epistemological decolonisation in the 21st Century: towards epistemic freedom,” Strategic Review for Southern Africa 40, no. International Social Work is a scholarly peer reviewed journal designed to extend knowledge and promote communication in the fields of social development, social welfare and human services. ‘A new glass ceiling’: Biden administration orders schools to allow males on female teams, University of Dallas student denied internship solely for being white, College set to fire professor who tweeted ‘Black privilege is real’, Music professor sues university for punishing him over defense of ‘racist’ composer, Democratic senator wants IRS to investigate conservative student group for holding large event, Powered by the Student Free Press Association. 1 (2018): 56–73, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0011392116680020 (accessed 18 July 2019). To stay in contact with The College Fix and get links to our articles, please sign up for our twice-weekly emails. Her research focuses on the intersections of race, class, and gender within systems and institutions such as labor, welfare, and higher education, as well as, how civic engagement, economic development and social change processes impact the growth of neighborhoods and individuals. The growing recognition and use of Indigenous education methods can be a response to the erosion and loss of Indigenous knowledge through the processes of colonialism, globalization, and modernity. The uptake of reading list software in academic libraries has made it easier to capture this data in a timely fashion and then interrogate it for patterns and trends, to feedback to academics and into curricula review discussion. is that they come to university to learn about a subject they are interested in and look to the academic to be the expert on this: very much the power dynamics that they encounter in middle and high school and that they are familiar with. Copyright © 2021 The College Fix, all rights reserved. Some librarians have been looking critically at the classification scheme they use, the subject terms used for marginalized groups and non-Eurocentric viewpoints on their catalogue. The aim is not to tell academics what should be included on their reading lists, but to make visible the lack of other voices, thus leaving the subject experts to review their curriculum with a new critical perspective, to investigate and widen their scope on what else should be included. A list of the abbreviations and acronyms used in this and other Insights articles can be accessed here – click on the URL below and then select the ‘full list of industry A&As’ link: http://www.uksg.org/publications#aa. Academics may say that there are no other voices out there, and so my response to the publishers and vendors was: we will be looking to them to start publishing those other voices; the global north is not the entire world and the global south has much to contribute. “Decolonizing the Curriculum”. Insights 32, no. It is a powerful signal of the institution’s intent to no longer ignore the history that episteme is generated from and the role of the educational institution in that narrative.18. High School Students: See Yourself Here. Many institutions that have undergone TEF have then followed this up with a student experience review consisting of focus groups and asking students what is missing, and this has made students more aware that they do have a say in their own education and should discover that critical voice that education seeks to develop. Meera Sabaratnam, “Decolonising the Curriculum: What’s all the fuss about?,” SOAS Blog, January 18, 2017, https://www.soas.ac.uk/blogs/study/decolonising-curriculum-whats-the-fuss/ (accessed 18 July 2019). In 2005–06, the average rate of [welfare] dependency on reserve was seven times higher than the national rate (36 % compared to 5.5 %) . Norma Rossi is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Reading. Decolonizing art history would entail a process with several stages that starts by accepting the need to reframe how art historians categorize the world: a re‐education of sorts. comments powered by Ready to ace the ASVAB? Your daily dose of, Impeachment sought against student senator who is defending Thin Blue Line masks, Catholic university says it will eventually redisplay Junípero Serra statue, Charter school uses ‘racism as a business model’ with help from CARES Act, lawsuit claims, U. Colorado equity and inclusion official: White people need to ‘fix their freaking families’. Dummies can help! To address this bias to the global north, Imperial College has run geographic/geospatial bias workshops with their researchers, having undertaken a customized Implicit Association Test (Harvard University) on ‘whether you implicitly associate good research with countries of high-income, with countries of low-income or whether it makes no difference’24; to raise awareness of this and discuss the possible impact on research/researchers and next steps. What happens when they become aware of a lack of visibility of plural voices, or of people like them as having contributed to the subject, or who might have a different narrative to the ‘story’ being told? Some public librarians in Australia, New Zealand and Canada are asking those marginalized groups to work in partnership with them to agree from an indigenous peoples’ viewpoint how sections of the library collection should be grouped and labelled. At Project Implicit25 you can test for several different biases. We can work together to mitigate bias, both by being cognizant of any system’s origins and by making changes to the system.’14. 1/2 (Spring-Summer 1990): 7–23. As education has become increasingly global, communities have challenged the widespread assumption that the most valuable knowledge and the most valuable ways of teaching and learning come from a single European tradition. It insists that issues of social justice and democracy are not distinct from acts of teaching and learning. One of the themes of the UKSG 2019 Conference was ‘diversity and change’; decolonizing the curriculum is exactly that if done correctly. For the majority of 18- to 19-year-olds, I would say that they do not have lingua franca to articulate their concern and probably do not feel, as yet, that part of their participation in higher education is to question what is being presented as the canon they must assimilate in order to progress successfully in their studies. Increasingly, institutions of higher education are becoming more intentional and programmatic about their efforts to embrace principles of inclusion, equity, justice, and diversity throughout campus life. Keele University, “Keele Manifesto for Decolonising the Curriculum,” https://www.keele.ac.uk/raceequalitycharter/raceequalitycharter/keeledecolonisingthecurriculumnetwork/keelemanifestofordecolonisingthecurriculum/ (accessed 17 July 2019). Nicola Wright, “What do we need to change, to change?,” slide presentation, https://www.slideshare.net/UKSG/what-do-we-need-to-change-to-change, UKSG 2019 Conference (accessed 18 July 2019). Librarians are also, as they start to look critically at the tools they use to organize, label and retrieve knowledge, noticing the terminology used in purchased digital content and how that impacts marginalized groups. Universities UK, “Universities acting to close BAME student attainment gap,” https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/news/Pages/Universities-acting-to-close-BAME-student-attainment-gap.aspx (accessed 18 July 2019). 1 (2019): 24. Here are some of the things you will need to do to achieve this goal: 1. The Dewey Decimal Classification editorial board has recognized this need to decolonize the classification scheme that is used internationally and has its basis in the 18th-century view of the world. Since ADAA’s founding 40 years ago, we have been committed to ensuring that everyone who struggles with an anxiety disorder, depression or PTSD can obtain the resources they need to live healthier and more productive lives. The curriculum in education has always been and continues to be discussed using different approaches and terminology. we are all the product of the society we live in and thus we all have unconscious biases that we need to be aware of and check against. Entry into the JD program requires some years of higher education beyond secondary school. The leaky pipeline has been identified by CILIP, SCONUL and other professional bodies. His work is published by, Original. Therefore Wolff argues for heterogeneity of knowledge as ‘whatever cultural goods we have access to’ instead. The author has declared no competing interests. The normative definition of the decolonization of education, in particular within higher education, thus conceives knowledge in binary terms: that which is European/ Western and the other, which is African in this particular context. Open University, “The Innovating Pedagogy 2019”, 3. ADAA Stands Against Racism. 1 (May 2018): 16–45, https://www.up.ac.za/media/shared/85/Strategic%20Review/vol%2040(1)/Ndlovu-Gatsheni.pdf (accessed 18 July 2019). Additionally, or in some cases as a starting point, this is being debated by the student body via student unions. When we look at border-town violence and police brutality against Native people, Native people are more likely to be killed by police officers than any other minority group in the Nation. 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