This article argues that South African social work education, situated in Western modernism and broadly within the ideological project of colonialism and racist capitalism, should move from knowledge and discourses which are domesticating and oppressive, and do essential decolonising work. It explores colonialism and post-colonialism and the politics of social work knowledge, it describes the processes of the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements, and then it describes the work of decolonisation. In order to move from coloniality and domestication, which means neither indigenisation nor Africanisation, social work education must 1) reclaim and repossess truths and narratives about the history of social work in South Africa, 2) explore ideology underlying its knowledge and discourses, 3) facilitate critical conscientisation and cultivate a critical and anti-colonial approach, and 4) include anti-colonial theorists in the curriculum. It provides two examples of courses which facilitate such a process.

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Throughout Africa, there is recognition that the person fulfilling the role of a father may not always be the child's biological father. This is clear in the seminal work Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society, where Amadiume illustrates the significance of divorcing gender roles from biology. In the South African context, a similar notion is seen in Mkhize's conception of Social Fathers. Like Amadiume, this study was inspired by Adesina's assertion for African studies to move towards producing, 'works of distinct epistemic significance' rather than the 'regurgitation' of and the usual 'protest scholars' that African scholar's focus on. Consequently, this article illustrates that in contexts of maternal households the role of the father is played by social fathers. The article concludes that, while father absence has been widely reported, the absence of biological fathers does not necessarily mean that caring and nurturing African men are not present in the lives of children.

In the context of the global call to decolonise the curriculum in higher education, there is a need to interrogate the assumptions and discourses of social work education. Alongside the current knowledge formation in teaching and learning at universities, there is little emphasis on engaging students and tapping into the knowledge systems they bring into the learning space. The form of education in higher learning institutions often positions lecturers as producers of knowledge responsible for depositing information while students are seen as recipients and consumers of it. So, students consume this knowledge without interrogating and perceiving what it means in relation to their lived realities. Such an education system is described by Paulo Freire as the banking concept of education, which holds that education is an act of depositing in which the students are depositories and the teacher the depositor. For Freire, true knowledge emerges only through invention, re-invention and restless inquiry that human beings pursue in the world -with the world and with each other.The method of teaching discussed in this chapter focuses on decentring the lecturer as a depositor of knowledge. Students form groups and engage in group discussions and courageous conversations after I have introduced the concepts and focus topic of each seminar. This method has, in many ways, challenged the traditional method of teaching and learning by encouraging students to bring their knowledge systems into the classroom. It has also resulted in deeper connections, confrontations and contradictions among students as they grapple with their discomfort. Societal issues such as race, inequalities, stance on social movements such as #FeesMustFall, structural disadvantages and past injustices became the focus for discussion. I argue in this chapter that a new form of knowledge emerges when students are engaged and actively participate in the process of learning. This is deeply rooted in an acknowledgement that students come from different knowledge systems and bringing that knowledge into the learning space can become an enriching and powerful way of learning.