Approaching global education development with a decolonial lens: teachers’ reflections

Abstract

In this paper, we as the teachers and researchers of a course titled Global education development informed by theories of decoloniality, report on our analysis of our self-critical and constructive dialogue on the course design, its underlying assumptions, expectations, implementation, success and needs for improvement. We centered decoloniality from the beginning of the course, problematised binary-thinking and encouraged our students to look at issues within the field of development and education in pluriversal ways. Our gestures toward decolonial pedagogy in the course were complicated by our own entanglements with coloniality as well as structural factors such as the context of Finland, where the colonial past is seldom addressed. Despite these contradictions and challenges, we aspire to continue thinking through decoloniality to decenter the dominant liberal frameworks within global education development.

‘The unofficial curriculum is where the real teaching takes place’: faculty experiences of decolonising the curriculum in Africa

“…The former discusses whether the pedagogy of critical thinking can tackle Africa's often pejorative representation by 'outsiders' (Matthews, 2016), the assumption that Western actors can 'solve' Africa's problems (Routley, 2016), and African universities' opportunity to generate new perspectives on international studies as a whole (Niang, 2016). The latter collection emphasises the experiences of students (Motala et al, 2021;Menon et al, 2021;Shaik & Kahn, 2021).…”

Decolonizing western science education and knowledge in early childhood: Rethinking natural hazards and disasters framework through indigenous ‘ecology of knowledges’ in Kenya

“…We can rethink the position of the agents by creating space for their knowledge to be at the centre of educational practices and research. An educational project needs to be shaped by the modes of existence and knowledge production that are valued by a community (Bobbette et al, 2021; Menon et al, 2021), but also taking into considerations relationships between education, philosophy and methodology (Tesar, 2021).…”

Decolonial praxis: Teacher educators' perspectives on tensions, barriers, and possibilities of anti‐racist practice‐based Initial Teacher Education in England

“…This is where we have the autonomy to develop our praxis, and it is also where we have the most in‐depth understanding and conceptualisation of decolonial praxis and what it looks like in practice. Second, it suggested to us that perhaps this is how we encourage further engagement with decolonial and antiracist praxis in ITE as we ‘continue to struggle, reflect and learn from our entanglements with coloniality and the intricate and contradictory nature of how we understand and interpret decoloniality as part of the university structure, and moreover of university teaching and learning’ (Menon et al, 2021, p. 949).…”