Decolonizing Higher Education in Norway: Critical Collaborative Autoethnographic Reflections on a University Pedagogy Course

Abstract

Globally, there is a trend in academic development to centralize the importance of decolonizing curriculum and pedagogical practice in higher education (HE). In Norway, despite internationalization, diversity and inclusion being highly regarded values in HE policy documents, efforts towards decolonial change and transformation of curriculum and pedagogical practice in HE seem to be largely ignored. Understanding university teacher education as a driver of institutional educational transformation, this article contributes to the effort of decolonizing HE in Norway. Utilizing critical collaborative autoethnographic methodology, we reflect on our own roles in our early attempts to decolonize a course on decolonization and pedagogical practice offered to teaching staff at a Norwegian university college. Taking our point of departure in decolonial theory and the concept of modernity/coloniality, we critically discuss and question the potency of our own roles—as two middle-aged white cis-men and one middle-aged cis-woman, all lecturers with expertise mainly in decolonial theories, decolonial learning and teaching practices, and critical whiteness and critical discourse analysis perspectives—in transforming the ways that Western epistemology prevail in our pedagogical practices. We also address the implications for university pedagogy courses with respect to future decolonizing efforts in HE in Norway.