Search results

Decolonising the curriculum has been increasingly discussed in education, particularly following the Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests in 2020. This chapter presents how teachers in UK primary schools are approaching curriculum-making through decolonial lenses. With a focus on teaching and learning about race, cultural diversity, and British history in primary school education, the authors refer to key examples of teacher education research which has argued over the years for decolonising and diversifying curriculum knowledge. The authors relate these arguments to evaluate data from online learning modules on this topic created by the Chartered College of Teaching. Findings show that when provided with robust continuous professional development (CPD), teachers grow in confidence in seeing and challenging the limitations of knowledge centred by the Eurocentric discourses of the primary national curriculum. Adopting decolonial lenses for critical curriculum thinking enables teachers to plan and implement approaches to pedagogies framed by a diversification of knowledge in curriculum-making.

In this chapter, we share our reflections on decolonising early childhood education in our respective contexts of England and Scotland and the implications for early childhood practitioners. The foundations of early childhood education have traditionally been shaped by white, male, Global North perspectives that position young children as ‘innocent’ and unknowledgeable, as defined by developmental discourses and milestones, and as sites of economic investment within neoliberal politics. We challenge the relevance of these ideas in diverse and evolving contexts. We provide some suggestions on how early childhood practitioners can work towards decolonising early childhood education by unlearning prejudiced assumptions, and by relearning new perspectives in disrupting hegemonic whiteness, and advocating for structural and institutional change.

Language teaching has traditionally offered a space for the development of cultural knowledge and intercultural understanding as well as language learning. Furthermore, language teachers have recently become more critically race aware in their roles. In this research, we found a shift towards the decolonisation of the language curriculum within a more general trend towards increasing diversity and inclusion in school and university curricula. This research was aimed at exploring those developments in a collaborative team project that included both lecturers and post-graduate certificate in education (PGCE) students who, following training, undertook classroom research. Data analysis delivered insights regarding personal understanding of decolonisation and teachers’ implementations. Despite constructive work evident in Modern Foreign Language (MFL) teaching and resources, there was considerable insecurity about the process and student voice was lacking. However, the arts-based approach enabled creative and positive representation of perspectives and the student researchers expressed a transformation of their mindset into one of activism.

Black university student protests calling for decolonising the curriculum in South Africa in 2015 and the Black Lives Matter movement sweeping across the UK in 2020 have brought attention to the need for anti-racist and decolonial education and practice in schools. Drawing on critical pedagogy and decolonial discourse, this research analyses conceptualisations of decolonising the curriculum and anti-racist pedagogy through Black learner and educator understandings from a London primary school and educator perspectives in Johannesburg. Empirical data collected from a learner focus group, field journal, and educator interviews showed key themes for informing best practice as belonging, identity and community knowledge, cultural relevance, critical thinking, and consciousness raising. Findings from this research suggested shared educator understandings of ‘decolonising the curriculum’ and evidence of decolonial practice. While Black learners’ critique raised considerations for progression of ‘soft reform’ to more ‘radical’ transformation.