decolonizing curriculum (1)

Post-colonial Curriculum

DevelopmentAndrea Sterzuk

Curriculum Development & Evaluation in Technical & Vocational Education

October 1, 2013

Many of the slides in this presentation are text taken from Sterzuk (2011)

Framing our conversation

• Sometimes the decolonization or indigenization/Africanization of schools can be (mis)interpreted as a desire to return to a static past or as the simple the re-insertion of cultural practices into schooling like dance or art.

• The purpose of this presentation is to help us arrive at an understanding of the processes and questions involved in decolonizing thinking, schooling, and curriculum development.


• Let’s begin by seeking a common understanding of culture.

• Handwerker defines as culture “the knowledge people use to live their lives and the way in which they do so.”

• Wolcott (1999) takes the definition of culture a step further claiming that, “culture is revealed through discerning patterns of socially shared behaviour” (p. 67). Wolcott also says that culture can be “loosely defined as shared knowledge” (p. 69).


• Question: How do you view culture? Do you understand it as dynamic and changing?

• Question: What might it mean when we describe school curriculum as Eurocentric ?

• Question: What might it mean to Africanize school curriculum?

• Question: Can diversity coexist with unity in multicultural African schools? How?

What is postcolonial theory?

• Postcolonial theory has been used to examine and critique power relations in a range of contexts and ways.

• Some topics include: formation of empire; impact of colonization on postcolonial history, economy, science & culture; cultural productions of colonized societies; & agency for colonized peoples.

• Postcolonial theory asks questions like: How did colonialism happen? How did the experience of colonization affect those who were colonized as well as the colonizers? What are the continuing after- effects of colonial education, science and technology in postcolonial societies? What were the forms of resistance against colonial control? How do gender, race and class function in colonial and postcolonial discourse? Are new forms of imperialism replacing colonization and how?

European Imperialism• By the 1930s, colonies and ex-colonies

covered 84.6% of the land surface of the globe (Loomba, 1998).

• This figure is shocking in itself but next consider this reality: the eight countries that created these European empires – Portugal, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy – account for merely 1.6% of the land surface of the earth.

• What kinds of ideologies might have permitted these countries to believe in their rights to extend their claims to land surface and human lives in this manner?

European Imperialism

• Indigenous peoples were not fully human; they were not Christian, they were not civilized; they had not evolved; they were doomed to extinction by history and progress; they had no recognizable legal systems or concepts of property rights and were thus lawless; and they did not cultivate their land. (Thobani, 2007, p. 41).

• Where did this thinking come from?

Critiques of Western Philosophy

• Leela Gandhi (1998): In order to better understand colonialism and postcolonial theory, a brief overview of European philosophy (specifically Cartesian philosophy and the ideas and thinking that derive from it) is necessary because this particular view of the world underlies European colonial movements and thinking (past and present).

Cartesian Philosophy• Working under a humanistic

assumption – the idea that despite our many differences, the human experience has a universal and given nature – Rene Descartes (1619) was trying to make sense of the world by determining what things all human beings know for certain.

• Descartes posited that there is nothing that humans can be certain of other than the Self: the individual person’s own existence in the world. From this idea comes the familiar statement ‘I think therefore I am,’ which is central to Cartesian philosophy

Cartesian Philosophy• Cartesian philosophy placed European humans at the centre

of their worlds and allowed them to believe that nature could be controlled through acquisition of knowledge and classification and analysis of the surrounding world.

• The experiences of other humans different from the Self – commonly referred to as the Other – and other types of life such as plants and animals are not part of this philosophy’s view of the world except in how they are viewed or understood by the Self.

• In this thinking, we can perhaps see the origins of the contrast between Western individualism & African traditions of cooperative communalism (Woolman, 2001, p.31).

Cartesian Philosophy

• This way of thinking about the world links power to the individual’s ability to define the world; anything that eludes or defies classification is, therefore, troublesome.

• In an effort to make sense of the world and to maintain power though knowing, Cartesian man must either omit or suppress the deviant ways of the other.


• With Cartesian philosophy in mind, we can start to understand the ‘civilizing’ goals of colonialism and; colonialist education as the fear and suppression of alterity (the state of being other) through the pursuit of sameness.

Cartesian Philosophy• Ashcroft explains that ‘the Cartesian separation

of subject and object, the separation of the consciousness from the world of which it is conscious, is the schema which still underlies the modern Western episteme with its passion for “scientific” objectivity and its tendency to see the world as a continuum of technological data’ (Ashcroft, 2001: 67).

• This view of the world also leads to the suppression of non- Western knowledge systems (for example African knowledge).


• Cartesian philosophy inevitably produced ways of viewing the world that positioned the white European (and, subsequently, settler) Self as the centre of the world gazing outwardly; as ignorant or scared of the Other; and as understanding the Self as having an ethical responsibility to bring the European rationality to others, so that they too could progress from immaturity to maturity.

Postcolonial School Curriculum

• In his discussion of African school curriculum, Shizha (2013) asks the following questions:• What constitutes school knowledge in postcolonial

African schools?• How is that knowledge created & disseminated?• How do we define & validate knowledge for the

official curriculum in the face of multiculturalism, globalization & the internationalization of knowledge?

• What is the place of indigenous knowledge (IK) in African schools?

Indigenous Knowledge

• “Indigenous knowledge is the local knowledge—knowledge that is unique to a given culture or society. IK contrasts with the international knowledge system generated by universities, research institutions and private firms. It is the basis for local-level decision making in agriculture, health care, food preparation, education, natural-resource management, and a host of other activities in rural communities (Warren, 1991, p.1).

Indigenous Knowledge

• Shizha writes: “due to colonization, Western knowledge (deemed positive science or scientific) and IKs are/were often entrapped in power relationships (Shizha, 2012b). The dominant knowledge is/was frequently Western knowledge, which overpowered and dismissed the Other’s importance (Barua, 2010)” (2013, p. 4).

Indigenous Knowledge• Shiza (2013) explains that “education is not

limited to accumulating knowledge and skills; it involves acquiring ways of interpreting and giving meaning to concepts, forming links and understanding ideas. It also entails ways of knowing, perceiving and interpreting the world. School knowledge has to express the social desires, anxieties, and socio-cultural needs for socio-economic development. It should align itself with learners’ experiences that are characterized by their socio-cultural worldviews” (p.5).

Africanizing Schools• Shizha (2013) explains that “ indigenizing Sub-

Saharan African school curriculum should be approached pragmatically. Inclusive practices in knowledge production and mediation should be what curriculum transformation aim at. Pedagogy should be approached from diverse perspectives that allow the pedagogical process to be culturally sensitive, accepting cultural variations that may exist within the classroom. Classroom life should reflect the social and cultural contexts that relate to students’ experiences” (p. 14)

Africanizing Schools

• Woolman (2001) outlines some specific school practices in the area of learning methods “indigenous reliance on field experience, active discovery and close observation reflects a progressive pedagogy and seems more likely to promote retention of learning than classroom-based book and test methods that dominate Western schooling” (2001, p. 31).


• Shizha (2013) goes on to state that “classroom experiences should also focus on the need to meet the current societal needs. This means that although pedagogy should be culturally sensitive, it should not ignore aspects of Western knowledge constructs that have benefited African societies during the colonial period” (p. 15).


• Woolman concludes by stating that the most important need in educational reconstruction is to “depart from dysfunctional external models of curriculum that do not relate constructively to the needs of all Africans” (2001, p. 43).

• Question: Do you agree? Why or why not?• Question: Are you aware of external

models of curriculum that affect you as a teacher or learner?