In this article, we review the process of building relationships around education and international development at IOE (Institute of Education), UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society (University College London, UK). The analysis looks at how hierarchies linked to colonialism were inscribed in initial structures, and unevenly and disparately contested by students, staff and a range of interlocutors around the world over one hundred years. The article considers how this history shapes practice in the present and perspectives on the future. In describing and reflecting on processes for change, the article considers some of the questioning, discussion and new forms of relationship that are emerging as part of trying to develop an orientation away from a colonial past. Efforts to decolonise education have raised questions and actions associated with reimagining practice. We reflect on what we have learned and unlearned from our efforts to promote decolonial, socially just alternatives.
This study explores young students' negotiation of their citizenship identities at the intersection of their class, gender, religious and ethnic identifications in the conflict-affected setting of Pakistan. While much of the global literature on global citizenship education (GCE) primarily takes into account the perspectives of middle-class or elite students located in richer economies, the current study is centered on a socio-demographically diverse group of young people in a low-income setting. With a specific focus on their negotiation of issues around diversity and justice, students' narratives generated important recommendations for a transformative and historically-nuanced postcolonial/decolonial approach to global citizenship engagement that should be considered more broadly. The study illuminates the ways the global / local historical, cultural, political and economic factors influence individual relationship with GCE and offers useful pedagogical and policy implications for GCE 'from below'.
As the offshore mobility of higher education has increased in recent times, the question of how it interacts with the recipient cultures has become ever more significant. Using ethnographic methods, this empirical study examined the adaptation of the UK teacher education model -the Postgraduate Certificate in Education -to the context of Dubai. The study asks 'how do students and tutors experience the adaptation of British education in the context of Dubai?' This paper will argue that tutors and students in offshore Dubai teacher education are 'selective cosmopolitans' who negotiate cross-cultural influences pragmatically and ambivalently. The study addresses a significant gap in the literature, as there is little written on the internationalisation of higher education in the context of Gulf Cooperation Council countries. There is also an inadequate appreciation of the role of local culture and religion in offshore education and tutors and students' role as active agents in negotiating cross-cultural dynamics in the offshore educational setting.
In recent years, there has been increased interest in, and work towards, decolonising the curriculum in higher education institutions in the UK. There are various initiatives to review university syllabuses and identify alternative literature. However, there is an increasing risk of turning ‘decolonisation’ into a buzz term tied to a trend. We fear that decolonisation within academia is becoming an empty term, diluted and depoliticised, allowing for superficial representations that fail to address racial, political and socio-economic intersectionalities. In this article, we examine several initiatives to decolonise the curriculum with a focus on the field of education as a discipline and medium. Based on our analysis, we engage with three main themes: conceptualisation, positionality and conduct. The article concludes that decolonisation cannot happen in a vacuum, or as an aim disconnected from the rest of the structure of the university, which leads to diluting a wider movement and turns into a box-ticking exercise. We argue that there needs to be a deconstruction of asymmetrical power relationships within academic spaces to allow for meaningful decolonisation in practice. This requires a real political will, a change in the structure, and in the hearts and minds of those in decision-making positions, and a shift in the practices of knowledge production.
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