Decolonial Multicultural Education in Post-Apartheid South Africa

Abstract

This article explores decolonial epistemic priorities in Open and distance learning (ODL) multicultural teacher education and training praxis, raises questions about the andragogical approach, and challenges the primary educational goal for students, opining that multicultural teacher education and training has become fixated on a simplistic decoloniality of Western knowledges and practices. Using the internet based asynchronous OBB system; I adopted a qualitative discursive analysis to identify linguistic conventions within the academic discourse message board community of practice as regards the dominate views and values that can be embedded in curriculum craft in post-colonial states. I put forward a case to prioritise the development of learning dispositions in multicultural students that encourage openness to further inquiry and productive ways of thinking in and through complex and contested knowledge terrains with the hope of engendering the concept pluriversality. I argue that this andragogical approach adds a critical dimension to the decolonial task in imbedding first nation’s indigenous knowledges, views and/or perspectives rather than mimicking fixated Western priorities.

Criticalities of Non-Verbal Reading Competencies: An Afrocentric Ethnological Approach to Qualitative Research

“…Postcolonial Studies intends to deconstruct the Eurocentrism that underlies a large part of theory-building in the West. However, it not only challenges Eurocentric claims of universality, but also the complementary assertions of global particularism and cultural relativism (Nyoni, 2013).…”

Toward a Relevant De-colonized Curriculum in South Africa: Suggestions for a Way Forward

“…It seems normative that wherever there was colonial rule in the world, the power that the colonial rulers exert on their subjects lasts long and it becomes difficult for the colonized to unshackle themselves from it. Nyoni (2018) also adds his voice to the debate about colonized minds and draws attention to what he terms the chained mind of African communities through the concept he refers to as a Caged Colonial Mentality (CCM). Nyoni further sees the CCM as failure to unchain the colonized mind of Black South Africans, especially among academics.…”

Decolonising the higher education curriculum: An analysis of African intellectual readiness to break the chains of a colonial caged mentality

“…Failure to unchain or de-cage the 'caged' mind will mean that decolonial efforts will do nothing more than offer patently cosmetic changes that remain marooned within Western knowledges and practices. Reading through the literature, I noticed with some distress that scholars tend to conflate concepts such as multiculturalism, diversity and equity with decolonialism (Day 2004;Nyoni 2013). Cultural diversity is a strategy for 'embracing, or accommodating or engaging differences' (Naidoo 2015:3).…”

“…Yet, as is pointed out in many works discussing cultural hybridity, the term and the vast array of concepts it encapsulates have raised long-running discussions and debates. The term 'hybridity' refers notably to discourses and ideologies of racism (Nyoni 2013). Derived from the Latin, the term was until the 19th century rarely used except in biological or botanical descriptions.…”