Event

The School of Education invites all members of the academic staff and interested postgraduate studentsto a presentation by Professor George Dei on Thursday 27^th September, 2012, at 10.30am, at the School of Education.  

Professor Dei is a visiting professor from the Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (OISE/UT). He will present on the topic “Decolonizing the University curriculum: The challenges and possibilities of inclusivity”. 

Abstract

This paper will focus on the necessity of decolonizing the curriculum, suggesting concrete ways of making the curriculum more inclusive and accessible to learners. It highlights key philosophical arguments on the necessity surrounding inclusive and decolonized curriculum pointing, specifically, to the challenges and possibilities to achieve these goals in a meaningful manner. Beginning by operationalizing the key terms of “inclusion” and “curriculum”,  the paper raises some key questions: how do we frame an inclusive anti-racist/anti-colonial global future and what is the nature of the work required to collectively arrive at that future?; what education are learners of today going to receive and how will they apply to their schooling and work lives?; how do we ‘re-fashion’ our work as educators and learners to create more relevant understandings of what it means to be human?; how do we challenge colonizing and imperializing relations of the academy?; what are the possibilities and limits of counter-visions of education?; and, how do we make school curricula inclusive through teaching, research and graduate training in questions of indigeneity and multi-centric ways of knowing? The discussion will identify some specific areas of an “inclusive/decolonized curriculum agenda” through educational programming and training. I engage the conceptual domains for inclusive curriculum suggesting some concrete and practical strategies for achieving an inclusive and accessible curriculum.