Curriculum as a Contentious Space to Disturb Inequalities: Academics and Decolonizing the Curriculum

• In Event: Refusing Systemic Inequality: Curriculum as Disruptive-Productive Device for Equity Aspirations

Abstract

Since 1994, South Africa’s constitution has pledged to change unjust political, economic and social relations in all spheres of life so as to heal the divisions of its unjust past through democratic values, social justice and fundamental human rights. In a pluralistic society like South Africa this presents a sensitive and complex responsibility for all sectors; curriculum inclusive. The 2015-ongoing protest movements have been testimony of the distrust in South Africa’s education system to address socio-economic divides that perpetuate inequalities. The need for a decolonized curriculum was one of the outcries of students toward cultivating more equitable education. The objective of this paper is to listen to the voices of academics as they navigate what it means to decolonize their curricula spaces.
To provide theoretical insight into the call for a decolonized curriculum, I draw on Nancy Fraser’s theory of social justice to trouble the intricacies of systemic inequality. Her theory makes visible socially entrenched orders of subordination and injustice through a politics of redistribution, recognition and representation (Fraser 2010). Redistribution institutionalizes economic mechanisms that systematically deny some of its members the means and opportunities they need in order to participate more equitably in society. Recognition institutionalizes patterns of cultural value that pervasively deny some members the recognition they need in order to be full, participating members of society. Representation reframes disputes about justice that cannot be contained within established policies. The complex intersection of these three-dimensional politics exposes a myriad of opaque and overt inequalities to enable a more nuanced approach to addressing these through the curriculum. It also exposes where curriculum is simply remedied through affirmation at the cost of deep transformation.
A qualitative phenomenological study was done five years after the 2015 student protest movements to explore how academics teaching curriculum studies are decolonising their curricula. Ten academics from my institution were interviewed. From their responses it became evident that decolonising the curriculum is a sensitive, complex and daunting process that involves acknowledging injustice in productive ways so that it can harness equity aspirations. It needs to be aspired for through social justice discourses that unlock the intricacies embedded in diversity, inclusivity and social cohesion. What academics also troubled was the over reliance of curriculum as a site of knowledge rectification through simply changing curriculum content, almost like ‘cleansing’ the curriculum. Instead they advocated for understanding the curriculum as more than just an epistemological tool, by acknowledging the curriculum as embedded and embodied in how knowledge is transferred and to whom.
To conclude, the significance of these findings are problematized through Fraser’s theory to highlight the importance of curriculum as a contentious space to disturb root causes of inequalities rather than just affirm these.
Fraser N (2010). Scales of justice: reimagining political space in a globalizing world. New York: Columbia University Press.

Author

• Shan R. Simmonds, North-West University