DECOLONISING AND DIVERSIFYING PRIMARY SCHOOL CURRICULUM KNOWLEDGE: ENACTING THEORY IN PRACTICE AND PEDAGOGY

• In Event: What Challenges and Possibilities Lie Ahead for Educational Research on Decolonizing the Curriculum in the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom Amidst a Political Climate of Right-Wing Populism?

Abstract

Decolonising the curriculum has been increasingly discussed in education, particularly following the Black Lives Matter anti-racism protests in 2020. This paper presents how teachers in UK primary schools are approaching curriculum-making through decolonial lenses. With a focus on teaching and learning about race, cultural diversity, and British history in primary school education, the authors refer to key examples of teacher education research which has argued over the years for decolonising and diversifying curriculum knowledge. The authors relate these arguments to evaluate data from online learning modules on this topic created by the Chartered College of Teaching. Findings show that when provided with robust continuous professional development (CPD), teachers grow in confidence in seeing and challenging the limitations of knowledge centred by the Eurocentric discourses of the primary national curriculum. Adopting decolonial lenses for critical curriculum thinking enables teachers to plan and implement approaches to pedagogies framed by a diversification of knowledge in curriculum-making. But what might be the challenges to applying and sustaining this action in England?

Authors

• Lisa-Marie Muller, Chartered College of Teaching

• Marlon Lee Moncrieffe, British Educational Research Association

• Hannah Tyreman, Teacher Development Trust