Reimagining Higher Education: Transformation through Culturally Responsive Curriculum

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Revolutionary transformation of the decolonial curriculum to come

Abstract

This paper synthesizes findings from Developing Culturally Responsive Curriculum in Higher Education (IGI Global, 2025), a 24-chapter volume authored by North American scholar-practitioners. This paper identifies key themes, strategies, and institutional tensions in culturally responsive curriculum reform. Three central constructs emerge: curriculum as epistemic justice, faculty as agents of transformation, and the shift from student access to belonging. These findings illuminate how institutions are reimagining curriculum in response to systemic inequities and align with AERA’s 2026 theme of “Unforgetting Histories and Imagining Futures: Constructing a New Vision for Education Research.” It calls on higher education stakeholders to confront the hidden violence embedded in traditional curricula, and to envision futures where justice, belonging, and liberation are foundational to the academic experience.

Authors

• LeeAnne McNulty, Allan Hancock College

• Rick Rantz, Allan Hancock College