Decolonizing Discourse and Practice: Acknowledging and Addressing Inequalities in Educational Policy and Assessment in the Core and Periphery

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

This formal panel session explores the theme of inequality as manifested in education policy in diverse cultural contexts and locales. Through the use of the comparative case study approach developed by Bartlett and Vavrus (2017), the papers in this session attend to global, national and local factors through application of the horizontal, vertical, and transversal dimensions in an analysis of educational inequality in historical and contemporary terms. The first paper examines the state of refugee education in Turkiye, Germany, and the United Kingdom (UK) following the 2011 Syrian crisis. While policy changes in Turkiye have expanded educational access for Syrian refugees, inequalities and limitations persist due to the large refugee population being served. Unlike Turkiye, Germany and the UK have implemented separate schooling to accommodate refugee students, which poses challenges for social integration now and in the future. The study reveals refugee education as an example of contestation of inequality with significant challenges related to access, resources, and medium of instruction for which an energized educational response is needed to effectively address these challenges. The second paper, a form of protest against current large-scale assessment, examines PISA’s Global Competency Framework and its neglect and disregard for the Global South. PISA’s global competence is a tool used by the OECD to construct new forms of global pedagogical governance. The colonial tendency is exemplified through use of English as a language of assessment and a lack of attention to measuring other skill-sets such as collaboration, community-building, and adaptability. As such, the global competency framework continues to disadvantage students in the Global South, leading to a new moment for educational and epistemological inclusion. The third paper examines the ongoing destructive consequences of the colonial era for marginalized student groups in Trinidad and Tobago. Postcolonial analysis through comparative case study reveals inequality and inequity transmitted across the colonial-style education system premised on social elimination through rigid examination processes. Racial groups do not equally enjoy equitable access to public schools. Rather, plantation economies continue to foster persistent poverty and fail in their national development goals regardless of funding from bilateral arrangements or multilateral aid agencies. Western educational policies where inequality is built into the structure and systems in which they operate call into question issues of cultural (ir)relevancy and draw increasing attention through scholarly protest to systemic discrimination. Each paper reveals the intersecting marginalizations within educational policies and practices, and each paper suggests how cultural relevant responses might be introduced to address educational inequalities. Together, the papers reinforce the notion that if successful protest is not levied by comparative and international educators to inequitable schooling policies and practices in these countries, then the risk is further disadvantage and exclusion for already marginalized youth and their communities.

Sub Unit

• General Pool

Chair

• Patricia Kubow, Indiana University - Bloomington

Individual Presentations

• From East to West: A Comparative Study of Refugee Education Issues in Turkiye, Germany, and the United Kingdom - Filiz Akyuz, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Neglecting the South: Examining PISA's Global Competency Framework and Its Disregard for the Global South - Arya karumanthra, Indiana University

• Postcolonial Issues, Identity, and Decolonialization Discourses in Education - Paula Marcelle, Indiana University - Bloomington

Discussant

• Shukufe Rahman, Indiana University - Bloomington