Decolonising the Criminology Curriculum: Exploring and Understanding Criminology Staff Experiences

• In Event: Advances in Teaching Methods 1. Critical and Novel Perspectives

Abstract

Building on previous research (Stockdale and Sweeney 2022, 2021, 2019; Stockdale, Sweeney and Mcluskey Dean, 2021; Stockdale et al. 2022) this paper explores staff perspectives of designing the criminology curriculum and the content they create. We will present initial findings from qualitative semi-structured interviews held with staff who teach criminology (permanent and hourly paid) at different Universities around the world. The research explores the barriers and opportunities that staff experience when attempting to decolonise and diversify the criminology content that they teach. In this paper we reflect on micro level work and ideas of individual criminologists as they reflect on their teaching practices and the conditions within which they produce content for students. We also consider the meso level university approaches to the work staff do, the time allocated to do it, and support for the wider decolonising strategies, as well as the macro-level discipline-specific issues of ‘criminology’ and how it is taught. In doing so, this paper provides evidence of the challenges and opportunities for the decolonisation of criminology curricula internationally at an individual, university, and disciplinary level. Evidence explored in this paper will offer valuable insight to support decolonising work in criminology curricula for individual criminologists, criminology programmes, and the discipline more broadly, adding to growing scholarship regarding criminological pedagogy and curriculum decolonisation.

Authors

• Kelly Stockdale, Northumbria University

• Rowan Sweeney, University of Gloucestershire

• Ryan Peacey, The University of Manchester