The Possibilities and Challenges of Decoloniality in Education and Research

This symposium invites contributions that seek to examine the contributions and challenges presented by decolonial, southern, and racial-justice oriented perspectives to the sociology of education (Smith, Tuck & Yang, 2018). Decolonial theory has emerged as a major critical perspective in recent times, building on and sometimes at odds with other critical perspectives on race and inequality (Bhambra, 2014; Takayama, Sriprakash & Connell, 2017). In this seminar, we seek to address issues such as –

• How decoloniality and decolonisation has been applied to the construction of disciplinary knowledge and politics of knowledge circulation
• Coloniality and decolonial critique in global and local histories of racialisation, including Indigeneity, enslavement, anti-Black racism, and others
• The relationship of decolonial critique to other critical traditions
• Empirical applications of decolonial theory in research in schools and communities
• Methodological challenges and possibilities in using decolonial theory
• The building of scholarly and activist communities committed to racial justice
• Decolonial critique in different regions and its relevance and adaptation for different populations
• Decolonial critique as part of teacher education and professional learning pedagogy and curriculum
• System-level change in policies and practices that promote racial justice

References

Bhambra, G. K. (2014). Introduction: Knowledge production in global context: Power and coloniality. Current Sociology, 62(4), 451-456.

Smith, T, Tuck, E & Yang, W (Eds) (2018) Indigenous and decolonizing studies in education: Mapping the long view. Routledge.

Takayama, K., Sriprakash, A., & Connell, R. (2017). Toward a postcolonial comparative and international education. Comparative Education Review, 61(S1), S1-S24.