A Conceptual Analysis of What it Means to Decolonize the Curriculum

Abstract

The concept of decoloniality has been subject to wide-ranging debates among academics and students alike. These discussions have often looked at the issue from a subjective stance, narrowing its meaning down to interpretation based on individuals’ backgrounds and contexts. Consequently, the understanding of decoloniality as it relates to university curricula has remained fragmented, leading to inconsistencies in how it is put into practice. This study, therefore, seeks to address this gap by unpacking the conceptual ambiguity surrounding what it means to decolonize the curricula in university classrooms. Hence, this study intends to deconstruct the decoloniality of the curriculum as it relates to the pedagogical disposition of the classroom in universities using decolonial theory as the basis of argument. The study answers questions about the assumptions of decoloniality suitable to understand the decoloniality of the curriculum. This conceptual analysis is located within a transformative worldview as a lens and employs conceptual analysis as a tool to make sense of the argument deductively from the decolonial premises. The study argues that decolonizing the curriculum is beyond any personal, contextual, historical, and environmental subjectification, and should instead be viewed as advocacy to challenge existing power dynamics towards incorporating traditionally overlooked or excluded ways of doing. Therefore, it is essential to understand “decolonizing the curriculum” from the process of knowing, empowering the disempowered, self-determination, and an anti-oppressive perspective.