What is decoloniality? Decoloniality is not simply about adding diverse content to existing structures. Rooted in Quijano (2000) and expanded by Mignolo and Walsh (2018), it demands epistemic disobedience: questioning dominant knowledge hierarchies, their formation, and whose interests they serve. It challenges Western epistemic dominance and affirms historically marginalised ways of knowing. ‘Decoloniality is not simply about adding diverse content to existing structures … it demands epistemic disobedience: questioning dominant knowledge hierarchies, their formation, and whose interests they serve.’ In education, decoloniality involves critically examining inherited assumptions and engaging with alternative traditions. Black feminist thought (hooks, 1994) and Indigenous methodologies (Tuhiwai-Smith, 2021) offer more than diverse perspectives – they propose radically different ethical orientations grounded in care, land and interdependence. Towards a reimagined curriculum What if curriculum design began not with rubrics or attainment targets but with public values – like justice, sustainability and care? What if we asked: • What does it mean to live well together? • How do we learn to respond to injustice? • What futures are worth imagining and building? • What is the true purpose of education? A values-led, decolonial curriculum reframes education as an ethical and relational practice prioritising inquiry over instruction and transformation over transmission. Biesta (2021) contrasts ‘learnification’ – education reduced to content delivery – with ‘subjectification’, which supports learners in becoming thoughtful, responsible agents. Curriculum, then, is not merely what we teach. It is who we are, what we value and the futures we seek to cocreate. As systems globally grapple with reform, we must not only revise content but reimagine education as a space for justice, plurality and hope.
REFERENCES Apple, M. W. (2004). Ideology and curriculum (3rd ed.). Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy , 18 (2), 215–228. https:// doi.org/10.1080/0268093022000043065 Biesta, G. (2021). World-centred education: A view for the present . Routledge. Gopal, P. (2021). On decolonisation and the university. Textual Practice , 35 (6), 873–899. https://doi.org/10.1080/095023 6X.2021.1929561 hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom . Routledge. Lingard, B. (2011). Policy as numbers: Ac/Counting for educational research. The Australian Educational Researcher , 38 (4), 355–382. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-011-0041-9 Mbembe, A. (2016). Decolonizing the university: New directions. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education , 15 (1), 29–45. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1474022215618513
Mignolo, W., & Walsh, C. (2018). On decoloniality . Duke University Press.
Pinar, W. F. (2019). What is curriculum theory? (3rd ed.). Routledge.
Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power and Eurocentrism in Latin America. International Sociology , 15 (2), 215–232. https://doi. org/10.1177/0268580900015002005 Tikly, L. (2019). Education for sustainable development in the postcolonial world . Routledge. Tuhiwai-Smith, L. (2021). Decolonizing methodologies (3rd ed.). Zed Books.
Young, M. (2007). Bringing Knowledge Back In . Routledge.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 1. If curriculum is a sociopolitical construction rather than a neutral body of knowledge, whose histories, epistemologies and futures are currently centred in our education system – and whose remain marginalised or absent? 2. How might shifting from a performance-driven, employability-focused model of education towards a values-led, decolonial framework reshape what we mean by ‘inclusion’ – particularly in relation to knowledge, power and representation? 3. What practical and policy-level changes would be required to move from ‘weak inclusion’ (access and participation) to ‘strong inclusion’ that reimagines curriculum, accountability and assessment as ethical, relational and justice-oriented practices?
BERA BITES 15 | EDUCATING FOR ALL
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