decolonisation Archives | MelaniePhillips.com

Decolonising the curriculum is sinister and wrong

February 19, 2019 Melaniecurriculum, decolonisation, white identity

The Office for Students has published a report recommending that undergraduate courses decolonise the curriculum by addressing the way in which its values “perpetuate white westernised hegemony and position anything non-European and not white as inferior”. Kehinde Andrews, professor of black studies at Birmingham City University, says this isn’t about adding black or brown faces to the curriculum. It’s about “changing the basis of knowledge” and constitutes “a revisionist history of a lot of western thought”. It’s doing so by dethroning some of the greatest and most influential thinkers in…

Decolonising the curriculum in the moral maze

February 14, 2019 Melaniecurriculum, decolonisation, Moral Maze

A report commissioned by the Office for Students has recommended that universities should “decolonise” the curriculum to end the dominance of western values and beliefs, which “position anything non-European and not white as inferior.” The “decolonisers’” argument is that a “white” curriculum marginalises minority writers and alienates minority students, contributing to their low representation and attainment in higher education. Some university departments have been reassessing their reading lists accordingly. Critics warn, however, that this promotes tokenism, presenting the works of black or female thinkers as being of equal worth merely…