The concept of decolonizing the curriculum had its origins in the 2015 “Rhodes Must Fall” movement that swept Capetown and questioned the legacy of Cecil Rhodes. A movement that began with a call for the removal of a Cecil Rhodes statue from the University of Cape Town evolved into into what Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatshen describes as a movement that sought “demands for cognitive justice; change of curriculum; de-commissioning of offensive colonial/apartheid symbols; right to free, quality and relevant education; cultural freedom; and overall change of the very idea of the university from its western pedigree (‘university in Africa’) to ‘African university’.” Adekeye Adebajo, executive director of South Africa’s Centre for Conflict Resolution, explains that the removal of the statue represented “a metaphorical call for the transformation of the university’s curriculum, culture and faculty, which many blacks feel are alienating and still reflect a Eurocentric heritage”.

So what does decolonizing the curriculum hope to accomplish? Rowena Arshad of Edinburgh University argues that decolonising the curriculum “is not about deleting knowledge or histories that have been developed in the West or colonial nations; rather it is to situate the histories and knowledges that do not originate from the West in the context of imperialism, colonialism and power and to consider why these have been marginalised and decentred.” Although Arshad recognizes that there is no one template to do this, she believes that at the very least it must be “contextual to our discipline and subject areas” and be seen “as an approach rather than trying to get a neat definition for the term.”

Arshad recommends that those seeking to decolonize the curriculum begin with the following guiding points,

• First, develop understanding of why decolonising the curriculum is important as part of our commitment to justice. We can start by examining what coloniality means – read Walter D Mignolo’s 2017 paper “Coloniality is far from over, and so must be decoloniality” as a starter.
• Examine our own subject discipline to identify if there are alternative canons of knowledge which have been marginalised or dismissed as a result of colonialism that should be included and discussed with students.
• Ensure a range of voices and perspectives are represented and ways you might re-conceptualise the curriculum to reflect wider global and historical perspectives.
• Consider the diversity of our student groups and ensure learning content moves beyond Western to global frameworks.

Anamika Twyman-Ghoshal and Danielle Carkin Lacorazza have developed an antiracist and decolonized teaching and learning framework that provides “a series of questions that guide faculty in the reflection and the recall of antiracist and decolonizing strategies.”

• Acknowledge our own biases and privilege.
  • How does my social and geographical location influence my identity, knowledge, and accumulated wisdom? What knowledge am I missing?
  • What privileges and power do I hold? How do I exercise my power and privilege?
  • How does my power and privilege show up in my work?
  • How do my biases and privileges take up space and silence others?
  • Am I nonracist or antiracist? How do I hold myself accountable?
• Revising courses and curricula.
  • How does your course/curriculum interrogate inequalities and injustices?
  • For whom is your course/curriculum designed? What assumptions do you make about your students’ backgrounds and culture?
  • In what ways does your course recognize and tackle the dominance of Western pedagogy, content, and philosophy?
  • How are you working to ensure your course/curriculum is valuing a diversity of approaches and not privileging dominant forms of knowledge?
  • How are you acknowledging and addressing the omissions within the field through your coursework and lectures? What is given priority and what is relegated to less important?
  • How are you encouraging healthy skepticism which allows students to question what they are learning?
• Amplify minoritized voices.
  • How have you incorporated BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) work into spaces where it has previously been excluded?
  • How are you integrating storytelling into your course? Whose stories are being told? What are you communicating when you exclude certain voices?
  • If your institution is located in a postcolonial secular nation, how are indigenous narratives integrated into your courses?
  • In what ways are you keeping up to date with scholarship in your field? Are these methods inclusive of minoritized voices?
  • How are you supporting and valuing your BIPOC students without assuming assimilation?
• Incorporating high impact learning activities.
  • What types of coursework are you engaging in outside the typical assessment modalities?
  • What content in your course lends itself to hands-on engagement?
  • How do the assessments engage students in questioning and critiquing existing and established content?
  • In what ways does the activity require students to question their biases and knowledge to work toward a solution?
  • How do class activities encourage students to be self-critical and engage in self-improvement, both intellectually and civilly?
• Developing community partnerships.
  • What community agencies engage in the work you teach? How can students in your discipline support diverse community agencies that support the underprivileged, underserved, and underfunded?
  • What projects can benefit both the community partner, the individuals they serve, and the student(s)?
  • How are you ensuring the relationship is reciprocal and you are not adding labor to the community partner?
  • In what ways are your students learning more about the world around them?

The authors conclude that “It is not enough to be nonracist, faculty must make their courses and curriculum actively antiracist.” 

Additional Resources

University of London, Decolonising SOAS Learning and Teaching Toolkit for Programme and Module Convenors.

Mintz, S. (2021, June 21). Decolonizing the academy. Inside Higher Ed.

Sheoran Appleton, Nayantara. “Do Not ‘Decolonize’ . . . If You Are Not Decolonizing: Progressive Language and Planning Beyond a Hollow Academic Rebranding.”

Rowena Arshad, Decolonising the curriculum – how do I get started?

Twyman-Ghoshal, A. & Lacorazza, D. C. (2021, March 31). Strategies for antiracist and decolonized teaching. Higher Ed Teaching & Learning.

Wilson, Chanelle. Revolutionizing my Syllabus: The Process.