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Decolonising the school curriculum in an era of political polarisation
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Akhter, Shahnaz and Watson, Matthew (2022) Decolonising the school curriculum in an era of political polarisation. London Review of Education, 20 (1). 27. doi:10.14324/LRE.20.1.27 ISSN 1474-8479.
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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.14324/LRE.20.1.27
Abstract
Recent consciously curated conditions of political polarisation have prevented English schools from taking even the first tentative steps towards decolonising the curriculum. Since returning to power in 2010, successive Conservative Secretaries of State for Education have resolved to restore traditional learning methods to English classrooms, championing the need for children to passively accept content chosen for them by government appointees who are answerable to political rather than to pedagogical priorities. This had already created an unsupportive political environment for transforming what children might learn, before such difficulties were magnified following the Brexit referendum of 2016. Decolonisation has increasingly been identified by Conservative Party strategists as one of their beloved wedge issues, something that can be used to stoke electorally expedient anger against ‘the Remainer elite’ among Leave-voting communities. Hopes for a serious debate about the principles of decolonisation were frustrated by the Johnson government hijacking the very mention of the word to use as evidence that the ‘woke’ brigade was running hopelessly out of control. The case for decolonising the English school curriculum has been subjected to a full-frontal populist culture-war attack on an educational establishment accused of refusing to allow children to see the good in their country.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HM Sociology J Political Science > JN Political institutions (Europe) > JN101 Great Britain J Political Science > JV Colonies and colonization. Emigration and immigration. International migration L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2361 Curriculum L Education > LC Special aspects of education |
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| Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Decolonization -- Great Britain, Curriculum enrichment -- Great Britain, Social justice and education -- Great Britain, Decolonization -- Social aspects -- Great Britain, Education -- Curricula -- Great Britain, Polarization (Social sciences) -- Great Britain, Great Britain -- Politics and government -- 21st century, Culture conflict -- Great Britain, Citizenship -- Great Britain , Conservative Party (Great Britain) | ||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | London Review of Education | ||||||
| Publisher: | UCL Press | ||||||
| ISSN: | 1474-8479 | ||||||
| Official Date: | 10 August 2022 | ||||||
| Dates: |
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| Volume: | 20 | ||||||
| Number: | 1 | ||||||
| Article Number: | 27 | ||||||
| DOI: | 10.14324/LRE.20.1.27 | ||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||
| Copyright Holders: | © 2022, Shahnaz Akhter and Matthew Watson | ||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 21 July 2022 | ||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 10 August 2022 | ||||||
| RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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