A reflection on the teacher education curriculum and the decolonising agenda

Abstract

This paper is a reflective piece on the thought processes individuals and teams have when engaging in decoloniality work in Teacher Training/Education.  We argue that until the self is decolonised, the process of decolonialisation becomes rhetoric, or as stated by Doharty et al. (2021), ‘lousy diversity double-speak’.  We also question how much we can decolonise whilst working in the academy whose very culture, symbols and practices are borne out of colonialism and the period of enlightenment; whose very raison d’etre is to elevate some knowledge over others and to claim cultural and academic superiority. The current political landscape in England approaches anti-racism as a political ideology that must be avoided in schools and education and this ideological battlefield is evident in teacher education. We aim to recognise the tensions and resistance to decolonialise, which demonstrates the messy and contingent process of moving between shifting positions and subjectivities. It confronts the challenge of the teacher-practitioner who must balance their own moral and philosophical grounding whilst attending the political imperatives of the work. This can take the form of according with the policies and procedures of the institutions in which they are situated which can often be balkanising and debilitating.