Decolonising Learning Development: Doing The Work 

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Decolonization is, to use the current phrase, about ‘doing the work’, and it’s difficult, uncomfortable work which for many of us will feel threatening, as it’s a de-centring of dominant cultural values, discourses and practices, a dismantling of a system created for the benefit of those ‘like us’ in which we have much invested, a destabilizing of things we previously might have held to be inherently, self-evidently, unquestioningly, incontrovertibly universal norms.

There is much talk of decolonizing the curriculum, but the process really needs to begin not with things but people, so I’d like to focus in very practical terms on where we as Learning Developers can start to decolonize ourselves, and how we can enact this in our roles. We need to critically examine our stance towards the discourses, practices and epistemologies we teach.

Whether, like me, you are yourself white and middle class and this whole system is geared to centre your cultural norms and designed to cater for you, or if you are working class, Black, Asian, other ethnic minority or underrepresented, disadvantaged group and have worked damn hard for the cultural capital you’ve gained through Higher Education…..Story continues…

By: RATTUSSCHOLASTICUS

Source: Decolonising Learning Development: Doing the Work – rattus scholasticus

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