Abstract

The need to decolonise education, particularly, HE is now a pressing debate globally. Claims draw attention to the need for a critical understanding of "diversity", addressing race, deconstruct "curriculum whiteness", rethink dominant epistemologies and promote an "ecology of knowledges". They focus on acknowledging, deconstructing and overcoming persistent colonial rationalities at the heart of oppressions and proposing transformative, socially just, pluriversal ones. HE is given an influential role on all sectors of society in changing this turn of events, yet it struggles with internal and external pressures, namely to recognise its intrinsic colonial nature as key in "decolonising HE" (Decol/HE) and imagining it otherwise. Decol/HE scholarship is not new and far from consensual but expanded greatly in the last decade. Worldwide, there is little systematic evidence on the views, shapes, and implications of the call to Decol/HE among academic actors and review studies are scarce. Although a relevant connection of the topic to the field of Education is claimed, a thorough discussion on how Education is produced and viewed within the Decol/HE literature seems absent.

This study will further these debates in a case study with Portuguese academic actors, specifically aiming to: i) offer a problematized account on the views, tensions and possibilities of Decol/HE in public HE in Portugal, based on an exploration of multilevel factors; and to ii) contribute to understand how Education is produced and viewed within Decol/HE discourses, to offer broad evidence useful to for advancing decolonial/related transformative perspectives in HE. The study adopts a mix-methods design and is theoretically informed by scholarship on HE, postcolonialism and decoloniality in education, for 18 months and will: i) further theoretical scholarship and map evidence on Decol/HE and the Education dimension; ii) map representations of academic actors (teachers, researchers and students) in Education about Decol/HE and the Education dimension in public institutions offering Education Sciences courses, through survey and in-depth interviews, as well as in interviews with other relevant actors in HE and Education sector; iii) produce a comprehensive overview on views, tensions and possibilities of Decol/HE and the Education dimension and the factors shaping current discourses.

CoPIn

PCEP - Participation, Communities and Political Education

Funding

Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Restart
Ref. 2023.00069.RESTAT

Keywords

Coloniality
Decolonial thinking
Decolonising education
Higher education
Mix methods
Portugal
Students
Teachers

Principal Investigator

Dalila Pinto Coelho

Team

Isabel Menezes

João Caramelo

Pedro Ferreira

Partners

Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto (Coord.)