01-09-2024
31-08-2030
The need to decolonise education, particularly, HE (Decol/HE) is now a pressing debate globally that implies acknowledging, deconstructing and overcoming persistent oppressive colonial rationalities and proposing transformative, socially just, pluriversal ones. Faced with internal and external pressures, a gap exists between what is expected from HE and what it can and has done for today’s pressing challenges, and a resistance to handling “uncomfortable topics” and progressing transformative curricula and pedagogies, as well as the tensions, concealments and backlashes of equity, diversity and inclusion of decolonising HE.
Despite Decol/HE scholarship long tradition and recent expansion, it often remains vague or theoretical, limiting the understanding of what a “decolonised” HE can be. Worldwide, there is little systematic evidence on the perspective of academic actors, with review studies being scarce. In Europe, these debates have progressed very unevenly among countries, including with colonial background and overcoming monolithic understandings of Decolonising European HEIs is therefore vital. A relevant connection to the field of Education is suggested, however, a thorough discussion on how Education is produced and viewed within the Decol/HE literature seems neglected across Europe. Evidence on how Decol/HE is produced is scarce and systematic studies exploring country cases combinedly are missing.
This study will further these debates in a multiple cross-national case study with European academic actors, based on a mix-methods design, and a multiphase design, combining in-depth qualitative (websites, documents, interviews, focus groups) and quantitative (survey) evidence, collected with key-players and scholars in HE and Education Sciences, and HEIs. Based on European and country-specific comprehensive evidence in three former colonial countries - Portugal, Spain and the UK -, the study aims to offer an innovative perspective on the views, tensions and possibilities of Decol/HE (“landscapes”) and the Education dimension (“eduscapes”) and the factors shaping current discourses, useful for advancing decolonial/related transformative perspectives in HE. The plan will provide comprehensive evidence impacting policy and decision-making, curriculum design and pedagogical practice in HE, key to how HEIs interpret, respond and transform in the light of growing pressures to commit with societal challenges globally, sustainability chief among them. The research will progress my leadership and international visibility as scholar and is relevant for CIIE, where the research topics are expanding priorities. This research contributes to the overall 2030 Agenda and more directly to SDGs 4 and 17.
PCEP - Participation, Communities and Political Education
FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
2023.09356.CEECIND
CIIE / Faculdade de Pscicologia e Ciências da Educação da Universidade do Porto -FPCEUP