In 2019–20 I’ll be teaching part of a compulsory second year undergraduate course called “Emergence of Education Systems and Thinking” at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Here’s some of the material we’ll be discussing over the 8 lectures (organised into two blocks).
Reading lists are artifacts of teaching; they are incomplete and do not stand in for teaching itself. So if you have additional resources to suggest, please do let me know.
BLOCK 1: EDUCATION SYSTEMS AND SOCIAL ORDERS
This block of lectures explores how education systems have been used as a means of categorisation and differentiation — particularly in relation to people and knowledge. We take as a focus the relationship between race, empire and education in creating global and local social orders.
Lecture 1: Colonial-modernity and education
In this session we examine the historical relationship between education and colonialism and assess its enduring legacies.
Key readings:
Murray K. Simpson (2007) From Savage to Citizen: Education, Colonialism and Idiocy. British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol. 28, №5, pp. 561–574
Tocker, K. (2017) Living and Learning as Māori: Language Stories from Three Generations. The Australian Journal of Indigenous Education 46(1), 115–125
Fallace, T.D. (2015). The savage origins of child-centered pedagogy, 1871–1913. American Educational Research Journal, 52, (1), 73–103
Additional resources:
Zeus Leonardo (2013) The story of schooling: critical race theory and the educational racial contract, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 34:4, 599–610.
Catherine Hall (2008) Making colonial subjects: education in the age of empire, History of Education, 37:6, 773–787.
Tuhiwai-Smith, L. (2006) ‘Colonizing Knowledges’ in Lauder et al. Education, Globalisation and Social Change . Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Aníbal Quijano (2007) Coloniality and Modernity/Rationality Cultural Studies, 21:2–3, 168–178
Nelson Maldonado-Torres (2007) On the Coloniality of Being, Cultural Studies, 21:2–3, 240–270
Schooling the World Film: https://schoolingtheworld.org/film/
Kumar, Krishna (2005) Political Agenda of Education: a study of colonialist and nationalist ideas. London: Sage Publications.
Lecture 2: Education as differentiation
In this session we discuss the idea of education as a ‘dividing practice’. How do education systems lead to the categorisation and differentiation of people and knowledge? What are the implications of this for social stratification and exclusion?
Key readings:
Gillborn D., Youdell D. (2001) The New IQism: Intelligence, ‘Ability’ and the Rationing of Education. In: Demaine J. (eds) Sociology of Education Today. Palgrave Macmillan, London
Matthew Knoester & Wayne Au (2017) Standardized testing and school segregation: like tinder for fire?, Race Ethnicity and Education, 20:1, 1–14
Mansfield, K. C. (2015). Giftedness as property: Troubling whiteness, wealth, and gifted education in the US. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 17(1), 121–142.
Faulkner, J. (2019). Ghosts of Eugenics’ Past: ‘Childhood’ as a target for whitening race in the United States and Canada. Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Journal — First Glimpse. Available from https://acrawsa.org.au/category/first-glimpse/.
Additional resources:
Melamed, J. (2015) Racial capitalism. Critical Ethnic Studies. 1(1) 76–85.
Shaun Grech & Karen Soldatic (2015) Disability and colonialism (dis)encounters and anxious intersectionalities, Social Identities, 21:1, 1–5 (see other papers in this special issue for more resources).
Annamma, Subini Ancy (2017) The Pedagogy of Pathologization; Dis/abled Girls of Colour in the School-Prison Nexus. New York: Routledge.
Pat Thomson & Jodie Pennacchia (2016) Hugs and behaviour points: Alternative education and the regulation of ‘excluded’ youth, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 20:6, 622–640
Emma E. Rowe & Christopher Lubienski (2017) Shopping for schools or shopping for peers: public schools and catchment area segregation, Journal of Education Policy, 32:3, 340–356
Lecture 3: Knowledge, borders and curriculum
In this session we discuss the politics of knowledge in school curricula in relation to the contemporary bordering practices of states.
Key readings:
Zara Bain (2018) Is there such a thing as ‘white ignorance’ in British education?, Ethics and Education, 13:1, 4–21
Sophie Rudolph, Arathi Sriprakash & Jessica Gerrard (2018): Knowledge and racial violence: the shine and shadow of ‘powerful knowledge’, Ethics and Education, DOI: 10.1080/17449642.2018.1428719
Priya Gopal. (2019) ‘Britain’s story of Empire is based on Myth. We need to know the truth’. The Guardian, July 6th. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/06/britains-story-empire-based-myth-need-know-truth
Additional resources:
Alexander, C., and D. Weekes-Bernard. (2017). “History Lessons: Inequality, Diversity and the National Curriculum.” Race Ethnicity and Education 20 (4): 478–494.
Willinsky, J. (1998) Learning to Divide the World: Education at Empire’s End. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Dolores Calderon (2014) Uncovering Settler Grammars in Curriculum, Educational Studies, 50:4, 313–338,
Santos, B. (2014) Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide. Boulder, CO: Paradigm.
Roland Sintos Coloma (2017) “We are here because you were there”: On curriculum, empire, and global migration, Curriculum Inquiry, 47:1, 92–102.
Christine Winter & China Mills (2018): The Psy-Security-Curriculum ensemble: British Values curriculum policy in English schools, Journal of Education Policy, DOI:10.1080/02680939.2018.1493621
Mills, Charles. (2007). “White Ignorance.” In Race and Epistemologies of Ignorance, edited by Shannon Sullivan and Nancy Tuana, 11–38. Albany: SUNY Press.
Curriculum Resources for Schools:
Our Migration Story: the making of Britain: https://www.ourmigrationstory.org.uk/
Facing History and Ourselves: https://www.facinghistory.org/
Migration Museum Project: https://www.migrationmuseum.org/education/
Lecture 4: Education gaps, debts, and reparations
In this session we reassess education ‘gaps’ to consider the possibilities for educational reparations. We discuss this in relation to recent debates about the University of Cambridge’s historical links to transatlantic slavery.
Key reading:
Rudolph, S. (2016). “The Logic of History in ‘Gap’ Discourse and Related Research.” The Australian Educational Researcher 43 (4): 437–451.
Ladson-Billings, G. (2006). From the Achievement Gap to the Education Debt: Understanding Achievement in U.S. Schools. Educational Researcher, 35(7), 3–12
Evans, M., & Wilkins, D. (2019). Transformative Justice, Reparations and Transatlantic Slavery. Social & Legal Studies, 28(2), 137–157
Additional resources:
David Gillborn (2008) Coincidence or conspiracy? Whiteness, policy and the persistence of the Black/White achievement gap, Educational Review, 60:3, 229–248
Ahmed, S. (2012) On Being Included. Racism and Diversity in Institutional Life Duke University Press.
Runnymede (2015) Aiming Higher: Continuing Inequalities for Black and Minority Ethnic People in the Academy https://www.runnymedetrust.org/companies/187/74/Aiming-Higher.html
More reports, videos, and resources available on the Runnymede Trust website: https://www.runnymedetrust.org/currentPublications.html
On Cambridge:
https://www.cam.ac.uk/news/cambridge-university-launches-inquiry-into-historical-links-to-slavery
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/07/cambridge-university-britain-slavery
https://gal-dem.com/cambridge-investigate-slavery-benefits-whats-there-to-investigate/
BLOCK 2: MODERN EDUCATIONAL THINKING
This block of lectures explores the work of key thinkers in education. In looking to this body of thought, we grapple with the question: if education has helped create dominant social orders, can it also be used to disrupt them?
Lecture 5: Decolonizing education
In this session, we discuss the idea of ‘decolonising education’ and consider how it takes meaning in different institutional contexts and disciplinary domains.
Key readings:
Tuck, E. & Yang, W. (2012) Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: indigeneity, education, society. Vol 1, no 1, pp.1–40.
Mahmood Mamdani (2016) Between the public intellectual and the scholar: decolonization and some post-independence initiatives in African higher education, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 17:1, 68–83
Please also identify and read texts written about decolonising your specific sub-field/discipline — e.g. psychology, arts/English, international development. We will be discussing these during the session.
Additional resources:
Nakata, M. (2007). Savaging the Disciplines, Disciplining the Savages. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press.
Gurminder K. Bhambra, Dalia Gebrial, Kerem Nişancıoğlu (Eds.) (2018) Decolonising the University. Pluto Press
Rhodes Must Fall Movement, Oxford (2018) Rhodes Must Fall: the struggle to decolonize the racist heart of empire. Zed Books
DeJong, S., Icaza, R., Rutazibwa, O. (Eds.) (2019). Decolonization and Feminisms in Global Teaching and Learning. London: Routledge.
Media resources:
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/indepth/opinion/decolonise-african-education-190610111758402.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/16/the-real-meaning-of-rhodes-must-fall
Lecture 6: Black feminisms
In this session we explore the contributions of black feminist theory and practice to resistance and renewal in education.
Key readings:
Mirza, H., & Reay, D. (2000). Spaces and Places of Black Educational Desire: Rethinking Black Supplementary Schools as a New Social Movement. Sociology, 34(3), 521–544
Beverley Bryan, Stella Dadzie, and Suzanne Scafe (1985, republished in 2018 with a new forward by Lola Okolosie) The Heart of the Race. Black Women’s Lives in Britain. London: Verso.
- Forward by Lola Okolosie
- Introduction: the ties that bind
- Chapter 2: Learning to Resist: Black Women and Education
Lorde, Audre (2017) Your Silence Will Not Protect You: essays and poems. Silver Press.
- Preface and Introduction by Reni Eddo-Lodge and Sara Ahmed.
- The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House
Additional resources:
Sara Salem (2018), “On Transnational Feminist Solidarity: The Case of Angela Davis in Egypt,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 43, no. 2: 245–267
hooks, Bell. (1989) Talking Back. Thinking feminist, thinking black. Boston: South End Press.
- Chapter 8: Towards a revolutionary feminist pedagogy
- Chapter 14: Pedagogy and Political Commitment.
hooks, B. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York/London: Routledge.
Hill Collins, P. (1999). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness and the Politics of Empowerment (2nd Edition). New York: Routledge
Suki Ali, Heidi Mirza, Ann Phoenix & Jessica Ringrose (2010) Intersectionality, Black British feminism and resistance in education: a roundtable discussion, Gender and Education, 22:6, 647–661
Lecture 7: Indigenous knowledges and refusal
In this session we discuss how Indigenous knowledges and pedagogies refuse settler colonial projects of education as assimilation and replacement, offering vital theory for education studies.
Key readings:
Watson, I. (2014). Re-Centring First Nations Knowledge and Places in a Terra Nullius Space. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 10(5), 508–520
Ahenakew, C. R. (2017). Mapping and Complicating Conversations about Indigenous Education. Diaspora, Indigenous & Minority Education, 11(2), 80.
Sandra Styres (Kanien’kehá:ka) (2018) Literacies of Land. Decolonizing Narratives, Storying, and Literature. In: Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Eve Tuck, K. Wayne Yang (Eds). (2018) Indigenous and Decolonizing Studies in Education: Mapping the Long View New York: Routledge.
Additional resources:
Tuck, E., & Gaztambide-Fernández, R.,A. (2013). Curriculum, replacement, and settler futurity. Journal of Curriculum Theorizing (Online), 29(1), 72–89.
Patrick Wolfe (2006) Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native, Journal of Genocide Research, 8:4, 387–409
Brown, L. (2018). Indigenous young people, disadvantage and the violence of settler colonial education policy and curriculum. Journal of Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783318794295
Lecture 8: Learning, solidarity, and social change
In this session we identify the educational theories and practices of social movements to discuss what learning is and what it is for.
Key readings:
Aziz Choudry & Salim Vally (Eds.) (2017) Reflections on Knowledge, Learning and Social Movements. History’s Schools. London: Routledge.
- Introduction: History’s schools. Past struggles and present realities.
- For additional resources, and specific case studies, see other chapters in this book.
Rubén A. Gaztambide-Fernández (2012) Decolonization and the Pedagogy of Solidarity. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society. Vol 1. No 1. Pp. 41–67.
Myisha Cherry (2017) State Racism, State Violence, and Vulnerable Solidarity. In: Naomi Zack (Ed.) The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Race. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Thunberg, G. (2019). Noone is too small to make a difference. London: Penguin Books.
Additional resources:
Choudry, A. (2018) Learning Activism: the intellectual life of contemporary social movements. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
- Chapter 3: Non-formal and informal learning in activism.
Mohanty, C. (2003). “Under Western Eyes” revisited: feminist solidarity through anti-capitalist struggles. Signs, 28(2), 499–535.
Examine social movements, past and present, local and transnational, to consider the knowledge and pedagogies, involved.
