Epistemological Decolonization and Education. International Perspectives
TL;DR: The decolonial education movement as mentioned in this paper is a movement of critical thinking that starts from the history of Latin America in order to reconstruct, criticize and deconstruct the globally powerful connection between modernity and coloniality.
Abstract: It is increasingly argued that European colonialism has left its mark not only in the political and economic structures of the current world system, but also in the fields of culture, science and education. Against this background, the demand for a comprehensive epistemic or epistemological decolonization is raised. This issue follows on from this demand to clarify to what extent the phenomena of cultural colonization and coloniality also affect the fields of pedagogy and educational science. In particular, the meaning of the demand for epistemic or epistemological decolonization in the field of education will be discussed. In the introduction to this volume, the main features of decolonial thinking are presented. This is a movement of critical thinking that starts from the history of Latin America in order to reconstruct, criticize and deconstruct the globally powerful connection between modernity and coloniality. After this short introduction, the individual contributions from this issue on decoloniality will be briefly presented. Finally, the differences and similarities of the individual articles are briefly referred to. In the end, the question is raised, whether decolonial education should distinguish itself more strongly within the discipline.
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TL;DR: The authors characterizes the nexus between SoTL and the coloniality of language within South African higher education, and argues that hypercritical self-reflexivity by academics should be the norm in SoTL, and this should be linked to language-based curriculum reforms and module content designs.
Abstract: South Africa has policies and frameworks for curriculum design, transformation, and quality assurance in each public institution of higher education (HE). These policies influence the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), particularly at the departmental and disciplinary levels of English Studies. Despite the policy narratives and rhetoric, English Studies still carries vestiges of colonialism and apartheid in South Africa. Similarly, in other disciplines, scholars in the Global South have highlighted coloniality, epistemicides, epistemic errors, and epistemic injustices, but not in a dual critique of SoTL and the English language.
Hypercritical self-reflexivity by academics should be the norm in SoTL, and this should be linked to language-based curriculum reforms and module content designs. All of these self-reflexive efforts should foreground how the mission to transform and decolonize is entangled with Eurocentric paradigms of English language teaching.
This paper characterizes the nexus between SoTL and the coloniality of language within South African higher education. It also discusses and critiques the nature of an English department in a post-apartheid and postcolonial South Africa. In addition, it critiques the coloniality of language and imperial English language paradigms often embraced by higher education institutions (HEIs) in South Africa, and delineates curriculum transformation, Africanization, and decolonizing English within this educational sector. Finally, the paper challenges Eurocentric SoTL practices and colonialist English language paradigms by framing its argument within a critical southern decolonial perspective and a post-Eurocentric SoTL.
1 citations
TL;DR: The authors investigated the impact of learners' non-substantive responses in online course forums, referred to as online listening responses, on e-learning performance and found that learners' listening responses positively influence learner performance in online courses.
Abstract: PurposeThis research investigates the impact of learners' non-substantive responses in online course forums, referred to as online listening responses, on e-learning performance. A common type of response in online course forums, online listening responses consist of brief, non-substantive replies/comments (e.g. “agree,” “I see,” “thank you,” “me too”) and non-textual inputs (e.g. post-voting, emoticons) in online discussions. Extant literature on online forum participation focuses on learners' active participation with substantive inputs and overlooks online listening responses. This research, by contrast, stresses the value of online listening responses in e-learning and their heterogeneous effects across learner characteristics. It calls for recognition and encouragement from online instructors and online forum designers to support this activity.Design/methodology/approachThe large-scale proprietary dataset comes from a leading MOOC (massive open online courses) platform in China. The dataset includes 68,126 records of learners in five MOOCs during 2014–2018. An ordinary least squares model is used to analyze the data and test the hypotheses.FindingsOnline listening responses in course forums, along with learners' substantive inputs, positively influence learner performance in online courses. The effects are heterogeneous across learner characteristics, being more prominent for early course registrants, learners with full-time jobs and learners with more e-learning experience, but weaker for female learners.Originality/valueThis research distinguishes learners' brief, non-substantive responses (online listening responses) and substantive inputs (online speaking) as two types of active participation in online forums and provides empirical evidence for the importance of online listening responses in e-learning. It contributes to online forum research by advancing the active-passive dichotomy of online forum participation to a nuanced classification of learner behaviors. It also adds to e-learning research by generating insights into the positive and heterogeneous value of learners' online listening responses to e-learning outcomes. Finally, it enriches online listening research by introducing and examining online listening responses, thereby providing a new avenue to probe online discussions and e-learning performance.
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TL;DR: In this article, Dussel argued that modernity is not a strictly European but a planetary phenomenon, to which the excluded barbarians have contributed, although their contribution has not been acknowledged.
Abstract: In December I had the good fortune to be one of the commentators in the workshop ‘‘Historical Capitalism, Coloniality of Power, and Transmodernity,’’ featuring presentations by Immanuel Wallerstein, Anibal Quijano, and Enrique Dussel. Speakers were asked to offer updates and to elaborate on the concepts attributed to them. Reflecting on ‘‘transmodernity,’’ Dussel made a remark that I take as a central point of my argument. According to Dussel, postmodern criticism of modernity is important and necessary, but it is not enough. The argument was developed by Dussel in his recent short but important dialogue with Gianni Vattimo’s work, which he characterized as a ‘‘eurocentric critique of modernity.’’1 What else can there be, beyond a Eurocentric critique of modernity and Eurocentrism? Dussel has responded to this question with the concept of transmodernity, by which he means that modernity is not a strictly European but a planetary phenomenon, to which the ‘‘excluded barbarians’’ have contributed, although their contribution has not been acknowledged. Dussel’s argument resembles, then, the South Asian Subaltern Studies project, although it has
685 citations
"Epistemological Decolonization and ..." refers background in this paper
...…associated with literature, philosophy and the history of ideas: «modernity (and obviously postmodernity) maintained the imaginary of Western civilization as a pristine development from ancient Greece to eighteenth-century Europe, where the bases of modernity were laid out» (Mignolo 2002, p. 60)....
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...Walter Mignolo (2002) speaks in this context of a philosophical macro-narrative through which modernity is associated with literature, philosophy and the history of ideas: «modernity (and obviously postmodernity) maintained the imaginary of Western civilization as a pristine development from…...
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Journal Article•
30 citations
"Epistemological Decolonization and ..." refers background in this paper
...Since, according to Mignolo (2012; p. 117- 127), the demarcation between modernity and exteriority took place both on the temporal and spatial level, he speaks of a «colonization of space and time» (Mignolo 2012, p. 117)....
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...In this way, the idea that «Europe [...] is both the present and the centre of the world» (cf. Mignolo 2012, p. 118) is consolidated....
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...«The exteriority, the ‘outside’ of modernity, which is actually constructed by the rhetoric of modernity [...], must be conquered, colonized, controlled and converted or eliminated in the name of progress and modernity» (cf. Mignolo 2012, p. 93)....
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...«Many (such as Jürgen Habermas or Charles Taylor) consider modernity to be an essentially or exclusively European phenomenon» (Dussel, quoted from Mignolo 2012, p. 58)....
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...Border thinking will thus inevitably become a critical and decolonial method of epistemic and political projects that fill in the trenches and show the imperial complicity through which the rhetoric of modernity and the logic of coloniality are connected» (Mignolo 2012, p. 206)....
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01 Jan 2016
TL;DR: In this paper, post-and dekoloniale Ansatze auf die wechselseitige Konstitution von westlicher and nicht-westlicher Welt aufmerksam.
Abstract: Postkolonialismus ist ein Sammelbegriff fur eine Reihe von kolonialismuskritischen Ansatzen in den Kultur-, Geschichts- und Sozialwissenschaften, die essentialistische Annahmen uber den Modellcharakter westlicher Entwicklung als eurozentrisch anzeigen. Anhand von Perspektiven aus kolonialen Kontexten machen post- und dekoloniale Ansatze auf die wechselseitige Konstitution von westlicher und nicht-westlicher Welt aufmerksam. Eine zentrale theoretische Rolle spielt dabei die Kritik an westlichen Konzeptualisierungen der Moderne vor dem Hintergrund der kolonialen Erfahrung mit dem britischen Kolonialismus, insbesondere in Indien, sowie mit dem iberischen Kolonialismus, insbesondere in Lateinamerika. Lucken in der Aufarbeitung der kolonialen Geschichte anderer europaischer Lander gehen einher mit der mangelhaften Rezeption kritischer, post- und dekolonialer Arbeiten.
6 citations
"Epistemological Decolonization and ..." refers background in this paper
...«Coloniality, unlike colonialism, is [...] a continuous power relationship that emerged with the colonial expansion of Europe into the Americas and as such represents the downside and the necessary precondition of Western modernity» (Boatcă 2016, p. 119)....
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