The aim of this series is to consider how ideas about the future of education can benefit from current efforts to decolonise education. The events are convened by the UNESCO Chair on Inclusive and Quality Education for All and the Centre for Comparative and International Research in Education (CIRE) at the University of Bristol; they are part of the School of Education’s Bristol Conversations in Education research seminar series.
The idea of sustainable futures lies at the heart of UNESCO’s Futures of Education initiative which aims to reimagine how knowledge and learning can shape the future of humanity and the planet by equipping learners with diverse ways of being and knowing. Yet much of the knowledge, values and skills that we are expected to learn in formal education systems have been Eurocentric in nature.
That is to say that they draw primarily on Western frameworks and histories, excluding other ways of conceiving the natural and social world. Protests including those led by the Black Lives Matter, Rhodes Must Fall, Indigenous and other anti-colonial, anti-racist social movements have called for education to be decolonised and for diverse knowledge systems to be the basis for realising equitable and sustainable futures. These demands have become accentuated in the current crisis. This series is about the importance of recognising epistemic justice as a condition for realising social and environmental justice in and through education and training.
The following overarching questions will guide discussions:
- In what ways are agendas for decolonising education and sustainable futures connected? What are the tensions? What does decolonising education for sustainable futures involve? How should it be conceived and enacted?
- What are the roles and responsibilities of educational organisations/institutions, individuals and civil society stakeholders in decolonising education?
- What forms of repair and reconstruction are required for sustainable futures of education? What are the possibilities for ‘reparative’ justice in and through education, given education’s enduring complicity with coloniality and environmental injustice?