Student voices on decolonising the curriculum: a study of two department at the University of the Witwatersrand

Abstract

This thesis uses three approaches to the curriculum - Afrocentrism, Pan-Africanism and Pluriversity/Moving the Centre - to explore students’ understandings of decolonising the curriculum. I examine the meanings they attach to this project as revealed in semi-structureddepth-interviews that I conducted from September to December 2016. The study focuses on voices of postgraduate students in the departments of Sociology and Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. I discuss the implications of the culture of this university for Black students in light of its roots in the European Enlightenment project for which Black people are not human-beings. My main findings are first, that students experience this culture as alienating and violent, and that it treats Black students as disabled bodies and constructs them as deficient. Second, scholarship premised on Black thought is not part of the university’s culture even though some of this scholarship is housed in formal structures of the university such as William Cullen Library. Third, intricately related to the content of the curriculum, pedagogical practices and questions of epistemology are deeply shaped by the culture of this university. I conclude that even when African scholarship and Black thought are introduced into the university, the likelihood of its impact would be small unless the culture of the university changes. Furthermore, while students’ understandings of what decolonising the curriculum means are not homogeneous, the similarities in these understandings stem from common experiences of oppression. Finally, I conclude that at the heart of decolonisation and decolonising the curriculum is a quest for humanity and mental liberation.