Humanising higher education through a culturally responsive curriculum
Abstract
During the student protests in South Africa, students indicated that they were still taught irrelevant knowledge after 25 years of independence. The decolonisation of the curriculum was one of the demands of the Fees-Must-Fall protests. The purpose of this chapter is to join the debate by determining the way in which the higher education curriculum can be humanised by making it culturally responsive. This was a qualitative study and the sample included six academics selected from the programme of the London International Conference on Education (LICE‐2018) and World Congress on Special Needs Education held from 10 to 13 December 2018 at Cambridge, UK. Presenters whose papers were related to the contextualisation of the curriculum were targeted. An e-mail requesting a 60-minute interview was sent to ten of them. Only five agreed to participate. The participants cited initiatives by Tanzanians (Ujamaa) and Zimbabweans (unhu) to promote culturally responsive education. This study makes recommendations that include education that encourages self-reliance.References
Anderson, J. 2016. Paulo Freire’s philosophy of education and our ontological incompleteness. https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2016/08/30/paulo-freires-philosophy-of-education-and-our-ontological-incompleteness/ (Accessed 13 July 2019).
Ford, D. Y. 2010. Culturally responsive classrooms: Affirming culturally different gifted students. Winter 33(1): 50–53.
Ford, D. Y. and J. L. Moore. 2004. Creating responsive gift understanding of culture is the first step. Fall 27(4): 34–39.
Gadotti, M. 2017. The global impact of Freire’s pedagogy. In Pedagogy of evaluation. New directions for evaluation, ed. M. Q. Patton, 155: 17–30.
Gale, T. 2005. Humanization and dehumanization. Encyclopedia of Science, Technology, and Ethics. https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/ humanization-and-dehumanization (Accessed 13 July 2019).
Galloway, C. M. 2001. Vygotsky’s constructionism. In Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology, ed. M. Orey. http://www.epltt.coe.uga.edu/ (Accessed 28 June 2017).
Hapanyengwi–Chemhuru, O. and E. Shizha. 2012. Unhu/Ubuntu and education for reconciliation in Zimbabwe. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education 7(2): 16‒27. https://ejournals.library. ualberta.ca/index.php/JCIE/.../15158
Hapanyengwi-Chemhuru, O. and N. Makuvaza. 2014. Unhu: In search of an indigenous philosophy for the Zimbabwean education system. Practice without thought is blind: Thought without practice is empty. The Journal of Indigenous Social Development 3(1): 1–15.
Ibanga, F. D. 2016. Julius Nyerere’s philosophy of education: Implication for Nigeria’s educational system reforms. Africology: The Journal of Pan African Studies 9(3): 109–125.
Kim, B. 2001. Social constructivism. In Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology, ed. M. Orey. http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/ (Accessed 28 July 2019).
Le Grange L. L. 2011. Sustainability and higher education: From arborescent to rhizomatic thinking. Educational Philosophy and Theory 43(7): 742‒754
Lemmer, E. M. and J. N. van Wyk. 2012. Multicultural education: A manual for the South African teacher. Van Schaik: Pretoria.
Letseka, M. 2012. “In defence of ubuntu”. An International Journal Studies in Philosophy and Education 31(1): 47‒60. DOI: 10.1007/s11217-011-9267-2.
Louw, D. J. 2006. The African concept of ubuntu and restorative justice. In Handbook of restorative justice: A global perspective, ed. D. Sullivan and L. Tifft, 161–173. New York: Routledge.
Mahabeer, P. 2018. Curriculum decision-makers on decolonising the teacher education curriculum. South African Journal of Education 38(4): 1–13.
Mahmoudi, A., A. Khoshnood and A. Babaei. 2014. Paulo Freire critical pedagogy and its implications in curriculum planning. Journal of Education and Practice 5(14): 87‒98.
Major, T. and T. M. Mulvihill. 2009. Julius Nyerere (1922–1999), an African philosopher, re-envisions teacher education to escape colonialism. Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry 3(1): 15–22.
Matolino, B. and W. Kwindingwi. 2013. The end of Ubuntu. South African Journal of Philosophy 32(2): 197–205.
McMillan, J. and S. Schumacher. 2014. Research in education evidence-based inquiry. Pearson Education Limited. USA.
Misco, T. 2018. Culturally responsive curriculum and pedagogy in the commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. International Journal of Multicultural Education 20(2): 81–100.
Montgomery, W. 2001. Creating culturally responsive, inclusive classrooms. TEACHING Exceptional Children 33(4): 4–9.
Msila, V. 2009. Ubuntu and peace-making in schools. International Journal of Educational Policies 3(1): 51–66.
Msila, V. and M. T. Gumbo. 2016. Africanising the curriculum: Indigenous perspectives and theories. RSA: Sun Press.
Murtthi, T. 2009. An African perspective on peace education: Ubuntu lessons in reconciliation. International Review of Education 55(-): 221–233.
Nasongo, J. W. and L. L. Musungu. 2009. The implications of Nyerere’s theory of education to contemporary education in Kenya. Educational Research and Review 4(4): 111–116.
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. 2015. Decoloniality in Africa: A continuing Search for a New World Order. ARAS 36(2): 22–50.
Nyerere, J. K. 1967. Education for self-reliance. The Ecumenical Review 19(4): 24–45.
Petrović, Z. S., M. Cvetković and A. Jovanović. 2012. Humanization of school according to the idea of Paulo Freire. Philosophy, Sociology, Psychology and History 11(1): 33–42.
Portland State University. 2018. Culturally responsive and inclusive curriculum resources: What is culturally responsive curriculum? https://guides.library.pdx.edu/c.php?g=527355&p=3623937 (Accessed on 16 November 2020)
Rabiee, F. 2004. Focus-group interview and data analysis. Proceedings of the Nutrition Society, 63(-): 655–660. DOI:10.1079/PNS2004399.
Richards, H. V., A. F. Brown and T. B. Forde. 2006. Addressing diversity in schools: Culturally responsive pedagogy. Denver: National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems.
Roberts P. 2016. Freire’s philosophy and pedagogy: Humanization and education. In Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, ed. M. Peters. Singapore: Springer.
Salazar, M. D. C. 2013. A humanizing pedagogy: Reinventing the principles and practice of education as a journey toward liberation. March, 37(-):121–148. DOI: 10.3102/0091732X12464032.
Shava, S. 2016. The ownership of global knowledge. In Africanising the curriculum: Indigenous perspectives and theories, ed. V. Msila and M. T. Gumbo. South Africa: Sun Press.
Spencer-Oatey, H. 2012. What is culture? A compilation of quotations. GlobalPAD Core Concepts. GlobalPAD Open House: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/globalpadintercultural
Vass, G. 2017. Preparing for culturally responsive schooling: Initial teacher educators into the fray. Journal of Teacher Education 68(5): 451–462.
Vygotsky, L. S. 1978. Mind in society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Wa Thiong’o, N. 1986. Decolonisation of the mind: The politics of language in African literature. London: Heinemann.
West, A. 2014. Ubuntu and business ethics: Problems, perspectives and prospects. Journal of Business Ethics 121(1): 47–61.
This journal is an open access journal, and the authors and journal should be properly acknowledged, when works are cited.
Authors, copyright holders, may use the publishers version for teaching purposes, in books, theses, dissertations, conferences and conference papers.
A copy of the authors' publishers version may also be hosted on the following websites:
- Non-commercial personal homepage or blog.
- Institutional webpage.
- Authors Institutional Repository.
The following notice should accompany such a posting on the website: This is an electronic version of an article published in SAJHE, Volume XXX, number XXX, pages XXX “XXX", DOI. Authors should also supply a hyperlink to the original paper or indicate where the original paper (http://www.journals.ac.za/index.php/SAJHE) may be found.
Authors publishers version, affiliated with the Stellenbosch University will be automatically deposited in the University Institutional Repository SUNScholar.
Articles as a whole, may not be re-published with another journal.
The following license applies:
Attribution CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
