Integrating decolonial pedagogies in education

Education can and should be a powerful tool to fight and prevent racial discriminations and injustices. In this online workshop, we invite you to learn and reflect with us on decolonization in education as we host two experts in the field of decolonial pedagogies: Sandrine Gashonga from the anti-racist and feminist NGO Lëtz Rise Up and Manel Ben Boubaker, history-geography professor and co-author of the book Entrer en pédagogie antiraciste.

According to the EPRS, in the EU “1 in 4 children are either foreign-born themselves or have foreign-born parents”. This cultural diversity can be an opportunity to enrich the collective educational experience, however it also poses political, cultural and social challenges (e.g rising populism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia).
The EU Commission’s report on promoting inclusion and diversity in schools emphasizes the connection between delivering inclusive curricula and the necessity for teachers to benefit from training and competence development opportunities. Sadly, “only 20% of teachers across Europe have participated in Continuous Professional Development on teaching in multicultural or multilingual settings”.

Education should be a tool to build fair and inclusive societies: what and how we learn shapes our understanding of events and our relationships with others. Acknowledging how migration, colonizations and imperialism have shaped European history, and their consequences in today’s increasingly diverse societies, is key to practicing inclusion and fighting discrimination in our everyday life. Integrating decolonial pedagogies entails “a process of learning, unlearning and relearning”, aimed at tackling legacies of oppressive systems on people, decentralizing knowledge from colonial hegemonies, and empowering marginalized voices – as explained by Catherine Walsh.

This workshop is happening in the framework of QUEST Member Forum on Inclusion, but limited places are available for non-QUEST members as well.
A Member Forum is a gathering of QUEST members to discuss and exchange about a particular topic. This year, we will be holding four Member Forums on the following topics: Inclusion, Nature and Sustainability, Democratic Education and Community, Citizenship and Lifelong Learning.