Decolonising and diversifying the curriculum is an international movement, inspired by the 2015 Rhodes Must Fall protests in South Africa, and other campaigns from across the world (1). It starts from the recognition that much of the content taught in schools and universities is from a single, dominant perspective which is white, male, middle class and Eurocentric. Not only does this exclude equally valid perspectives that have been overlooked or ignored, but it distorts our ability to properly understand our past and our present. (2) It is also evident that UK school, colleges and universities must act to eliminate the attainment gap between white and BAME students (3), and creating a more inclusive curriculum may support students who feel excluded from the course content. Finally, if we want to provide a student-centred learning experience, we must ensure that our curriculum reflects and celebrates the diversity of our College community.
Libraries in universities and colleges are working with their curriculum colleagues to embed these new practices, by reviewing reading lists in order to widen the reading that students are exposed to. Bradford College Librarians are just embarking on this process and encourage you to contact them with your requests.
Ask your Librarian to audit your reading lists. We will look at the authors, content, and perspective of the resources, and suggest additional or alternative texts for your reading lists. We will help you to:
1. Include resources representing our diverse student community.
2. Include books by as well as about disenfranchised or marginalised people in the UK such as working class, BME, refugees, women, disabled, LGBTQI - our shared community.
3. Include voices outside Europe and the West, who may have different experiences and views which will widen our depth of knowledge and possibly challenge our assumptions.
4. Identify gaps in our collections where scholarship by women, people from the Global South, and others have been historically ignored or silenced, including health, mathematics, and science. Acknowledge the impact of Empire and the British involvement in slavery.
5. Provide resources which help students and staff critically analyse learning materials with an anti-racist, anti-colonial, and anti-discriminatory lens. This will empower our students to question and challenge dominant narratives and identity potential bias within research.
For more information, see our Library Online page here.
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