Decolonising and diversifying the curriculum is an international movement, inspired by the 2015 Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa, and other campaigns from across the world (1). It starts from the recognition that most 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 alternative 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 reading list 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.
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. Students should see their experiences reflected on the shelves and in the curriculum if they are to engage with and contribute to their education.
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. These can be books from smaller publishers or journal articles from less well-known journals (as we know that authors from the Global South are less likely to be published in the top journals)
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.
If you have read a book you think will be a useful addition to the Library collection, please let us know.
