curriculum as border-crossing and imagined/enacted transgression: an exploration

The curriculum as border-crossing and imagined/enacted transgression: An exploration

Keynote at the Academic Development Symposium, University of South Africa (Unisa), Cape Town, 16 September 2017

Paul PrinslooUniversity of South Africa (Unisa)

@14prinspImage credit: https://pixabay.com/en/barbed-wire-wire-fence-barbed-1899854/

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I do not own the copyright of any of the images in this presentation. I therefore acknowledge the original copyright and licensing regime of every

image used.

This presentation (excluding the images) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-

NonCommercial 4.0 International License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

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Overview of the presentation

1. Situate this presentation against the broader backdrop of access to higher education

2. Acknowledge my own positionality3. The curriculum as contested and contesting space4. Who determines/sanctions/captures the

curriculum?5. Mapping epistemological access, structure and

‘misfits’6. Some pointers for consideration7. (In)conclusion

By Paul Prinsloo (University of South Africa) @14prinsp

Image credit first slide: http://connect.citizen.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2015/10/C2.jpg?81cf05

#FeesMustFall#FreeHigherEducation

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Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/swimming-pool-old-leave-dark-1681311/

Access as a revolving door of broken promises

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The question regarding access to higher education has deepened to ask

“access to what?”Image credit: Paul Prinsloo

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Who has the right, the power to define knowledge? Where do our curricula come from? Whose interests are served?

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/chess-strategy-chess-board-316658/

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Image credit: http://chica.co.za/career/social-media-activism-feesmustfall/

Whose knowledges are erased, ignored, ridiculed and subjected to the colonial gaze ?

#RhodesMustFall

Page credit: http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/10/Rhodes-statue-removal-only-the-beginning

#ScienceMustFall

Page credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9SiRNibD14

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NBC News source credit: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/christopher-columbus-statue-new-york-city-could-be-considered-removal-n795316

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Page credit: http://all-monuments-must-fall.ghost.io/all-monuments-must-fall-a-syllabus/

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Page credit: https://medium.com/@chanda/decolonising-science-reading-list-339fb773d51f#.om5w2ivfq

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This presentation is not about decolonising the

curriculum

Who am I? What/who gives me the right to speak?

How do I as a 58 years old, white, gay male talk about and participate in discourses re decolonising the curriculum/knowledge?

How do I disentangle my tentative contribution from my position of being a settler, having grown up in settler communities, schools, and going to a settler university where the language of tuition was a settler language, and where people of displaced communities and their epistemologies were marginalised and excluded?

(See Tuck & Yang, 2012; Tuck & Gaztambide-Fernández, 2013)

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“What is it to acknowledge one’s whiteness, …to acknowledge that one is inherently tied to structures of domination and oppression, that one is irrevocably on the wrong side?”

(Alcoff in Applebaum, 2010, p. 3)

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How do we acknowledge our own investments in whiteness that “can obscure how white people even with the best intentions are implicated in sustaining a racially unjust system”?

(Applebaum, 2010, p. 10)

Whiteness as the Midas touch…

Image credit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Midas_gold2.jpg

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I therefore do not plead innocence, look for sympathy or absolution or use this presentation as gesture of a

“false generosity” (Tuck & Fine, 2007, p. 154),

but as “coming clean, coming out … unforgetting” (Tuck & Fine, 2007, p. 155).

(Also see Westcott, R. (2004). Witnessing whiteness: articulating race and the "politics of style”. Borderlands 3(2). Retrieved from

http://www.borderlands.net.au/vol3no2_2004/westcott_witnessing.htm)

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And yet, this presentation cannot be not about

decolonising the curriculum

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/private-sign-prohibit-block-1665019/

Thinking about epistemological access, we cannot ignore the deeper question of who defines and demarcates valuable, or

worthy knowledge, and what ways of knowing is excluded, erased, and ridiculed

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Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/wire-rusty-field-196361/

Curricula as spaces of inclusion andexclusion

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Image credit: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/Israeli_West_Bank_Barrier.jpg

Curricula as spaces of forced separations, of captured spaces

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Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Migrants_in_Hungary_2015_Aug_018.jpg

Curricula as fenced spaces, where access is limited/controlled/regulated

And where access depends on having the necessary documents, meeting the criteria, being deemed as

‘not a threat’

Image credit: https://fullfact.org/media/_versions/uk-border-passport-control-eu-facebook_social_media.jpg

In order to engage with the current claims regarding whose knowledge is taught, we need

to understand who has the power to include and exclude

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/chess-game-strategy-intelligence-424556/

The curriculum is, and has always been a “contested space” (Prinsloo, 2007), a “place of

turmoil” (Slattery & Daigle, 1994) and “an arena of struggle” (Shay, 2015)

Image credit: Canadian Gunners in the Mud, Passchendaele by Lieutenant Alfred Bastien, 1917, oil on canvas. Retrieved from, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_art

Image credit: Canadian Gunners in the Mud, Passchendaele by Lieutenant Alfred Bastien, 1917, oil on canvas. Retrieved from, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_art

The curriculum has also, always, been gendered, raced, and classed. The

curriculum has always been used to includevoices, perspectives and exclude others. The curriculum has always been used to

define and protect power (whether determined by e.g. race, gender, class, or culture) and to ensure that the visions of

those in power are sanctioned as the vision of the future

[(habitus)(capital)]

"There is no place for [the Bantu] in the European community above the level of

certain forms of labor ... What is the use of teaching the Bantu child mathematics when it (sic) cannot use it in practice?”

(Hendrik Verwoerd, Minister of Native Affairs, 1956, commenting on the Bantu Education Act of 1955)

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egbo_Secret_Society,_Mgbe,_Etuam,_Egbo,_South_Nigeria_Wellcome_M0005360.jpg

The mask carvers of Benin

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_treatise_on_lace-making,_embroidery,_and_needle-work_with_Irish_flax_threads_(1892)_(14595691027).jpg

The Guild of Lace Makers in France

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egbo_Secret_Society,_Mgbe,_Etuam,_Egbo,_South_Nigeria_Wellcome_M0005360.jpg

Craft associations and guilds, whether comprising mask carvers in Benin or weavers in India,

all had the same basis, namely (1)the celebration and acknowledgement of expertise; (2)exercising the monopoly on their craft in a particular

geographical area; (3)regulating and sanctioning access to the specific

expertise base

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_treatise_on_lace-making,_embroidery,_and_needle-work_with_Irish_flax_threads_(1892)_(14595691027).jpg

“Guilds protected their special knowledge; governments

prohibited the export of economically important skills. France,

for instance, made exporting lace-making expertise a capital

crime: Anyone caught teaching the skill to foreigners could be

put to death”

(Davenport and Prusak, 2000). (Also see Belfanti, 2004)

Page credit: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/apr/07/mba-business-schools-credit-crunch

7 April 2009

Page credit: http://www.epi.org/publication/the-class-of-2015/

27 May 2015

12 September 2013

5 June 2013

Page credit: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/salford-culls-courses-to-secure-future/2004425.article

Page credit: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/24/students-post-crash-economics

24 October 2013

Page credit: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/04/economics-students-overhaul-subject-teaching

4 May 2014

14 September 2015

Page credit: https://theconversation.com/decolonising-economics-more-context-is-needed-not-less-content-56215

15 March 2016

Page credit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/01/08/university-students-demand-philosophers-including-plato-kant/

8 January 2017

17 May 2017

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Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/diner-restaurant-room-people-336499/

So, who decides on what knowledge should be taught? And the structure of how it should be taught?

1. Faculty – gender, race, tenure/non-tenure, age, onto-epistemologies, ideological positions

2. Retired ghosts still on the payroll3. Disciplines/departments – what is (not) allowed4. Inter-institutional author networks5. Staff resources/allocation6. Institutions – alignment with mission, vision7. Industry/ professional bodies8. The [market]

Who determines [captured] the curriculum space?

9. Accreditation and quality assurance regimes10.National governments/development goals11.Asymmetries in knowledge production –

North/South/developed/developing12.Increasing competition/number of providers13.Academic journals14.Publishing houses15.Google/Social media16.Students?

Who determines [captured] the curriculum space? (Cont.)

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/alone-walking-night-people-city-764926/

Epistemological access and structure

Students as imposters, deviants, and immigrants entering strange lands

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanorwood/1046416640

Being ‘misfits’: When students have trouble to ‘fit’

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Image credit: http://www.citylab.com/housing/2016/06/apartheids-urban-legacy-in-striking-aerial-photographs-south-africa-cities-architecture-racism/487808/

How do we understand students’ transition in higher education, into specific disciplines considering where they come from?

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Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/design-city-man-abstract-art-2326066/

What do they bring, what do they have, and yes, what do they lack?

An elephant in the learning analytics room –the obligation to act

By Paul Prinsloo (University of South Africa) & Sharon Slade (Open University, UK)

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lollyman/4941417146

Image credit: http://thesociologicalcinema.tumblr.com/post/142531355075/youre-playing-monopoly-one-player-is-given-all

The idea of habitus was born from trying to make sense of choices we have and make , considering our context, our past and present, our behaviors, our capital and dispositions, and our gendered and raced role(s), relations and positions in a particular context/field and time - as embodied, as ‘structured and structuring structure’

(Bourdieu, 1994, p. 170).

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Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Football_pitch_small.png

An elephant in the learning analtics room –the obligation to act



[(habitus) (capital)] + field = practice/agency(Bourdieu 1984, p. 101)

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/man-luggage-forward-young-2138962/

When they find that what they have is not enough


Image credit: http://www.pixnio.com/fauna-animals/fishes/roach-fish-on-dry-land

The phenomenon of a misfit between an individual’s habitus and capital in a particular context is described as

the ‘hysteresis effect’ and a cleft in habitus or habitus clivé

(Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977, p. 78)

Hysteresis //alienation (Marx in Fowler, 2003)// anomie(Durkheim in Naudet, 2008)//torpor (Prinsloo, 2016)

An elephant in the learning analytics room –the obligation to act



Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/bird-death-dead-829242/

Epistemological dissonance/epistemological trauma/ontological torpor

(Prinsloo, 2016 –https://opendistanceteachingandlearning.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/a-blog-on-not-

blogging/)

Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cgpgrey/5023794412

Habitus clivé :When individuals move ‘upwards’, individuals become class ‘transfuges’ -- caught in a ‘painful’ position of social limbo, of ‘double isolation’, from both their origin and destination class

(Friedman, 2013, p. 10; Bourdieu, 1998b).

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lytovchenko_Olexandr_Kharon.jpg

Left behind on the banks of the Acheron, not having the capital to pay Charon his price

(or to bribe him)...

Curriculum Development Processes

THE STUDENT AS AGENTIDENTITY, ATTRIBUTES, HABITUS

Success

THE INSTITUTION AS AGENT

IDENTITY, ATTRIBUTES, HABITUS

SHAPING CONDITIONS: (predictable as well as uncertain)


How the curriculum is structured/designed on course /module level, and on program level

THE STUDENT WALK Multiple, mutually constitutive interactions between student,

institution & networks

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

Adapted from: Subotzky, G., & Prinsloo, P. (2011). Turning the tide: a socio-critical model and framework for improving student success in open distance learning at the University of South Africa. Distance Education, 32(2): 177-19.

Curriculum Development Processes

THE STUDENT AS AGENTIDENTITY, ATTRIBUTES, HABITUS

Success

THE INSTITUTION AS AGENT

IDENTITY, ATTRIBUTES, HABITUS



Habitus clivé/ hysteresis/ the banks of the Acheron

THE STUDENT WALK Multiple, mutually constitutive interactions between student,

institution & networks

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

FIT

Adapted from: Subotzky, G., & Prinsloo, P. (2011). Turning the tide: a socio-critical model and framework for improving student success in open distance learning at the University of South Africa. Distance Education, 32(2): 177-19.

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/chess-board-game-play-lose-1742720/

Some pointers for consideration

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Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/43405897@N04/4326682088

1. The very nature of a curriculum is to include and exclude

2. We need to be transparent about the choices that informed our inclusions and exclusionsImage credit: https://pixabay.com/en/portrait-the-self-timer-the-corridor-627018/

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3. Curricula are never neutral, and flow from and perpetuate specific understandings of the world. They originate from, and are sanctioned by the dominant ideologies/structures at a particular time and in a particular context

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/map-tattoo-hand-art-sweatshirt-2591759/

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/graffiti-artist-graffiti-art-1380108/

4. What are the possibilities for curricula to contest

historical and current knowledge claims? What is the

possibility of the curriculum not only being a

contested space but also a contesting space?

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5. Access into higher education is not enough

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/maze-ideas-auto-stop-male-1706852/

6. How do we prepare ourselves and our students for the epistemological trauma and dissonance they may experience

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Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/stairs-architecture-gradually-1229149/

7. Curriculum structure matters

8. How do we creates spaces where our curricula, our versions of the ‘truth’ can be questioned, usurped, vandalised, defaced and contested

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/graffiti-urban-street-art-city-1777612/

(In)conclusion

Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1953_Iranian_coup_d%27état_-_Pulling_down_statues_of_the_Reza_Shah_(2).jpg

At stake are the questions: Who has the power to define knowledge? Whose interests are served? Whose vision of the past and future has value?

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/empty-abandoned-messy-grunge-scene-863118/

THANK YOU

Paul Prinsloo Research Professor in Open Distance Learning (ODL)College of Economic and Management Sciences, Office number 3-15, Club 1, Hazelwood, P O Box 392Unisa, 0003, Republic of South Africa

T: +27 (0) 12 433 4719 (office)T: +27 (0) 82 3954 113 (mobile)

[email protected] Skype: paul.prinsloo59

Personal blog: http://opendistanceteachingandlearning.wordpress.com

Twitter profile: @14prinsp