Teaching

Course Description

As European powers colonized regions of Africa in the 15th century, they often used schooling and formal education to exert control. The formal education systems they set up largely undermined traditional ways of knowing and sharing skills, and language was a central tool of colonial control as colonizers created education systems that imposed European languages and integrated these languages into institutions of power.

While formal European colonial control in Africa largely came to an end by the 1960s, former colonial powers of the Global North continue to exert influence over education systems in the formerly colonized Global South. Immediately following independence, this influence largely took the form of policies and practices forwarded by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. Today, some would argue that this power has been converted to ongoing influence in part through international education development, with INGOs, and bi-, and multi-lateral donors the engines of influence. There are growing efforts to tackle this persistent power imbalance through educational initiatives that take a more critical approach to education development, centering the experiences and leadership of local communities and education stakeholders.

In this course, students engage critically with the history of international education development and its connections to colonialism through the lens of language-in-education policies and practices. Language provides a particularly useful lens into the ways that school policies and practices exert control over children and families, intertwining local education systems with global systems of power. Students will be expected to complete three reflection memos about key themes from the course and connections to personal and professional engagement with education, respond to a partner’s reflections, and submit a final project connected to a topic, organization, or context of particular interest.

Course Description

Equity and Opportunity: Citizenship and Nationality in Context is part of the Identity in Context module series at HGSE.

Students in every module will:

• engage deeply with key concepts in equity, systems of oppression, cycles of socialization and privilege, and social identities within the context of education;
• connect and build meaningful relationships with each other while recognizing the multiple intersecting identities, perspectives and differences people hold;
• make progress in understanding and reflecting on our experiences; and
• discuss and imagine tools of transformation for particular contexts and communities.

Students will delve into core theories, practices, and texts that apply to all social identities, while also probing identity-specific topics and challenges. In this light, this module will consider how schools distribute and restrict educational opportunities to students based on their diverse political, transnational, postcolonial, (im)migrant, refugee, and other intersecting identities. In this course, we will specifically consider the role of schools as both sites of exclusion as well as sites of potential belonging and inclusion.

Students can expect to interact with each other and the teaching team in asynchronous and synchronous individual, small group, and whole group settings. Pedagogies and assessments will reflect core principles in educating for equity and opportunity, including inclusive facilitated discussions, active listening and learning, journaling, and case study inquiry. Students are encouraged to select into a topic that they have not spent much time studying formally as a way to explore the foundational concepts of equity and opportunity through a relatively new frame.