Description
Abstract:
Movements such as ‘Why is my Curriculum White?’ as well as the recent resurging and widening interest in Black Lives Matter highlight the sheer weight of Whiteness within Britain and Britain’s HE institutions in particular. Work that interrogates race, racism and whiteness in HE is growing and conversations about decolonisation have begun – to varying degrees – across the disciplines. Working from the argument that Politics disciplines need decolonising, and as part of ongoing research, I have conducted an audit of Politics curricula reviewing how well (if at all) race- and colonial-related themes are represented in Politics disciplines in British HE. The focus is on Politics degree programmes and related sub-disciplines– e.g. BA(Hons) Politics, BSc(Hons) Politics and International Relations, BSc(Hons) Politics and International Studies etc – and, in line with a critical race approach, the primary focus is on race and colonial content but I also consider how gender is represented too. This paper: (1) discusses the findings of this audit of core modules for the main Politics programmes at 101 British Universities; (2) considers what the findings say about the dynamics of race, racism and whiteness within Politics disciplines and (3) explores the implications of curricula in terms of student experiences – particularly racially minoritised students.
Key Words:
Race, whiteness, pedagogy, knowledge production, ‘Decolonising the Curriculum’, discipline.
