This book offers new ways of engagement for leaders seeking to connect theory to practice in decolonizing education. In the current climate where xenophobia, anti-immigrant sentiments, and other forms of exclusion make up much of the discourse, educational leaders need to seek ways to foreground other forms of knowledge and transfer them into their daily leadership practices. Lopez contributes to other critical leadership approaches while foregrounding a decolonizing approach that unsettles the coloniality manifested in education and school practices. Chapters provide school leaders with examples of ways they can challenge coloniality, white supremacy, and other forms of oppression in schooling that negatively impact some students and their educational outcomes.
This book introduces a term for our times, ‘Global Majority,’ as conceptualised within the context of school leadership. It examines the processes and impact over time of racially-minoritising up to eighty-five percent of the world’s population. The chapters illustrate how a decolonised cognitive reset from a minority to majority orientation moves practice from a place of subordination to one of agency and efficacy. By reconnecting the people of the Global Majority with their narratives and the social and historical linkages that they have always had, the book potentially contributes to a different globality; where interdependence is not driven by the economic greed of the minority, but the social and very human needs of the majority.
Drawing on treaties, international law, the work of other Indigenous scholars, and especially personal experiences, Marie Battiste documents the nature of Eurocentric models of education, and their devastating impacts on Indigenous knowledge. Chronicling the negative consequences of forced assimilation, racism inherent to colonial systems of education, and the failure of current educational policies for Aboriginal populations, Battiste proposes a new model of education, arguing the preservation of Aboriginal knowledge is an Aboriginal right. Central to this process is the repositioning of Indigenous humanities, sciences, and languages as vital fields of knowledge, revitalizing a knowledge system which incorporates both Indigenous and Eurocentric thinking.
Decolonizing Wealth is a provocative analysis of the dysfunctional colonial dynamics at play in philanthropy and finance. Award-winning philanthropy executive Edgar Villanueva draws from the traditions from the Native way to prescribe the medicine for restoring balance and healing our divides. Though it seems counterintuitive, the philanthropic industry has evolved to mirror colonial structures and reproduces hierarchy, ultimately doing more harm than good. After 14 years in philanthropy, Edgar Villanueva has seen past the field's glamorous, altruistic façade, and into its shadows: the old boy networks, the savior complexes, and the internalized oppression among the “house slaves,” and those select few people of color who gain access. All these funders reflect and perpetuate the same underlying dynamics that divide Us from Them and the haves from have-nots. In equal measure, he denounces the reproduction of systems of oppression while also advocating for an orientation towards justice to open the floodgates for a rising tide that lifts all boats. In the third and final section, Villanueva offers radical provocations to funders and outlines his Seven Steps for Healing. With great compassion—because the Native way is to bring the oppressor into the circle of healing—Villanueva is able to both diagnose the fatal flaws in philanthropy and provide thoughtful solutions to these systemic imbalances. Decolonizing Wealth is a timely and critical book that preaches for mutually assured liberation in which we are all inter-connected.
Decolonizing and Indigenizing Education in Canada thinks boldly about how to make space for Indigenous knowledges and have an honest discourse on truth and reconciliation. By engaging with Indigenous epistemologies and strategies, the contributors navigate the complexities of the decolonization and indigenization of post-secondary institutions. What is needed in this field is less theorizing and more action: the contributors offer practical steps on how one might positively transform the Canadian academy. Through this lens of action-based solutions, each of the fifteen chapters advances critical scholarship on issues of pedagogy, curriculum, shifting power dynamics, and challenging Eurocentric perspectives in higher education. With contributions from both Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics from across Canada and in varying academic positions, Decolonizing and Indigenizing Education in Canada provides a unique perspective specific to the Canadian education system. Featuring discussion questions, further reading lists, and practical examples of how to engage in decolonization work within the academy, this text is an essential resource for students and scholars studying Indigenous knowledges, education and pedagogies, and curriculum studies.
Honorable Mention-2021 Society of Professors of Education Outstanding Book Award Teaching Toward a Decolonizing Pedagogy outlines educational practitioner development toward decolonizing practices and pedagogies for anti-racist, justice-based urban classrooms. Through rich personal narratives of one teacher’s critical reflections on her teaching, urban education scholarship and critical praxis are merged to provide an example of anti-racist urban schooling. Steeped in theoretical practice, this book offers a narrative of one teacher’s efforts to decolonize her urban classroom, and to position it as a vehicle for racial and economic justice for marginalized and minoritized students. At once a model for deconstructing the white institutional space of US schooling and a personal account of obstacles to these efforts, Teaching Toward a Decolonizing Pedagogy presents a research-based ‘pueblo pedagogy’ that reconsiders teacher identity and teachers’ capacities for resilience, resistance, and community-based instruction. From this personal exploration, emergent and practicing teachers can extract curricula, practices, and dispositions toward advocacy for students most underserved and marginalized by public education. As an exemplar of decolonizing work both in classroom practices and in methodologies for educational research, this book presents tensions and complexities in school-based theorizing and praxis, and in teacher implementations of anti-racist pedagogies in and against the current US model of colonial schooling.
This edited collection centres the reclamation of global counter and Indigenous knowledges, epistemologies, ontologies, axiologies, and cosmovisions that have the capacity to create new educational leadership frameworks that chart courses to visions beyond the current oppressive systems of education.
The world was dealt a blow that included a pandemic and economic crisis as well as racial unrest, initiating an energized charge for social justice advocacy. The United States is currently facing an unprecedented challenge in ensuring that all citizens live in a fair, inclusive, and opportunity-rich society. These issues have heightened questions about racial justice that have been placated but can no longer be ignored. Marginalized communities cannot thrive if they continue to be oppressed, neglected, disinvested, and isolated from economic opportunity. The culture of allyship needs to be enacted thoughtfully and not performatively to create sustainable change through a critical mass of engaged advocates and activists. Many organizations enable the status quo by not confronting issues around race, gender, and equity. Leaders of color want a seat at the table as highly valued contributors for the transformation of a just and equitable America. By listening to the voices of Black and Brown leaders, the promotion of change in an era of social unrest will finally occur. Black and Brown Leadership and the Promotion of Change in an Era of Social Unrest amplifies the voices of leaders who identify as Black, LatinX, Indigenous, or people of color as they navigate leadership during a time of tumultuous change and social unrest. More specifically, it portrays dilemmas that marginalized communities encounter while advocating for justice and social change within whitestream organizational systems. The chapters delve into the definitions, perceptions, and lived experiences of Americanism, identity, otherness, and racism as it relates to leadership and discusses the issues, dilemmas, struggles, and successes that persons of color experience in leadership roles in business and education. This book is valuable for practitioners and researchers working in the field of social justice leadership in various disciplines, social justice activists and advocates, teachers, policymakers, politicians, managers, executives, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students interested in how leaders of color can succeed, navigate hostile spaces, and ultimately create a change in mindsets and practices that will lead to justice.
This book offers workable frameworks and theory that school leaders can use to guide their work and engage in critical reflection. Lopez reconceptualises student engagement from an equity and diversity perspective and looks at ways that leaders can be supported on their journey through collaborative mentorship, while bridging the theory to practice gap.
