Decolonising the curriculum: An exploration of academics' perceptions, motivations and approaches in UK universities

Calls to decolonise the curriculum have gained significant traction in UK higher education in recent
years, particularly following the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in 2020. This
is evident in recent global anti-racism protests and student campaigns like Rhodes Must Fall in
Oxford (RMFO) and 'Why is My Curriculum White?', as well as the emergence of university wide
initiatives, such DecoloniseUKC (University of Kent) and Decolonising DMU (De Montfort University).
These examples do not capture the extent to which calls to decolonise the curriculum have
proliferated within the academy, through various institutional working groups, staff and student
networks, events, conferences, open letters and publications. Bhambra et al. (2018) argues that
given the 'prominence' of the term in student and staff movements, it is essential for us to 'think
more carefully about what this means - as both a theory and a praxis' (2). However, despite
increasing use of the term, there has been limited research into academics' conceptions, motivations
and approaches to decolonising the curriculum in UK universities. The project proposes to
investigate the aforementioned areas using qualitative methods and Charmaz' (2006) constructivist
grounded theory.