To what extent is the GCSE history curriculum in England and Wales being revised through processes of decolonising and diversifying?

This project challenges a partisan mainstream curriculum that scholars have found to be
prejudiced in favour of maintaining western-centric beliefs. Investigating whether teachers
use diversifying initiatives such as expanding reading lists interchangeably with decolonial
methods such as creating opportunities to challenge hegemonic power is thus essential.
Black activists and anti-oppressive academics warn against the superficial use of
'decolonising' that limits it to a metaphor or a slogan (Doharty, 2019; Sriprakash, Tikly,
and Walker, 2020). This urgent project operates within a comprehensive system of racial
injustice in the UK as reflected by themes such as Britain's negative relationship with
migration and empire (Mclntosh et al, 2019) and the questioning of the Britishness of
racialized subjects (Mansfield, 2019). More recently, increased visibility of racial inequality
during COVID-19 (Moncrieffe, 2020) has prompted promises from the education sector to
increase Black student progression and decolonise curricula. Responding to the UKRI
Black Lives Matter statement calling for "the ongoing and longer-term commitment of
practising justice," this study explores what it means to move past non-performative
statements (Desai and Sanya, 2016) to dismantle inequality in the education system by
exploring and distinguishing diversifying and decolonising pedagogical frameworks.
Diversifying pedagogy values representation and inclusion (Chetty, 2018) whereas
decolonisation demands a disordering and reconstruction of knowledge and power
(Fanon, 1963). Both approaches challenge the omissions of black narratives from the
curriculum; however, the decolonial method explicates how black ways of knowing and
being are disregarded through a history of exploitation and colonisation (Mignolo, 2011).
This project addresses the ECY challenge of shaping youth for a relational practice of
justice in an interconnected and precarious future.
This project's participatory research with Black teachers yields originality through the
adaptation of a proven analytical tool for exposing systems of oppression in the global
north. A co-productive analysis of history curricular texts aims to distinguish decolonial
methods from diversifying approaches and aims to contribute to the increase of black
student progression.