Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education: Bodies of Knowledge and Their Discontents, International and Comparative Perspectives 9781350094253, 9781350094277, 9781350094260

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Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education

Bloomsbury Critical Education Series editor: Peter Mayo This series is fundamentally concerned with the relationship between education and power in society and is therefore committed to publishing volumes containing insights into ways of confronting inequalities and social exclusions in different learning settings and society at large. The series will comprise books wherein authors contend forthrightly with the inextricability of power/knowledge relations.

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Pedagogy, Politics and Philosophy of Peace, edited by Carmel Borg and Michael Grech Critical Human Rights, Citizenship, and Democracy Education, edited by Michalinos Zembylas and André Keet Education, Individualization and Neoliberalism, Valerie Visanich

Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education Bodies of Knowledge and Their Discontents, International and Comparative Perspectives Edited by André Elias Mazawi and Michelle Stack

BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2020 Copyright © André Elias Mazawi and Michelle Stack and Bloomsbury André Elias Mazawi and Michelle Stack and Bloomsbury have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Authors of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. viii constitute an extension of this copyright page. Series design by Catherine Wood Cover image © Studiojumpee/Shutterstock All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any thirdparty websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mazawi, André Elias, editor. | Stack, Michelle, 1967- editor. Title: Course syllabi in faculties of education: bodies of knowledge and their discontents, international and comparative perspectives / edited by André Elias Mazawi and Michelle Stack. Description: London; New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. | Series: Bloomsbury critical education | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020009160 (print) | LCCN 2020009161 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350094253 (hardback) | ISBN 9781350094260 (ebook) | ISBN 9781350094284 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Education–Study and teaching (Higher)–Cross-cultural studies. | Lesson planning–Cross-cultural studies. | Teachers–Training of–Cross-cultural studies. Classification: LCC LB1027.4 .C66 2020 (print) | LCC LB1027.4 (ebook) | DDC 371.3028–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009160 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009161 ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-9425-3 ePDF: 978-1-3500-9426-0 ePUB: 978-1-3500-9428-4 Series: Bloomsbury Critical Education Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents List of Illustrations Acknowledgments 1

Introduction – Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education: Bodies of Knowledge and Their Discontents  André Elias Mazawi and Michelle Stack

vii viii

1

Part I  Geopolitics of Knowledge 2

3

4

The Geopolitics of Knowledge and “the Abyssal Line”: Mapping Teacher Education Syllabi in Canada  Lynette Shultz, Maren Elfert, and Carrie Karsgaard Comparing Course Syllabi from A to Z: Examining the Contexts, Contents, and Concerns for Social Foundations of Education in Australia and Zambia  Matthew A. M. Thomas, Janet Serenje-Chipindi, and Ferdinand Mwaka Chipindi Islamization and Indigenization of Faculties of Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran  Golnar Mehran and Fariba Adli

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38 51

Part II  Building “the House of Life” 5 6 7 8

Embodying Raven’s Knowledge in Indigenous Teacher Education  Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem Leçons de Ténèbres: Colonialism and Political Struggles over Teacher Education among Palestinians  André Elias Mazawi Decolonizing the Concept of Pedagogy of Discomfort in Classrooms, Curriculum, and Syllabi  Hartej Gill and Meena Uppal Centering Indigenous and Decolonizing Pedagogy: The Complexities, Tension, and Possibilities of Doing Spirit Work in Teacher Education  Bathseba Opini and Erica Neeganagwedgin

71 86 119

132

Part III  Intersectionalities in Context 9

Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi: Critical Reflections from the College of Education at Qatar University  Esraa Al-Muftah and Hadeel AlKhateeb

153

vi

Contents

10 Student Diversity and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education: Curricula Transformation for Civic Learning  Nidhi S. Sabharwal 11 Thinking through a Course on Educational Technology and Ableism: Implications for Syllabus Design  Heidi Janz and Michelle Stack

170 187

Part IV  Challenging Relations 12 An Existential Dimension of the Syllabus in the Life of a Teacher  Samuel D. Rocha 13 The Tension of “Othering” in Writing Course Syllabi in Saudi Arabia  Amani Hamdan 14 Mending the (Cartesian) Split: Reflections on Offering a Pedagogy of Wellness to Teacher Candidates  Stephanie Glick 15 Instructional Design and Pedagogy: Reconceptualizing Practices  Erica Neeganagwedgin and Bathseba Opini 16 Toward Provisional Conclusions: Intersections, Crossings, and Praxis: Syllabi and the Politics of Educational Articulation  Michelle Stack and André Elias Mazawi Notes on Contributors Index

205 215 229 245

258 273 277

Illustrations

Figures   2.1   2.2   5.1   5.2 10.1

University locations Publisher locations NITEP Logo NITEP Wholistic Model State-wide variations in beliefs toward diverse communities

30 31 72 79 180

Tables 2.1 2.2

Indigenous Course Material Authorship Indigenous Course Material: University, Country, and Authorship

32 32

Acknowledgments This book would not have seen the light if it were not for the dedication, passion, commitment, and, to crown it all, the patience of each of the contributors. We are indebted to them for their trust and continued engagement, and for engaging in our exchanges in a collegial and constructive spirit. We are fortunate to have had this opportunity to work with colleagues—scholars, practitioners, and educators—in promoting deeper and critical reflections on the most mundane artifact we encounter in our work daily, namely, the syllabus. We very much hope that, as we share this volume with them, and with readers at large, we can find additional ways to continue and enhance these conversations and open them up to rich exchanges regarding the roles syllabi can or could play in teacher education. We are also grateful to the editor-in-chief of the Critical Education Series, Professor Peter Mayo from the University of Malta, and to Mark Richardson, commissioning editor on behalf of Bloomsbury for their accompaniment, and for their patience too. Their support, as well as that of Editorial Assistant Kim Bown, Senior Project Manager for Bloomsbury Leela Ulaganathan, and Bloomsbury Production Editor Zeba Talkhani, is gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks are due to Professor Deirdre Kelly for reading the introduction and conclusion of this book and providing sage advice, collegiality, and friendship. Thank you also to Professor Mona Gleason, head of the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia, for the support extended to us in the form of Graduate Academic Assistant funding toward the formatting and copyediting of the final manuscript of the book. The index for this title was created by Indexer Sachin Kumar and quality checked by Senior Indexer Aarthi Natarajan. We are grateful for their work. Last in the order of engagements, but not least, we are also extremely grateful and indebted to Kealin McCabe, for all her dedication and hard work in formatting the definitive file of the present volume. Her meticulous work, attention to details, professionalism, and unwavering care made our task much easier in bringing the contributions together, and the manuscript to press. André Elias Mazawi & Michelle Stack April 6th, 2020 University of British Columbia, unceded ancestral territory of the Musqueam People

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Introduction Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education: Bodies of Knowledge and Their Discontents André Elias Mazawi and Michelle Stack

What is the Book About? This book engages one of the least researched aspects in faculties of education and teacher education programs: the designing and enactment of course syllabi. Critical studies of syllabi used in faculties of education and their performative enactment remain scant, particularly when it comes to examining the instructor’s lived experiences. The contributions in this book unpack the inextricable relationships between positionality, power, and knowledge that underpin course syllabi and their performance (enactment) in the classroom. Our point of departure is that course syllabi—and the wider curricula within which they are situated—represent intense spaces of struggle, characterized by competing claims over legitimate bodies of knowledge, and over visions of schooling, education, and society. In this book, we locate syllabi—and their enactment—at the convergence of four forces that shape their meanings and institutional manifestation: First, faculties of education are characterized by struggles over who accesses positions of power and influence, and what ought to count as legitimate pedagogical knowledge and professional practice. This is particularly the case when it comes to engaging issues associated with multiculturalism and social diversity more broadly (Acker, 2005; Gore & Morrison, 2001). For example, Anja Heikkinen, Jenni Pätäri, and Sini Teräsahde (2019) argue that, in Finland, “the disciplinarisation or scientification of educational knowledge is not primarily an issue of conceptual and theoretical progress. Rather it indicates relations and power struggles between actors in the academy, politics, economy and practice” (p. 83). Such disciplinary struggles are amplified when it comes to instructors’ engagement with and unpacking of colonial legacies, for instance in South Africa. Linda Chisholm, Michelle Friedman, and Queenta Anyele Sindoh (2018) point to a gap between available textbooks in

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the teaching of history of education, which “largely use older historiography” and instructors’ teaching contents in the classroom which draws on “more recent historiographies.” Notwithstanding, a review of the literature suggests that how such struggles play out in syllabi used in faculties of education (and more particularly in teacher education programs), and what wider struggles do these syllabi capture in relation to the aims of education and schooling in contemporary societies, remain a rather neglected area of study. Secondly, the involvement of certification agencies, located outside faculties of education, complicates the issue further by subjecting faculties of education and teacher education programs to external control and regulations. Thirdly, how instructors experience their struggles over the bodies of knowledge that are represented in their syllabi reflects wider contingencies and entanglements of space, place, time, institutional dynamics, and power politics. Syllabi are not just documentary artifacts intended for procedural and contractual ends. They are saturated with the political contingencies, controversies, aspirations, and agendas that animate the spirit of the time and the ways in which the aims of education are contested, negotiated, and provisionally articulated. The implication is that contexts are central to account for in any attempt to understand how the enactment of syllabi plays out across institutions, national or social settings. Fourthly, and most importantly, course instructors are not passive providers of knowledge mandated by course syllabi. Nor are they “reproducers” of inequities and unequal opportunities or “resistant” to institutional policies. Rather, they actively negotiate their course syllabi—in terms of professional and locational identities, curriculum leadership, teaching approaches, and ontological and epistemic choices they make. Far from lacking objectivity, the narratives assembled in the present volume are narrated from a subjective “I” standpoint that emphasizes what Sandra Harding (1993) refers to as “strong objectivity”: the narratives are “embodied and visible”; they are located within the wider contexts of classroom and institutional power dynamics that shape them as “objects of knowledge”; they are community based in terms of the knowledge they generate; and, they represent “multiple, heterogeneous, and contradictory or incoherent” standpoints, which mirror the multiplicity of locations from which the different instructors negotiate the enactment of their syllabi (Harding, 1993, pp. 63–65). Seen from this lens, chapter contributors bear witness to the located entanglements—individual, professional, institutional, historical, and sociopolitical— within which they enunciate their beliefs, aspirations, and visions of teacher education and its aims. These entanglements compel contributors—as interpellated narrators— to interrogate, not so much the features of the ideal or optimal syllabus—if ever there were any—but the phenomenological and aspirational aspects that animate their respective lifeworlds. At the juncture of the above four convergences, this book illustrates how the contributors, as differentially located instructors, dwell in their respective syllabi, inhabit them, and what underpins their engagements, feelings of alienation (estrangement) or hopeful empowerment regarding the corpus of knowledge which they seek to impart to students.

 Introduction 3

What Does a “Syllabus” Stand for within the Wider Order of Things? In their book, Designing A Motivational Syllabus: Creating a Learning Path for Student Engagement, Christine Harrington and Melissa Thomas (2018) identify three core purposes of the course syllabus. First, the syllabus represents a “communication tool” which ensures the transparent setting of course structure, goals, and expectations from students on the part of the instructor. The syllabus can thus “prevent or at least minimize confusion or conflict.” Secondly, the course syllabus represents a “planning tool,” and a “road map” that outlines “the steps that students will need to take to be successful in the course.” Here, a well-designed syllabus allows instructors to “share not only the learning outcomes but also the direct connection between the learning tasks and assignments and the identified learning outcomes,” designing the course “backward,” “with the end in mind.” Thirdly, the course syllabus represents “a motivational and supportive tool” that provides “students with action-oriented learning goals and information how to meet these goals with success.” A “teaching philosophy” section in the syllabus can communicate to students specific “highlevel beliefs” of the instructor which could “translate into high levels of academic achievement” on the part of the student. Motivation can further be enhanced if the syllabus offers choice options with regard to activities and assignments. Linda Nilson (2007) goes farther, suggesting that the syllabus stands at the intersection of scholarship and teaching. She observes: A syllabus reflects the professional judgment of faculty in higher education, a group of individuals who are notorious for forging their own pathway. What instructor with any classroom experience prefers to be handed a syllabus to teach from that has been developed by a committee or colleague? We tend to believe that a syllabus should be a personal creation that reflects one’s intellectual viewpoint on the subject matter. So, instructors spend hours, even days, designing a course and its syllabus, as well as pouring through books for the syllabi that most closely mirror their preferred organization and slant on the material. In a deep sense, a syllabus is a piece of scholarship, one that brings the scholarship of integration of teaching. . . . For any given course, your syllabi display your conception of how a field or subfield is organized—or should be organized for the purpose of communicating it—and how students can best master its knowledge and skills. Your teaching philosophy is readable between the lines of your syllabus, as well as in parts of the text itself. The document, especially your assignments and class-time plans, is a window to your theories of teaching and learning, whether you see yourself as a knowledge transmitter, a resource, a facilitator, a manager, an experience creator, or an activist. (p. 7)

As an established higher education institution, the course syllabus has long histories, whether as tables of contents, as an outline of a program of study, or as a list of lectures

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(Parks & Harris, 2002, p. 55). In the English language, the term “syllabus”—of Greek and Latin origins—has been in use, under different meanings, since the mid-seventeenth century (p. 55). Practices associated with the syllabus, in its different formats have been historically recorded across cultures throughout the world. In the English language, syllabus (plural: syllabi) literally signifies indexical lists or documents that compile the labels attributed to various works. Syllabi represent a space that identifies canonic texts, establish relationships and genealogies among them, and connect contributions to human knowledge that have been made over time. A full historical account of syllabi transcends the bounds of the present volume. Here, suffice it to note that syllabi contain informative entries that classify bodies of texts according to their pertinence for a particular community of practice, or from a disciplinary (or area studies) point of view. Determining the “pertinence” of the syllabus remains elusive, as the question of purpose further amplifies the tensions that often prevail between “theory” and “practice” and how course syllabi engage their positioning in relation to each other. We argue that disentangling these tensions is particularly relevant, though challenging, when it comes to syllabi in teacher education programs. In advancing this part of our argument, we build on Helma Oolbekkink-Marchand and her colleagues’ (Oolbekkink-Marchand, Hadar, Smith, Helleve, & Ulvik, 2017) use of the notion of “professional space,” which represents “a significant aspect of teacher leadership” (p. 37). “Professional space” refers to the “‘amount of say’ teachers have in their own teaching practice” (p. 38). The notion of “professional space” is not limited to physical or social aspects of the classroom or institutional context. We extend this notion to the design and enactment of syllabi they are either entrusted with, or that they come to design, and how instructors in teacher education programs come to enact “their personal teaching goals” (p. 38). The creation of syllabi—as the delimitation of canonic corpora that delimit an instructor’s “professional space”—is not without challenges and contingencies, however. The designing of course syllabi is entrenched in epistemic politics. In as much as syllabi offer a space for the informative listing of entries regarding pertinent readings on a theme, they also actively exclude particular entries, eventually erasing (or deleting) authors’ names and works deemed fraught or misaligned with the disciplinary or thematic doxology of the day. In that sense, syllabi operate as power instruments and as material artifacts that are part of coded forms of power. Their compilation of sources should be understood in relation to these coded forms of power, whether in their explicit or implicit articulations. The epistemic selectivity—and the determination of what deserves to be remembered by a particular community—means, as Michel Foucault’s (1980) elaboration on the intersections of knowledge and power posits— that syllabi are always already constructed simultaneously in relation and in opposition to imagined political orders. It is in relation and opposition to these political orders that syllabi find their fulfillment. Understanding how instructors navigate these contingencies offers insights into the epistemic politics associated with the enactment of syllabi. The syllabus—as both an institutional feature of teaching and a cultural artifact associated with its practice—has not remained frozen over time. Jay Parks and Mary Harris (2002) observe that “syllabi seem to vary in two fundamental areas: (a) the

 Introduction 5 apparent reasons for writing the syllabus and (b) the material that it contains” (p. 55). In recent decades, the syllabus used in faculties of education (though not exclusively) underwent significant shifts in terms of its status, roles, and physical appearance. These shifts, we argue, cannot be disconnected from the wider political economies within which higher education as a whole has become entangled (Slaughter, 2014). With the privatization, modularization, and commodification of educational programs, the purposes of the syllabus shifted in their emphases in at least five respects: First, syllabi have come to assume a contractual status (Parks & Harris, 2002). Darlene Habanek (2005) emphatically points out, “The syllabus provides an important, and maybe the only, vehicle for expressing accountability and commitment” (p. 63). As a contractual document, the syllabus has a binding force attached to it that dictates not only its narrative and editorial structures but also the very performances it seeks to engage in the classroom, and under which learning would be deemed satisfactory. Thus, for instance, at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, BC, Canada), Senate Policy V-130, approved in January 2019, a course syllabus is understood as the document provided by the course instructor which communicates the course instructor’s course design to students including organization, policies, expectations, and requirements. (University of British Columbia, 2019; italics in the original)

The policy goes on to delimit the functions of the syllabus in the classroom and the conditions under which subsequent changes can be introduced once the course has started. While the policy remains flexible on the narrative style and formatting of the syllabus, it establishes what could be interpreted as a “line of command” that “entitles” students to voice their “protest” against “a change” they perceive as “detrimental to their academic progress.” Thus, Section 9(b) states: Any student who sees the change to the syllabus as detrimental to their academic progress is entitled to discuss the case with the course instructor and seek a resolution. Where student and instructor cannot agree, students are encouraged to take their protest to the head of the department concerned and then to the dean of the faculty responsible for the course in accordance with the Academic Calendar regulations on protests for academic standings. (University of British Columbia, 2019; italics in the original)

The status of the syllabus, as “accountability agreement,” should be further understood in relation to the role and mandates of accreditation and certification entities, located outside of faculties of education. These entities ultimately ascertain whether graduates have acquired the competence and competencies required, among others, for teaching. Habanek (2005) explicitly observes that the inclusion of course objectives in the syllabus is crucial “because accreditation processes look specifically for evidence of curricular alignment and program integrity, in part by examining syllabi, it seems that there is little reason for such information to be absent, even if it is not felt that students need it” (p. 63).

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Secondly, course syllabi and their distribution to students, or their online uploading and dispatching, have become entangled in complex webs of copyright and intellectual ownership laws, whether to determine intellectual property, or those that seek to uphold copyright laws regarding the readings distributed with the syllabus. Thirdly, syllabi are subject to an expanding array of legal stipulations, disclosures, and disclaimers. In a report published a decade ago in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Paula Wasley (2008) notes, Increasingly the contemporary syllabus is becoming more like a legal document, full of all manner of exhortations, proscriptions, and enunciations of class and institutional policy—often in minute detail that seems more appropriate for a courtroom than a classroom. However, when considering syllabi, a more nuanced examination is needed in order to understand their entanglements with distinct pieces of legislation. In some cases, the push for standardization is based in revenue-driven marketization and neoliberal policies of accountability (Hargreaves, 2003; Mayo, 2015). In other cases, however, the push is based on calls for social justice and equity. For example, disability advocacy organizations fought for standardized statements to be included around support for inclusion of disabled students and their right for accommodation in terms of additional time for writing exams. Other legislation, in support of student rights and privacy, and against discrimination, came about as part of the activism of social movements and as part of international coalitions and conventions (Zames Fleischer & Zames, 2011). Fourthly, competing practices are prevalent within higher education institutions regarding the instructor’s responsibilities in enacting the prescribed syllabus. Some institutions encourage instructors to open up courses—and design their own syllabi— to serve an evermore inclusive membership and to Indigenize and decolonize higher education knowledge, in ways that are sensitive to social diversity, social justice, and multicultural education. In other contexts of higher education, however, institutions opt for a centrally mandated syllabi enactment, to ensure uniformity across cohorts and programs. In other institutions, still, concerns over revenue generation, standardization, certification, and commodification of course contents exert considerable pressures to structure syllabi along preexisting templates, particularly when it comes to undergraduate courses. Within this array of institutional practices, who is entrusted with the enactment of which syllabi represents a problematic, that is seldom discussed in terms of its institutional and pedagogical implications and ramifications. This is particularly so given the increasing vulnerability and proletarianization of the teaching force (e.g., sessionals who are contract-based instructors). Proletarianized (i.e., nontenure track) instructors, and those teaching exclusively in teacher education programs, are more likely to teach on the basis of preexisting syllabi designed by others, with limited maneuvering space for the inclusion of bodies of knowledge chosen by the instructor. The proletarianization of the teaching force in faculties of education and in teacher education programs lessens therefore the opportunities of nontenure-track instructors to design their course syllabi compared to tenure-track instructors. The latter can more

 Introduction 7 easily teach a wider array of graduate and undergraduate courses and enjoy wider maneuvering space to configure the formats of their courses. In that sense, the degree of autonomy instructors have over the design of syllabi often operates as a proxy of differential employment statuses. The distribution of instructors across employment status categories therefore raises critical questions regarding epistemic modes of stratification in terms of control exerted over syllabus design. Against this backdrop, how do different instructors having different employment statuses “reconcile” the emancipatory potential of education with the increasingly entangled web of relations within which the syllabus—as a site of thought and action—is taught? Fifthly, the design and enactment of course syllabi have become dramatically affected by digital technologies of communication and dissemination. Course syllabi play an important role in the global education industry and in mediating knowledge mobilization and transfer across world regions. Faculties of education have been particularly active in terms of digitizing course contents and expanding their course offering as part of distance education modules, both graduate and undergraduate. In sum, we argue that these five major shifts, briefly outlined, amplify the problematics associated with the enactment of course syllabi within a faculty of education and the articulation of teacher education programs. The contractual and legal articulations re-inscribe syllabi within higher education as markers of political economic transactions between students and instructors. They also reconfigure the cultural codes that delimit the classroom, erecting it into “adversarial” (Wasley, 2008), monitored, modular, measurable, and assessable units of transactional exchange.

Theoretical Approach As a cultural and political artifact, the syllabus lies at the convergence of multifaceted geometries of power that impact its design, enactment, and performance in diverse sites of practice. As an institutionally sanctioned ritual, course syllabi claim to capture the canons relevant for given fields of study. They label and organize bodies of knowledge, identify core readings, and establish a hierarchy between mandatory and optional readings. Such symbolic epistemic hierarchies of texts signal to course participants—and to the instructor’s colleagues and the wider communities of scholars, policymakers, and practitioners—the centrality of particular works in a given field and the epistemic and pedagogical choices that guide the design. In that sense, the composition, choreographic, and organizational status of course syllabi exclude certain bodies of knowledge, and bodies of racialized instructors (Henry, 2015) allocated to teach them, at the same time that they identify bodies—of knowledge and instructors—deemed scholarly robust. The present volume seeks to clarify the involvement of faculties of education in these dynamics and their colonial legacies. To that end, the volume’s contributions approach course syllabi design and enactment by highlighting their implications for, and extent of engagement with aspects of hegemony and epistemic violence, and the emphases teacher education syllabi choose to ignore, include, and/or amplify.

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Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2016), Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012), and Sandra Harding (1991), to name but three, offer compelling critiques that expose such practices. They critically analyze how knowledge in higher education institutions situated in the Global North is constructed around patriarchal, Eurocentric, and culturally situated forms of knowledge paraded as universal. The ensuing bodies of knowledge dismiss and render invisible bodies of knowledge articulated within the contexts of Global South societies or those associated with marginalized and racialized groups. The recent calls “to decolonize your course syllabus” through dedicated workshops, launched, for instance, at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Education (March 2019), seek to address this ongoing colonial heritage associated with syllabus design. The calls urge faculty members to “bring your course outline to this workshop that considers ways to incorporate Indigenous perspectives, worldviews, voices, pedagogies, and materials in your course design.” The intention is to disrupt—not without resistance from some quarters—an academic heritage anchored in hierarchical constructions of knowledge in which Western knowledge, its foundational figures, and its internal controversies and debates are represented as epistemic cornerstones. It is over that backdrop that Santos (2016) observes: Unequal exchanges among cultures have always implied the death of the knowledge of the subordinated culture, hence the death of the social groups that possessed it. In the most extreme cases, such as that of European expansion, epistemicide was one of the conditions of genocide. The loss of epistemological confidence that currently afflicts modern science has facilitated the identification of the scope and gravity of the epistemicides perpetrated by hegemonic Eurocentric modernity. (p. 92)

It is worth pausing over this observation to consider its implications for our understanding of course syllabi. Reading Santos, one realizes that the power effects of course syllabi are amplified when coupled with extratextual forms of domination and subjugation, be they colonial, imperial, or forms of cultural hegemony described as “soft power.” Under such conditions, the syllabus—and the canonic epistemic orders it mandates as readings and objects for reflection and Bildung (self-cultivation)—does not represent bounded and isolated acts of intellectual reflexivity. Rather, they are embedded in the construction of one’s subjectivity as a knowing person. Moreover, as the works of Ali Mazrui (1975, 2003) (and Jacob Aliet’s (2007) response) and of Edward Said (2014) suggest, they also entail the objectification of the subjectivity of the different Other, as part of the articulation of exclusive projects of modernity embedded in the coloniality of power. Thus, what is “remembered” and witnessed in the syllabus implies, irremediably, acts of speech juxtaposed alongside acts of silencing, exclusion, and normalization, which delimit what cannot be uttered, or what is considered as irrelevant or just a curious outlier. The struggle over syllabi is therefore a struggle over the naming of legitimate bodies of knowledge, the utopias they uphold, and the finalities they seek to promote. Struggles over the naming of alternative bodies of knowledge run across the various contributions in this book. The chapters critically engage this double-bind feature of

 Introduction 9 the syllabus in terms of its relation to the “geopolitics of knowledge” (Quijano, 2000; Mignolo, 2002) within which it is practiced. On the one hand, contributors share their aspirations to name and enunciate that which they feel they are not allowed to name, or that which is condemned to silence. On the other hand, the very naming of alternative bodies of knowledge—not to speak of their effective incorporation into course syllabi— often entails engaging in simultaneous struggles vis-à-vis the institution over the instructor’s performance in the classroom, and vis-à-vis students who are embedded in the wider politics that the syllabus attempts to transform. How instructors negotiate this double bind, and how they move through it in terms of pedagogical practices, judgments, and reasoning, differs significantly from context to context, from one site of practice to another. The various chapters in this collection provide vivid examples of such vernacular dynamics. They offer insights into the tactics and strategies instructors apply in maneuvering a curricular space that is often felt as inhospitable, or too rigid, to allow for transformative change. The syllabus captures a complex encounter between three corpora, or bodies. First, the institutional body as made manifest through rules, regulations, procedures, sanctioned knowledge, and lines of authority. Secondly, the body of the instructor or rather, the instructor’s embodied experiences, in their attempts to turn a mandated curriculum and syllabus into a home, in all its intimacies, spatial features, and architectural elements, both substantive and decorative. Building and inhabiting a syllabus represents therefore—metaphorically and practically—masonry work, political labor of a distinctive nature. It involves a set of simultaneous engagements with gravitational forces associated with a constantly moving (reformed) professional terrain and continuously shifting political configurations under which teaching acquires its recognized—read, certified—meanings and justifications. Thirdly, a syllabus also represents an encounter—often antagonistic and fraught with conflicts— with the students’ bodies, their subjectivities, identities, and locations. The harmony of such a tripartite encounter neither is secured in advance nor is necessarily reconcilable or commensurate. This is an important consideration to keep in mind because, in this volume, we have not attempted to reconcile the various narratives on this very point. Nor have we attempted to tamper with the narratives the contributors offer in terms of the ways in which they have each experienced the embodied dimensions of this tripartite encounter. In doing so, we are keen to avoid an essentializing and essentialized approach to one of the core artifacts that educators use as part of the practice of their profession—the syllabus. The testimonials offered by contributors in the present volume bear witness to the intense entanglements that accompany the embodied encounters involved in the enactment of course syllabi. Testimonials offer competing context-dependent constructions of the ideal or optimal syllabus. Syllabi and their enactments are therefore located at the intersection of competing visions, dystopic, utopic, or pragmatic. Their enactment in the classroom therefore bears the effects of differential experiential trajectories of both students and instructors, in their encounter. Gender, Indigeneity, sexuality, social class, dis/ability, race, colonial experiences, and institutional variations (to name but a few) represent some of the more tangible entanglements that underpin the enactment of the syllabus in the present volume. We have tried to widen the

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spectrum of positionalities as much as we possibly could, with only partial success, we must confess. The core point, however, is that the design and enactment of the syllabus capture embodied experiences which involve not just logical organization of the corpus of knowledge deemed desirable but also its performative emotional and bodily manifestations in the classroom as part of the teaching-learning process. As we discuss in greater detail later, an intersectional approach promises to provide insights into how differentially located instructors make sense of their own histories, professional trajectories, and the meanings they attach to teaching and learning in diverse contexts of practice. Course syllabi represent, perhaps, one of the few professional spaces in which the embodied autonomy of the teacher, as a socially and politically located individual, is constantly tested and challenged, and its legitimacy negotiated. Yet, that space is neither uniform nor clearly delimited. It rather presents—under some respects—multiple and often loosely coupled sites of action and agency that leave open the possibility of disruption, innovation, creativity but also conformity and the reproduction of inequitable power relations. As the contributions in this volume show, engaging the wider curricular context of the syllabus is inevitable. It requires on the part of the instructor forms of political literacy and awareness that transcend the disciplinary boundaries of their training/education. Literacy is essential in terms of the instructor’s understanding, not just of conjunctural forces that shape their syllabus but also of articulating a critical strategic vision in relation to its enactment in the classroom. Approaching syllabi as forms of embodied literacy is quintessential for the present volume. As Paulo Freire (2018) would have it, literacy involves reading the world, not just the word. It also involves, as Jacques Lacan observes, an awareness of “the world of words that creates the world of things” (Corvez, 1968, p. 284). This intricate relationship between the “syllabus,” as word (le mot) compilation, and as the “thing” (la chose) it seeks to designate reveals the vulnerabilities of the syllabus. How to align theory and practice in teacher education, for example from a social justice perspective, raises considerable questions regarding contents, pedagogy, and practice (Zygmunt & Clark, 2016, pp. 19–26). How instructors “travel” the distances that separate the “word” and the “thing,” and how they weave these travels into situated epistemic and pedagogical textures and gestures, necessitate paying attention to the instructor’s journeys and positionality (Lugones, 1987). The testimonial narratives offered in this volume illustrate the challenges that instructors face in engaging the syllabus as a form of literacy in fluid institutional, pedagogical, and institutional environments. The second facet involved in the enactment of a syllabus pertains to it representing a rather “liquid” space, whose contours are intertwined powerfully with wider geometries of politics and power. In his book Liquid Modernity Zygmunt Bauman (2000) argues that freedom and emancipation are at a tipping point between the capacity of individuals to expand the possible horizons of their actions and the limiting of their imagination—between agonizing over new directions, the dismantling of existing practices and institutional arrangements, and following established routines. Bauman argues that, in contemporary society, the tensions that underpin the realm of the person (private) and the realm of the citizen (public) have become extremely fluid, flowing from one into the other in complex ways. These flows signal the restlessness

 Introduction 11 that plays out in society between modes of being solitary and modes being solidary, reflecting a constant movement from a “solid” to a “liquid” version of modernity. Liquid modernity, as Bauman explains it, is marked by discontinuities, incoherence, and incompleteness. It represents sketches and outlines of possibilities, sometimes aborted. In the foreword to his book, Bauman captures the main features of the power dynamics that underpin “liquid modernity” and its discontents: The disintegration of the social network, the falling apart of effective agencies of collective action is often noted with a good deal of anxiety and bewailed as the unanticipated “side effect” of the new lightness and fluidity of the increasingly mobile, slippery, shifty, evasive and fugitive power. But social disintegration is as much a condition as it is the outcome of the new technique of power, using disengagement and the art of escape as its major tools. For power to be free to flow, the world must be free of fences, barriers, fortified borders and checkpoints. Any dense and tight network of social bonds, and particularly a territorially rooted tight network, is an obstacle to be cleared out of the way. Global powers are bent on dismantling such networks for the sake of their continuous and growing fluidity, that principal source of their strength and the warrant of their invincibility. And it is the falling apart, the friability, the brittleness, the transcience, the until-furthernoticeness of human bonds and networks which allow these powers to do their job in the first place. (p. 14)

We invoke Bauman’s notion of “liquid modernity” for two main reasons. First, it references the traveling nature of liquids, either as they spill over edges or as they travel over space, flowing, for instance, like a grand river in its bed, posing an insurmountable borderline between spaces while at other times, meandering, occasionally forging new courses and new paths as time passes, given differences in altitude. We argue that Bauman’s notion of “liquid modernity” is relevant for the unpacking of the complex contingencies in which course syllabi are caught within the struggles that characterize our time. Secondly, liquidity assumes “friability” and vulnerability of the soil paths through which liquids travel—those “human bonds” that Bauman refers to. At the juncture of these two figurative captions, critical questions arise: What sociopolitical dystopias do syllabi attempt to reckon with, disrupt, destabilize, or reinforce? What utopias of solidarity or solitudes do they seek to build and dwell in? What journeys, pilgrimages sojourns, and travels do they seek to enact? How are syllabi positioned— and how do they meander—in relation to various conceptions of knowledge, learning, and being that play out within the classroom and the wider society? How do they negotiate the tensions—if not insurmountable distances—between accountability regimes that standardize and homogenize complexities associated with teacher education (Hargreaves, 2003), the challenges associated with widened notions of diversity, inclusion, and equity (hooks, 1994), and calls to decolonize knowledge by situating it within wider ecologies of knowledge that allow new horizons of being and new modalities of affiliation? The third facet that informs our approach to the syllabus draws on the work of Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge (2016) on intersectionality. Intersectionality

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represents an important analytical tool for “understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people, and in human experiences” (p. 2). For Collins and Bilge (2016), intersectionality refers to the major axes of social division in a given society, at a given time, for example, race, class, gender, sexuality, dis/ability, and age operate not as discrete and mutually exclusive entities, but build on each other and work together. . . . [Intersectionality represents] a heuristic . . . [that] can assume many different forms. (p. 4)

Invoking intersectionality is not devoid of its own challenges, however, given the different ways in which it has been applied in the study of social phenomena. Sumi Cho, Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, and Leslie McCall (2013) identified three “heuristic” and “fluid” categories of engagement with intersectionality approaches. The first category of engagement with intersectionality seeks to expose contextspecific discriminatory articulations of class, race, and gender, for instance in the labor market, family formation, or grassroots advocacy. The second category of engagement focuses on the theoretical and methodological underpinnings of intersectionality debating whether an “essential subject” located at the intersection of the various forms of power exists and whether it is “dynamically constituted within institutions and structures that are neither temporally nor spatially circumscribed” (p. 785–86). The third category of engagement is concerned with “the normative and political dimensions of intersectionality and thus embody a motivation to go beyond mere comprehension of intersectional dynamics to transform them” (p. 786) in terms of praxis and activism. Building on these categories, we argue that intersectionality represents a wellestablished modality of “knowledge production.” Moreover, as Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall (2013) observe, “The widening scope of intersectional scholarship and praxis has not only clarified intersectionality’s capacities; it has also amplified its generative focus as an analytical tool to capture and engage contextual dynamics of power” (p. 788) beyond superficial questions of difference between social categories over space and time. In the present book, contributors engage in the three categories of intersectionality identified by Cho, Crenshaw, and McCall (2013) flexibly, fluidly, and pragmatically. Not only is the intersectional approach adopted by different contributors conceived of as a new mode of knowledge production, it is also deployed as part of an autoethnographic narrative with the explicit aim of interrogating and transforming praxis and the normative bases that underpin it within the classroom in relation to syllabus enactment. Moreover, the chapter narratives bear witness to these efforts by accounting for the locations, colonial legacies, and situated knowledges that instructors—as acting subjects in space and time—bring to bear on their work. The point of departure for such an intersectional approach is that instructors and their students are located within histories—colonial, gendered, racialized, and in relation to (dis)ability, to name just a few. These histories are not a matter of the past, irremediably consigned to archives or representing a mere difference in one’s history, nor do the contributors assume that such intersectional forms of power are somehow suspended at the classroom’s door.

 Introduction 13 By adopting an intersectionality lens, contributors seek to uncover the situated and embodied human experiences of historically marginalized instructors and students— particularly those from racialized and marginalized groups. Contributors ask how these experiences impact perceived understandings, interpretations, and enactments of a syllabus, including possible paths for their transformation. Their discussion of syllabi transcends—and cannot be collapsed into—the written text, the list of readings, and the contents covered by a course. Rather, from an intersectional perspective, they extend well beyond textual choreographies and design into the participants’ bodies, minds, and range of emotions and sensibilities, in intertwined, interwoven, and— ultimately—performative modalities of an emancipatory praxis in the classroom. Our aim is therefore twofold. First, we seek to remain sensitive to the experiential and embodied dimensions of syllabi, and how they play out as spaces and places where the subjectivities of both students and instructors intersect in multifaceted ways. Secondly, chapter contributors are committed to challenging structural oppression (e.g., racism, ableism, occupation, and poverty) through education. As practitioners of social justice, they are committed to identify modalities of engagement that link theory and practice in the ways the syllabus is enacted. By doing so, they seek to transcend “simplistic notions of difference” grounded in liberal notions of equality and equity and move towards the articulation of a praxis conceived of as an intervention “against the social reproduction of power” (Cho, Crenshaw, & McCall, 2013, p. 806). In brief, we approach course syllabi in faculties of education as a charged encounter. It involves the embodied experiences and subjectivities of all its participants, whether within or beyond the school and the classroom. Its enactments are interwoven with the wider configurations of power that underpin a “liquid” notion of modernity, in which the private and the public endlessly shift and challenge stable institutional arrangements. At this juncture, the performance of the syllabus is actively shaped by the intersecting locations of its participants and the power relations they bring to bear on the substantive articulations of knowledge it seeks to promote, foster, and impart.

Organization of the Book The contributors to this edited book are all actively involved in teaching within faculties of education and teacher education programs in ten different countries. They differ significantly in terms of their employment status, their professional trajectories, their sociocultural locations, and their positioning in relation to diverse understandings of ability and wellness. It is from within these differential locations that they critically examine their engagements with course syllabi as experienced in their work within their respective contexts of practice. Chapter contributors are particularly concerned with the ways in which they straddle, negotiate, and travel through the contradictory spaces and relationalities that frame the syllabi that they design and enact, interpret, and perform in the classroom. They take as their point of departure the embodied and existential aspects associated with teaching. They thus adopt what may be labeled as a “maximalist position” that views the syllabus within wider web of relations in which they live and work, as individuals, as professionals, as citizens and members of their respective communities

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and societies. Their discussion of their lived experiences with course syllabi invokes not just the rationalities that orient them in their work, but also the emotions, embodied experiences, and aspirations that condition their engagement with their students, their respective institutions, and their educational policies. It is worth noting that the range of national contexts in which chapter contributors live and work means that chapter contributors are located in cultural contexts that differ significantly. Moreover, chapter contributors live and work within legal contexts that differ radically in terms of their political philosophies and modes of political organization. These factors may determine the horizons of contemplation open to individuals and groups. The chapters are grouped under four distinct parts. Each part highlights one core aspect associated with the design and enactment of syllabi. That being said, readers should not be surprised to identify aspects that overlap across the four different parts. While each of the four parts aims to deepen particular thematics in relation to syllabi, the four parts are not mutually exclusive. Rather, they offer points of convergence and divergence that readers can engage by creating conversations between and across chapters, beyond the ones we have captured in our concluding discussion. In Part I—“Geopolitics of Knowledge”—contributors examine the syllabi used in faculties of education and in teacher education programs over the larger backdrop of geopolitical dynamics and the ideologies and political economies that condition the production and circulation of educational knowledge. Lynette Shultz, Maren Elfert, and Carrie Karsgaard map what knowledges are deemed as “valuable” in teacher education syllabi in a major Canadian university. Their study highlights the role played by the political economies of publishing and international student recruitment in determining the hegemonic ascendency of certain bodies of knowledge over others. They suggest that unless cognitive justice is not part of the rethinking of education syllabi, “global social justice will not be possible.” The chapter is followed by a comparative study of Australian and Zambian curricula in the area of social foundations of education. In that study, Matthew Thomas, Janet Serenji-Chipindi, and Ferdinand Mwaka Chipindi contrast two national contexts that differ in terms of their colonial histories and legacies. Their study shows how, despite significantly different historical, geographic, and institutional histories, social foundations syllabi confront similar challenges, while core questions around teacher education remain unanswered. The authors propose to examine syllabi both “internally and externally,” as part of opening them up to wider sensibilities and modalities of exchange. Concluding this section, Golnar Mehran and Fariba Adli unpack the geopolitical and ideological contingencies affecting the governance of faculties of education in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their study illustrates how the state’s efforts to consolidate its ideology over education curricula is affected by national, regional, and global forces that ultimately exacerbate the challenges faced by teacher education programs. In Part II—Building “the House of Life”—contributors focus on what it means for instructors to think through teacher education in relation to Indigeneity, racialization, and decolonizing within the contexts of the historical legacies of colonialism, immigration, racism, and dispossession—aspects that are silenced by globalized discourses on teacher education. Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem shares her story regarding the struggles she has been involved in to dispel the “darkness” created

 Introduction 15 for Canada’s Indigenous peoples by the federal government and churches. Locating her narrative in relation to a meeting with Raven—a traditional Indigenous trickster character who can change shape and form and teach us humans to be thoughtful, respectful, responsible, and caring—she reviews the journey that led her to “create space” for the political and pedagogic conscientization of students enrolled in courses concerned with Indigenous education as part the Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP). Reviewing the struggles over teacher education in Palestinian society, André Elias Mazawi illustrates how teacher education is impacted in a context of persisting colonization and land dispossession. Rather than focusing on the syllabi used in faculties of education and in teacher education institutions, Mazawi highlights the role played by social movements, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and resistance movements in articulating alternative understandings of teacher education to those proposed by colonizing powers. He reminds us that the struggles over teacher education under colonial regimes extend beyond postsecondary institutions. Moving back to Canada, Hartej Gill and Meena Uppal invoke the difficulties and pains involved in taking the notion of “discomfort” as a pedagogical tool when engaging teacher candidates. At the core of their effort stands the desire to unmoor the entrenched racialized certainties that too often teacher candidates bring to the classroom and to the school. Drawing on their own lived experiences, as instructors whose bodies have been racialized, Gill and Uppal analyze and critique the possibilities and challenges associated with a pedagogy of discomfort from an anti-colonial framework. They consider ways in which, from within the pain and the discomfort, a transformative pedagogy of hope could be articulated. Bathseba Opini and Erica Neeganagwedgin’s continue this line of exploration. This said, their chapter takes as its point of departure the question, “What beliefs do teacher candidates hold about knowledge, teaching and learning?” Opini and Neeganagwedgin complicate this question by pointing to the tensions and contradictions that underpin efforts to decolonize curricula and syllabi, for instance, when engaging discourses on Indigeneity and discourses on multiculturalism. This discussion leads the authors to consider ways in which teacher education syllabi can be “reconstructed” through the experiences of teacher candidates. In Part III—Intersectionalities in Context—three chapters examine articulations of power in different contexts of teacher education. The chapters interrogate the multifaceted articulations of power that affect the work of instructors in teacher education, and how these articulations intersect with constructions of gender, race, and (dis)ability. Pursuing that line of inquiry, Esraa Al-Muftah and Hadeel AlKhateeb, both located in a gendered university setting in the Arabian Peninsula, draw on co-constructed autobiographical narratives. They bear witness to the gendered and epistemic struggles they are involved in—as faculty and as women—in a patriarchal context in which imported Americanized accreditation programs represent a central point of reference that conditions any initiative to develop aspects of the syllabi they use in their teaching. These programs introduce standardized courses that are designed elsewhere. Their implementation heightens their sense of “self-estrangement” and hinders their capacities to inform the design of the syllabus and its epistemic articulations in relation to their Qatari context of practice. Moving to India, Nidhi Sabharwal discusses the challenges curriculum design faces in relation to questions

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of diversity of the student body in faculties of education. Of particular importance are those aspects of the curriculum that address the prevalent discriminations and exclusions of the scheduled castes and tribes and their misrepresentation. Quite differently, Michelle Stack and Heidi Janz examine the foundational role ableism plays in the education of teachers. They ask: What do constructions of (dis)ability entail in terms of imagining and enacting the face–to-face and online pedagogical spaces within which human bodies not just move, but also relate, act, and mediate the construction of meanings, professionalism, and community. Their conversation about a teacher education syllabus concerned with educational technology and disability they are currently designing opens up the possibility to identify the contingencies and challenges they will have to take into consideration as they design their course. In Part IV—Challenging Relations—contributors examine what it means to design and enact a syllabus as a relational space. Samuel Rocha unpacks the phenomenological underpinnings of the syllabus. He interrogates the assumptions and presumptions that shape an instructor’s narrative, style, and format when designing a syllabus. He discusses the role the syllabus can play as a space of encounters, gestures, and suggestions that allows new relationalities between instructor and students to emerge. Still focusing on role of the syllabi in conditioning relations with students, Amani Hamdan reflects on her teaching experience in curriculum design in Saudi Arabia. Her narrative captures the multifaceted gendered, institutional challenges and “invisibilities” she confronts, both as an educator and a woman, when she “transgress[es] boundaries of time and space” in the design of course syllabi. Quite differently, Stephanie Glick reflects on her embodied experience when introducing a student-led wellness activity requirement into a course she taught to teacher candidates. As an emerging instructor, she reflects on ways to expand teacher candidates’ capability to engage and unpack the range of emotions that affect their work and the violence that might come their way as teachers. In concluding this part, Erica Neeganagwedgin and Bathseba Opini interrogate the notion of syllabus design, and its connections to knowledge production in teacher education. The significance of their contribution lies in the insights they provide regarding the ways in which the syllabus might be deployed “to sieve, separate and further marginalize some knowledges in the academy and broader society,” considering what practices can support the challenging of such possibilities. Finally, in the concluding chapter we revisit our initial concerns in light of the chapters. We start by discussing the main insights generated by the various contributions. We then proceed, in a second instance, to reposition syllabi within the wider contexts of schooling and education. We end with a reflection on their relevance for contemporary teacher education programs and the possibilities and limits they offer within the context of an increasingly regulated teaching activity.

Intended Publics This book project was prompted by our growing concern over the technicization and instrumentalization of course syllabi, particularly in certification-bound teacher education programs, whether those using face-to-face or online, or still, blended

 Introduction 17 modes of delivery. We intend to bring forth a set of contributions that allow readers to appreciate a select range of experiences faced by course instructors teaching about wider questions of justice and equity in diverse and pluralist societies. While we do have course instructors in mind as our principal audience in the working on this volume, the questions engaged in the present collection have a wider appeal to leaders of faculties of education, researchers, and scholars in the fields of educational studies, curriculum designers, teacher educators, and educational leaders and administrators. Finally, we hope teacher candidates, teachers, and in-service education participants will find this book useful as a means of expanding conversations about who and what comes to count in the courses we teach and why. We hope that their engagement with this book would inform subsequent discussions and conversations among colleagues and school and faculty of education-based communities in view of rethinking how to approach the syllabus—this omnipresent-absent artifact of the teaching trade—in ways that would lead to richer and more sustained conversations over the aims of education and schooling.

References Acker, S. (2005). Gender, leadership and change in faculties of education in three countries. In J. Collard & C. Reynolds (Eds.), Leadership, gender, and culture in education: Male & female perspectives (pp. 103–20). Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press. Aliet, J. (2007). Convergence and glocalization—Not counter-penetration and domestication: A response to Prof. Ali Mazrui. Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, 6(1–2): 1–14. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Chisholm, L., Friedman, M., & Sindoh, Q.A. (2018). Decolonising history of education in South African teacher education. Southern African Review of Education, 24(1): 74–91. Cho, S., Williams Crenshaw, K., & McCall, L. (2013). Toward a field of intersectionality studies: Theory, applications, and praxis. Signs, 38(4): 785–810 Corvez, M. (1968). Le structuralisme de Jacques Lacan. Revue Philosophique de Louvain, 66, 282–308. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/knowledge: Selected interviews and writings, 1972–1977 (C. Gordon, Ed.). New York: Pantheon. Freire, P. (2018). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Bloomsbury. Gore, J.M., & Morrison, K. (2001). The perpetuation of a (semi) profession: Challenges in the governance of teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 17(5): 567–82. Habanek, D. V. (2005). An examination of the integrity of the syllabus. College Teaching, 53(2):62–64. Hargreaves, A. (2003). Teaching in the knowledge society: Education in the age of insecurity. New York: Teachers College Press. Harding, S. (1991). Whose science? Whose knowledge? Thinking from women’s lives. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Harding, S. (1993). Rethinking standpoint epistemology: What is “strong objectivity”? In L. Alcoff & E. Potter (Eds.), Feminist epistemologies (pp. 49–82). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.

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Harrington, C., & Thomas M. (2018). Designing a motivational syllabus: Creating a learning path for student engagement. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Heikkinen, A., Pätäri, J., & Teräsahde, S. (2019). Disciplinary struggles in and between adult, general and vocational education in the academy: Lessons from Finland. In A. Heikkinen, J. Pätäri, & G. Molzberger (Eds.), Disciplinary struggles in education (pp. 83–115). Tampere: Tampere University Press. Henry, A. (2015). We especially welcome applications from members of visible minority groups: Reflections on race, gender and life at three universities. Race Ethnicity and Education, 18(5), 589–610. Hill Collins, P. H., & Bilge, S. (2016). Intersectionality. Cambridge: Polity Press. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. Lugones, M. (1987). Playfulness, “world”-travelling, and loving perception. Hypatia, 2(2), 3–19. Mayo, P. (2015). Hegemony and education under neoliberalism: Insights from Gramsci. New York: Routledge. Mazrui, A.A. (1975). The African university as a multinational corporation: Problems of penetration and dependency. Harvard Educational Review, 45, 91–210. Mazrui, A.A. (2003). Towards re-Africanizing African universities: Who killed intellectualism in the post colonial era? Alternatives: Turkish Journal of International Relations, 2(3–4), 135–63. Mignolo, W. (2002). The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(1), 57–96. Nilson, L.B. (2007). The graphic syllabus and the outcomes map: Communicating your course. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bay. Oolbekkink-Marchand, H. W., Hadar, L. L., Smith, K., Helleve, I. & Ulvik, M. (2017). Teachers’ perceived professional space and their agency. Teaching and Teacher Education, 62, 37–46. Parks, J., & M. B. Harris. (2002). The purpose of a syllabus. College Teaching, 50(2), 55–61. Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power, Eurocentrism and Latin American. Nepantla: Views from the South, 1(3), 533–80. Said, E. W. (2014). Power, politics and culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said. London: Bloomsbury. Santos, B. de Sousa. (2016). Epistemologies of the south: Justice against epistemicide. New York: Routledge. Slaughter, S. (2014). Retheorizing academic capitalism: Actors, mechanisms, fields and networks. In Academic capitalism in the age of globalization, edited by Brendan Cantwell & Illka Kauppinen (pp. 10–32). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University. Smith, L. T. (2012). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. New York: Zed Books. University of British Columbia. (2019). Policy V-130. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia. Retrieved from https​://se​nate.​ubc.c​a/sit​es/se​nate.​ubc.c​a/fil​es/do​wnloa​ds/ Po​licy-​20190​207-V​-130-​Sylla​bus.p​df. Wasley, P. (2008, March 14). The syllabus becomes a repository of legalese. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 54(27), A1. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.chr​onicl​e.com​/arti​cle/ T​h e-Sy​llabu​s-Bec​omes-​a/177​23 Zames Fleischer, D., & Zames, F. (2011). The disability rights movement: From charity to confrontation (2nd ed.). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Zygmunt, E., & Clark, P. (2016). Transforming teacher education for social justice. New York: Teachers College Press.

Part One

Geopolitics of Knowledge

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The Geopolitics of Knowledge and “the Abyssal Line” Mapping Teacher Education Syllabi in Canada Lynette Shultz, Maren Elfert, and Carrie Karsgaard

Introduction This chapter examines teacher education syllabi through the lens of the geopolitics of knowledge. We write this chapter from the perspective of three Canadian scholars implicated in the globalization of education. Lynette Shultz, in her role as Associate Dean International at the Faculty of Education, University of Alberta (U of A), was responsible for forging partnerships of the U of A with institutions abroad, for research collaborations and in which teacher candidates would be placed for practicums. Maren Elfert was involved in the globalization of education policies while she worked for more than a decade for an international organization. Carrie Karsgaard was an international student advisor at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus, where she worked with university policies and practices that impacted international students and developed an “Intercultural Development Program.” We all came together at the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research (CGCER) at U of A, which is headed by Lynette Shultz, with Maren as a postdoctoral fellow and Carrie as a PhD student. CGCER has published several books and multiple other publications on global citizenship and has organized workshops on the topic. Many of CGCER’s activities are geared specifically toward teachers and teacher candidates and provide a strong anti-colonial and decolonial perspective on citizenship and globalization. The Faculty of Education, where CGCER is located, has developed a transdisciplinary course on “global citizenship,” which is offered regularly to undergraduate students across faculties at U of A. In our work at CGCER and as instructors of the courses we teach, we are constantly confronted with the question: Whose knowledge counts? Maren grapples with this question with the students in a course on knowledge and the curriculum she teaches regularly in the teacher education program of another Canadian university. In Lynette’s courses, international students and Indigenous students express their disconnect with the epistemological orientation of the university. These issues also came up in a course on global educational governance Lynette and

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Maren co-taught at the time when we started thinking about this study. Similarly, Carrie met with international students whose knowledges were neither acknowledged in their university classrooms nor reflected in course syllabi, despite the university’s internationalization mandates. From our various experiences, we collectively determined to explore the epistemological orientations of teacher education through the analysis of syllabi. This chapter focuses on the syllabus as an ontological and epistemological statement of what is considered valuable knowledge in teacher education. The syllabus is an ontological statement regarding what education or the work of the teacher stands for and is also an epistemic statement—that is, a tool through which one reflects on and comes to know oneself as a teacher and an educator. Syllabi need to be situated in the context of the competitive political economy evident in North American research-intensive universities. This political economy is characterized by a culture of rankings and tenure-track procedures that are based on hierarchies of publications and citations in Anglo-American–dominated academic journals and research grants, and the imperative of recruiting international students. While a number of studies have identified the hegemony of Western academic journals in education (Graham, Hale, & Stephens, 2011), the syllabus as an ontological and epistemological statement has so far been neglected in research on what counts as “scientific knowledge” at research universities. A closer examination of course syllabi is of particular relevance in education departments and programs that emphasize their role in advancing social justice, decolonizing knowledge, and fostering multiculturalism. For this chapter we analyzed the master syllabi—altogether nineteen—of the teacher education program for secondary school teachers at a leading Canadian research university. The syllabi cover all the courses that teacher candidates are obliged to take in an eleven-month post-baccalaureate bachelor of education program, ranging from courses relating to their teachable subjects, sociologically oriented courses about the institution of the school in society, courses about ethics and teaching, to a course about Indigenous knowledge. We entered the data—categorized by author, year of publication, university, country and gender of author, publisher of the journal or book, and location of publisher—into an Excel list. For the purpose of this chapter, we focused on the author’s university and course materials’ publisher locations. Our data pool contained 545 articles, book chapters, and websites. We decided to use the master syllabi for our analysis as these represent official statements by the university, which are available on the website of the teacher education program. However, it is important to point out that the actual syllabi for the courses that students take may deviate somewhat from the master syllabi. The teacher education courses are taught by faculty and sessional instructors, who have a high level of discretion in creating their course syllabi. In this respect the generation and design of syllabi also reflects the different categories of academic laborers in the university. Instructors hired on contract include PhD candidates and graduates of the Faculty of Education. In principle, syllabus development falls outside of their responsibilities and is not paid. As Jones (2011) noted, “The relationship between these [contract] workers and the professoriate is hierarchical; they are either in positions designed to support the work of the professoriate [. . .] or they are subject to the curricular and staffing decisions

 The Geopolitics of Knowledge and “the Abyssal Line” 23 made by the traditional academics who lead the academic unit.” Therefore, while faculty and continuing sessional instructors are at greater liberty to put material of their own choice on the syllabus, new instructors tend not to stray away too far from the master syllabi, which contain a body of literature and resources that the instructors can choose from. Regardless of whether individual instructors make personalized changes to the syllabi, the master syllabi represent the epistemological position of the university, structuring though not fully prescribing, course content.

Cognitive Justice and the Geopolitics of Knowledge in Education Scholars working in postcolonial settings have identified how profound knowledge exclusion exists and acts to perpetuate a colonial hierarchy of ideas and experiences that positions those that are non-Western as consistently backward and nonscientific (see, for example, Abdi, 2013; Amin, 2011; Odora Hoppers, 2009a, 2009b). In this study, we used a cognitive justice perspective, drawing on Boaventura de Sousa Santos (2007a, 2007b) and Visvanathan (1997) to understand the impact of a geographically narrow range of knowledges available in teacher education programs. We understand this to be a condition of cognitive injustice. Santos’s argument is that the dramatic inequality and social injustice in today’s world is to a high degree the result of this cognitive injustice produced by “a narrow and imperial conception of modern science” (Santos, 2007a, p. 2). The result is what Santos described as a vast abyss separating Europeans and the rest of the world and essentially creating a global and un-crossable “abyssal line.” When this line is evident in education systems, another generation is schooled into the project of modernity, taught that all other knowledges on the planet are deficient in comparison. We concur with Santos that global social justice will not be possible without global cognitive justice. Santos has coined the metaphor of the “abyss” between knowledge that is considered “authoritative” and valuable and knowledge that is traditional and deficient. Non-Western knowledges have become delegitimized. As an example, in a recent study of “world knowledge,” Graham, Hale, and Stephens (2011) illustrated the dominance of academic publications from North America and Europe. Their work “reveals a staggering amount of inequality in the geography of the production of academic knowledge. The United States and the United Kingdom publish more indexed journals than the rest of the world combined” (p. 14). The authors point out that the “non-western world is not only under-represented in these rankings, but also ranks poorly on average citation score measures” (p. 14). The study also highlighted that the relatively small country of Switzerland published more than three times the number of scientific articles than the whole continent of Africa (p. 14) that accounts for 0.5 percent of the world’s scientific publications (Zambakari, 2011). The trend persists also in the domain of what counts as “public knowledge”; a study of 1.5 million Wikipedia articles revealed that European articles were heavily dominant, followed by articles from North America (Graham et al., 2011, p. 22). Within the university, this cognitive

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Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education

injustice is exacerbated by the neoliberal paradigm’s grip on the institution and its obsession with competitive rankings, which contributes even more to the hegemony of the big research universities of the North, although some Asian universities are increasingly challenging the dominance of the North American universities albeit within the Western academic paradigm. As Connell (2017) argues, contemporary universities are powerful institutions, interlinked on a global scale; however, they embed a narrow knowledge system that reflects and reproduces social inequalities on a global scale. The current neoliberal regime of university finance, management, and labor control is probably making the knowledge system even narrower, and certainly making the institutional system more hierarchical (p. 10). To counter this development, Connell (2017) argues for the necessity of a “Southern theory,” which she defines as “not exactly an indigenous knowledge project, nor primarily a critique of Eurocentrism” (p. 8), but rather a concern for “knowledge generated in the colonial encounter” (p. 9; emphasis in original). Mignolo (2000) advocates replacing the notion of “cultural difference” with “colonial difference” in order to expose the coloniality of power from which different cultures came into being in the first place. The problem, then, is not to accommodate cosmopolitanism to cultural relativism, but to dissolve cultural relativism and to focus on the coloniality of power and the colonial difference produced, reproduced, and maintained by global designs. (p. 742)

For Odora Hoppers (2009a), “The most important criteria of a fraternity of knowledges are cognitive justice and the right of different forms of knowledge to survive—and survive creatively and sustainably” (p. 611). Shultz (2018) asserts that there can be some movement toward reconciliation through processes of reciprocal recognition of the legitimacy of non-western epistemologies by engaging in education based cognitive justice. Cognitive justice demands we educate by drawing on the rich knowledges too often ignored in western/ized curriculums and materials, again transforming who it is we understand as “educated.” In turn, each student, each relationship that is transformed at the local level, reflects back to the wider context as part of the global project of justice. (p. 252)

The Context of Teacher Education in Canada It is important to situate teacher education in this study in the Canadian context, which is characterized by particular attention to the concepts of liberal multiculturalism and diversity, and Indigenous experiences of colonialism and settlerism. Canada has a colonial history and is currently understood as a country that depends on immigration to expand its population. To attract immigrants that are seen as contributing to the economic system, Canada has developed a history of multicultural policies that is embedded within Canadian society and culture. Canadian prime minister Justin

 The Geopolitics of Knowledge and “the Abyssal Line” 25 Trudeau recently said that “there is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada,” and referred to Canada as “the first post-national state” (as cited in Malcolm, 2016). The population in Canadian schools, in particular in the big cities, is increasingly racially and ethnically diverse. Every year, about 250,000 immigrants settle in Canada, in particular in the big cities of Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. By 2036, nearly one-half of Canadians could be either a recent immigrant or a child of an immigrant (Statistics Canada, 2017). In the period from 1996 to 2001 the highest proportion of immigrants came from China and India (Government of Canada, 2005). Alongside this immigration, there is an increase in the number of Indigenous people in the country who are connected to groups who have lived on the land for millennia. For example, in the province of Manitoba, Indigenous children and youth make up a quarter of the population (Healthy Child Manitoba, 2017, p. 60). While this is not the topic of our chapter, it is important to note that several studies have pointed to the mismatch between the diverse student population and the still relatively homogenous white teacher body (Ryan, Pollock, & Antonelli, 2007; Sleeter & Milner, 2011). In a recent paper, a teacher educator observed “a growing diversity of new teacher candidates,” namely “a student body of approximately 25–30% immigrants or second-generation immigrants, most of them from ‘visible minority’ groups (mostly East Asian and South Asian)” (Marom, 2016, p. 30). In addition, most teacher education programs in Western Canada are specifically addressing Indigenous students and serving the need for teachers in rural communities. The Indigenous people of Canada have long struggled to gain control over their education (Barman, Hébert, & McCaskill, 1987). In recent years there have been increasing attempts to problematize Canada’s colonial legacy and integrate Indigenous knowledge into the curricula of universities and schools. All major Canadian universities have First Nations Centers, Indigenous Studies departments, and special facilities and services to accommodate Indigenous students and advance Indigenous knowledge. Indigenous postsecondary institutions such as Blue Quills University in Alberta and the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology in British Columbia offer study programs that are grounded in Indigenous epistemologies and geared toward Indigenous students and their communities. It is important to note that all Canadian universities are built on Indigenous land, in some cases on unceded territory. The “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2015) has led to greater awareness among the Canadian public, including teachers, of the atrocities of the residential school system, its next iteration, “the sixties scoop,” where Indigenous children were removed from their homes and put in mainly non-Indigenous run foster care, and of the lack of funding for the education of Indigenous children on reserves. Educators are more aware of the lingering impact of these interventions on Indigenous communities and settler-Indigenous relations. While we recognize that the specific contexts around international and Indigenous education in Canadian schools represent different histories and current issues, the two intersect insofar as they address people who not only risk marginalization through a colonial hierarchy of ideas but are also the focus of current educational policies. Under the motto “Preparing educators for local, rural and international contexts,” the mission of the teacher education program we examine in this chapter is to “prepare

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Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education

teachers for their responsibilities as educators in both local and global contexts” and “enacting global citizenship” (website). The program is committed to inclusive education (a new “Teacher Education for All” initiative is meant to prepare teacher candidates to address “minority sexual orientation and gender identity youth”) and to integrating Aboriginal knowledge. The program also offers a specialized teacher education program for Aboriginal teacher candidates. The mainstream program includes a mandatory course on “Aboriginal Education in Canada,” which aims at preparing teacher candidates to integrate Indigenous knowledge and perspectives into their teaching. This is in line with the new Indigenous-focused curriculum, which is currently being rolled out in several provinces. For example, in British Columbia, the new curriculum aims at preparing “citizens who accept the tolerant and multifaceted nature of Canadian society” (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015), emphasizing personalized learning, a “concept-based approach to learning” (around the understanding of “big ideas”), and “core competencies” such as communication, critical thinking, and personal and social competency. For the purposes of our study, it is particularly important to note that the stated aims of the new curriculum include developing citizens who “are cooperative, principled and respectful of others regardless of differences” and “are aware of the rights of the individual and are prepared to exercise the responsibilities of the individual within the family, the community, Canada and the world” (British Columbia Ministry of Education, 2015).

Internationalization of Canadian Universities While teacher education addresses the changing mandates of public education in Canadian provinces, it is also situated in the broader context of the global capitalist economy, what is commonly referred to as the internationalization of Canadian universities. Knight (2003) provides an influential definition of “internationalization” as “the process of integrating an international, intercultural, or global dimension into the purpose, functions or delivery of post-secondary education” (p. 2). Her definition alludes to the breadth of internationalization, gesturing toward the higher level relationships among nations, the intercultural engagement that takes place within institutions “at home,” and the worldwide scope of international education (Knight, 2004, p. 11). The international university is situated in a system of global governance in education, characterized by the neoliberal competitive paradigms of rankings, accountability, and effectiveness. Epistemologically, this political economy is underpinned by the liberal universalist view of society, based on the human being as a rational and self-interested autonomous entity. International education is a Canadian priority. According to the current “facts and figures” published by the Canadian Bureau of International Education (CBIE, 2017), the number of international students in Canada has increased by 92 percent between 2008 and 2015, with the top three fastest-growing countries of origin being India, Nigeria, and China in 2014–15. In 2014, 336,000 international students attended university in Canada. Fifty-one percent of international students intend to apply for permanent residency in Canada. Canada ranks as the world’s seventh most popular

 The Geopolitics of Knowledge and “the Abyssal Line” 27 destination for international students, and these students made up 11 percent of the student population in the 2012–13 academic year. There are economic benefits to recruiting these students, with tuition and living expenses contributing nearly $8 billion annually to Canada’s economy. Further, “The presence of international students created over 81,000 jobs and generated over $445M in government revenue (2010)” (CBIE, 2017). Also, the number of international students in K-12 schools in Canada is rising (Loriggio, 2017). We are particularly interested in what “internationalization” means with respect to the knowledge conveyed in universities. Mazawi (2016) questions the uncritical use of this term in relation to the role of higher education institutions in border-crossing and territorial mobility of students and migrants. He asks: “Internationalization is a term produced in a particular institutional platform. So, what is it? Can we still say that it is internationalization when not everybody can move?” We ask a similar question in relation to the epistemic dimension of “internationalization”: Can we talk of internationalization when not everybody’s knowledge is considered? Stein and Andreotti (2016) point out that while groups such as the Association of Canadian Deans of Education have expressed concern for the potentially exploitative effects of internationalization and call for more ethical approaches, institutional discourse tends to reinforce a neoliberal and instrumentalist approach to internationalization that centers on Western dominance. Stein, Andreotti, Bruce, and Susa (2016) write about the dominance of what they call the “modern global imaginary,” which persists despite resistance from alternative imaginaries: “Within mainstream institutions like universities, alternative imaginaries are often made to appear either unintelligible and/ or outside the realm of possibility” (p. 4), posing “important challenges for pluralizing possibilities for internationalization” (p. 4). There is also a tension between the paradigm of internationalization in terms of global mobility that characterizes the discourse of international universities and the debates about the integration of Indigenous perspectives and global citizenship invoked in teacher education in Canada and elsewhere. We have already pointed out the references to “global citizenship” on the website of the teacher education program we are examining in this chapter. Several Canadian provinces, such as Alberta, promote global citizenship in their curriculum (Government of Alberta, 2005). Global citizenship is a key feature of international school programs, such as the International Baccalaureate and UNESCO Associated Schools (International Baccalaureate Organization, 2015; Shultz & Elfert, 2018). A proliferation of literature on the topic has been published in recent years. However, the discourse of “global citizenship” is quite different from the neoliberal internationalization discourse. Although global citizenship can also take a neoliberal turn, much of the literature on global citizenship promotes a cosmopolitan worldview, characterized by decolonial, democratic, environmentally sustainable, anti-capitalist, and human rights perspectives (Abdi & Shultz, 2008; Shultz & Pillay, 2018; Andreotti & de Souza, 2012). It is an ethical position that is ontologically and epistemologically opposed to the principles of the market and competitiveness that drive the “internationalization” agenda of Western universities. Rather than embracing globalization in terms of trade and global elite mobility, it emphasizes a relational approach and transnational solidarity. It is of critical

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importance, in teacher education in Canada with its strong focus on multiculturalism and diversity, to clarify the ontological and epistemological tensions between the neoliberal discourse of “internationalization” and the call for a greater emphasis on Indigenous knowledge and “global citizenship.” Teacher candidates need to be aware of the “geopolitics of knowledge” and cognitive injustice that underpin the dominant knowledge system, including knowledge creation and dissemination, within the Western university. A more global curriculum that takes into account Indigenous and non-Western traditions of thought will encourage greater sensitivity for diversity and an ethic of care in a society based on its settler history, ongoing migration policies, and its pride in its multicultural mosaic.

Methodology: A Social Cartography Approach In this study we draw on a critical cartography approach to map the literature used in a Canadian teacher education program. Critical cartography as a methodology has developed in large measure due to Bruno Latour’s (2005) work of “reassembling the social” in the context of his project of redefining sociology. Latour challenged “whether there exist relations that are specific enough to be called social and that could be grouped together in making up a special domain that could function as ‘a society’” (p. 2). He placed the emphasis on the “tracing of associations” (p. 5) between things that cannot necessarily be defined as “social,” by which he means primarily “objects of science and technology” (p. 10). For Latour, mapping is a way of studying the social, whereby he understands the social not as “a stabilized state of affairs” (p. 1), but as “the movement of actors constantly in the process of (re)assembling, (re)associating and (dis)agreeing” (Rogers, SánchezQuerubín, & Kil, 2015, p. 15). In the last two decades, Latour’s “mapping controversies” approach has been employed in numerous research projects and taught as a university course offered by several universities around the world (Venturini, 2010). With the help of digital mapping methods such as “Navicrawler,” “Issuecrawler,” and others, researchers have performed “issue mapping” that “takes as its object of study current affairs and offers a series of techniques to describe, deploy, and visualize the actors, objects, and substance of a social issue” (Rogers et al., 2015, p. 9). Social cartography has further developed in opposition to hegemonic knowledge formations derived from colonialism, challenging the “fraudulent maps” of the colonial world order (Santos, 2012; Santos, 1987) that created distorted representations of the world in service of power interests. In contrast with these fraudulent depictions, maps can also be used to visualize power formations or can be used as heuristic tools to make shifting knowledge formations visible, allowing us to “identify changing perceptions of values, ideologies and spatial relations” (Paulston, 1997, pp. 139–140). In that respect, mapping constitutes a “political act” (Crampton, 2010, p. 9). In recent years, scholars have employed the metaphor of the map or mapmaking exercises in research on the boundaries and shifts of academic disciplines (Rubenson & Elfert, 2015). Drawing on the corpus of the master course syllabi of a leading teacher education program at a Canadian research university, we produced geographical maps of

 The Geopolitics of Knowledge and “the Abyssal Line” 29 scholarly literature included in these syllabi that brought to the fore “the dual nature of mapping as both the object of and tool for critique” (Rogers et al., 2015, p. 94). We mapped all the literature, including each article, video, or book listed in the syllabi, according to the author’s affiliated university and the location of the publisher. In line with Crampton’s (2010) statement that “maps produce knowledge in specific ways and with specific categories that then have effects” (p. 9), we translated geographical data from syllabi into a map visualizing the geographical scope of the knowledge conveyed to the teacher candidates.

Academic Publishers and Epistemic Traditions in Teacher Education Syllabi As described before, we have visualized the data from the teacher education syllabi in digital maps. For the purpose of this chapter, we have focused on two maps: a map of the university locations of the authors of the articles, books, and other resources featured on the syllabi (Figure 2.1) and a map of the publisher locations (Figure 2.2). One challenge we were confronted with when we were collecting and preparing the data was that in a globalized and transnational world it is often impossible to identify a geographical location of the major academic publishers such as Routledge and Taylor and Francis. Both these publishing brands publish academic journals that we found frequently represented on the syllabi we examined. Many books represented on the syllabi are published by Routledge. Taylor and Francis has published journals such as the Journal of Education Policy and Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, which are commonly referenced in the teacher education syllabi. Routledge was purchased by Taylor and Francis in 1998 and is the publishing imprint for the social sciences, humanities, and education program. Although both publishing houses have their roots in the United Kingdom, with their headquarters located there, Routledge’s educational program is often published out of New York. We have solved this problem by choosing “United States” as the location for Routledge, and “United Kingdom” as the location for Taylor and Francis. Other publishers frequently represented are Pearson, Sage, and Springer. These publishers are known to be among the leading academic publishers in education. However, we also found many instances of Canadian publishers, including university presses, national provincial teacher magazines, and think-tanks. It was difficult to locate some web resources such as materials from supranational organizations such as UNESCO, or global media sources like Wikipedia and YouTube. However, for most of our 545 data sets, including articles, book chapters, and websites, we were able to indicate a location. As the maps of publisher and author locations we generated from the data show, the knowledge represented on the teacher education syllabi originates overwhelmingly in the United States and Canada, and to a lesser extent, the United Kingdom. The maps present a stark visualization of the abyssal line and the limited geographical location of knowledge that teachers encounter in their education program. This speaks to Connell’s (2017) observation that “the production of organized knowledge is a

Stockholm Edinburgh Ottawa Washington, D.C.

Paris

Copenhagen Amsterdam

Tel Aviv

Singapore

University Locations Canberra Wellington

Figure 2.1  University locations

Sweden

Canada

United Netherlands Kingdom France Switzerland Japan

USA

Publisher Locations Australia New Zealand

Figure 2.2  Publisher locations

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Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education Table 2.1  Indigenous Course Material Authorship Author

No. of Articles

%

Indigenous Non-Indigenous Total

13 3 16

81 19 100

Table 2.2  Indigenous Course Material: University, Country, and Authorship University/Country No. of Indigenous No. of Other of Author Materials Materials Canada United States Australia Total

10 3 0 13

0 1 2 3

global project. But its prestigious and influential centres are almost all in the global North, in the elite universities and corporate research institutes of Europe and the United States” (p. 6)—and we would add to this in the publishing houses of the major corporate academic publishers. Included in this data was the literature from a required Indigenous education course that students take toward the end of the teacher education program that we examine here. Some of the key themes covered in this course are identity and relationships, histories of residential schools, Indigenous knowledge systems, and Indigenous pedagogy. Tables 2.1 and 2.2 show the percentage of Indigenous authorship represented in the syllabus and the distribution of the countries in which the authors’ universities are located.1 Note that even collectively, these are a small percentage of the total 545 readings for the teacher education program, making up only 0.03 percent of the full list. The material from this course seemed to be distinguishable from other courses in that the authors and publishers were almost exclusively Canadian with a few from countries that shared a colonial history, for example Australia and the state of Alaska in the United States. This single course influenced the size of the “Canadian” location on the map, making up to 6 percent of the Canadian course content. In this way, the idea of Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous people as being outside of the purview of general academic engagement is reinforced. Rather than a spread of knowledge on Indigenous authors and topics throughout the range of subjects, students only encounter such knowledge and authors in one course and, therefore, encounter the abyssal line within their teacher education program. The overall curriculum content is, then, one with very little diversity in terms of geographical locations, but also in terms of epistemic approaches to education and teacher education. Indigenous knowledge is separated out into one course, and other courses draw almost exclusively on Euro-American knowledge and experience. We There are also websites used in the course, but authorship is more difficult to determine, as some are collaborative projects (i.e., Government of Canada and residential school survivors).

1

 The Geopolitics of Knowledge and “the Abyssal Line” 33 should reiterate that for the purpose of this study, we have focused on the university locations of the authors and the publisher locations of the resources included in the syllabi. We have not conducted an analysis of the epistemological and theoretical approaches of all the literature included in the syllabi. Although critical pedagogy, with a focus on multiculturalism and diversity, is present in the syllabi and in the program objectives, as Ellsworth (1989) has argued, even critical pedagogy prioritizes rational, universal discourse that perpetuates relations of domination in classrooms; our study indicated that the orientations of critical theory in these course syllabi were mainly of the United States and the United Kingdom. There is little even in critical theory that can disrupt the notion of Western knowledge as superior. Given the embeddedness of teacher education in the context of the global neoliberal discourse that dominates education globally, the dominant worldview that teacher candidates are confronted with is the liberal universalist worldview—with Indigenous perspectives being presented as an idiosyncrasy in the Canadian context. Stein and Andreotti (2015) refer to Spivak’s (1990) description of the liberal universalist global imaginary as “the worlding of West as world.” This raises the question of how this epistemological Eurocentrism might be decentered in how language and knowledge are positioned within the teacher education program and how this might allow for non-Western knowledge and experience to contribute to how teachers view their students, communities, and the world in which they will be practicing their art of teaching. If schools are places where a necessary democratization of knowledge might become realized, how might decentering and decolonizing teacher education contribute? Engagement with Indigenous epistemology has the potential to greatly contribute to disrupting the liberal universalist epistemology, but the singling out of the Indigenous knowledge course—which students take at the end of the teacher program—suggests that epistemic divisions are still in place.

The Durability of the Abyssal Line and Decolonizing Education Syllabi Our study suggests the problem of how to create a teacher workforce which is more evenly representative of the diversity of the Canadian population. The ontoepistemic locations of some of the teacher candidates and of many of the students and community members that students need to interact with are not adequately present in the knowledge that is included in teacher formation. Teachers will teach what they have learned represents legitimate knowledge. Even as the interconnections of people and issues on the planet becomes more present through electronic media and information sharing, our study indicates that what is seen as legitimate knowledge for the education system still reflects the domination of only three national locations. These locations support research that represents a Western-colonial epistemology based on liberal universalism, creating what is essentially an “abyssal line” (Santos, 2007a, 2007b), dividing the knowing and civilized and civilizing Europeans and an uncivilized and knowledgeless otherworld.

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Education has been identified as a key location for work that is decolonizing (see, for example, Abdi, 2012, 2013; Andreotti, 2011; 2016; Battiste, 2000, 2013; Kapoor, 2009; Odora Hoppers, 2009a, 2009b). Both teachers and the curriculum are central to this decolonial possibility. Our study indicates that teachers in the teacher education program were not exposed to ideas that might transform their experience or understanding of the abyssal line and its onto-epistemic exclusions. If claims to equity and justice are made in teacher education programs and their higher education institutions, then these claims must be supported in their content and procedures. Our study suggests several key recommendations for enhancing teachers’ ability to teach in the complex postcolonial classrooms in the Canadian context. An intentional shift in the geographies of knowledge that are included across the curriculum is needed. Our mapping of knowledge made the extensive exclusion of knowledge visible. However, much more research is warranted to examine the syllabus as an ontological and epistemological statement. For example, a more detailed content analysis of the resources included in teacher education syllabi would shed more light on their theoretical and epistemological underpinnings than we were able to do within the scope of this study. Given the dominance of the United States and the United Kingdom in publishing, where/how might the instructors in teacher education source “nonmainstream” texts in creating syllabi for cognitive justice? Further, how might such texts be approached in teacher education courses, where both students and instructors may be embedded in mainstream thought? Of course, the difference between a decolonizing transformation and a liberal inclusion is significant here. This is not a call for an uncritical engagement with identity politics as a way to substitute one article for another without changing the onto-epistemic orientation of the knowledge that is presented. While an initial mapping opens curriculum and pedagogical spaces of inquiry, it will only be through careful engagement with people and their knowledges, belonging to land and cultures outside a dominant Western modern paradigm, that a global knowledge commons can be created based on what Enrique Dussel (2013) describes as a pluriversalism—a resistance to European ethnocentrism and the notion of a universal European man as the goal of human development. Before teacher education can be based on a decolonizing pluriversalism, this profound shift will need support from research and scholarship initiatives across the academy to ensure that such knowledge has recognition within the institution. In teacher education, students will need to be deeply engaged in learning and unlearning, in remembering their own ancestral locations and knowledges, and in finding ways to engage multiple epistemologies in their own understanding of being human. It is no small feat, but the stakes are high as the interconnectedness of people and the planet, and the legacies of colonialism are revealed in daily social, economic, and environmental crises.

References Abdi, A.A. (2012). Decolonizing philosophies of education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Abdi, A. A. (2013). Decolonizing educational and social development platforms in Africa. African and Asian Studies, 12(1–2), 64–82. Abdi, A., & Shultz, L. (Eds.) (2008). Educating for human rights and global citizenship. New York: State University of New York.

 The Geopolitics of Knowledge and “the Abyssal Line” 35 Amin, S. (2011). Global history: A view from the south. Dakar, Senegal: Pambazuka Press. Andreotti, V. (2011). Actionable postcolonial theory in education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Andreotti, V. (2016). The educational challenges of imagining the world differently. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 37(1), 101–12. Andreotti, V. de Oliveira, & de Sousa, L.M.T.M. (2012). Postcolonial perspectives on global citizenship education. New York: Routledge. Barman, J., Hébert, Y., & McCaskill, D. (Eds.) (1987). Indian education in Canada: The challenge (Vol. 2). Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press. Battiste, M. (2000). Reclaiming indigenous voice and vision. Vancouver: UBC Press. Battiste, M. (2013). Decolonizing education: Nourishing the learning spirit. Saskatoon: Purich Publishing. British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2015). Introduction to British Columbia’s redesigned curriculum. Retrieved from https​://cu​rricu​lum.g​ov.bc​.ca/s​ites/​curri​culum​. gov.​bc.ca​/file​s/pdf​/curr​iculu​m_int​ro.pd​f. Canadian Bureau for International Education. (2017). Facts and figures: Canada’s performance and potential in international education. Retrieved from http://cbie.ca/ media/facts-and-figures/. Ottawa: Canadian Bureau for International Education. Connell, R. (2017). Southern theory and world universities. Higher Education Research and Development, 36(1), 4–15. Crampton, J. W. (2010). Mapping: A critical introduction to cartography and GIS. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. Dussel, E. (2013). Agenda for a south-south philosophical dialogue. Human Architecture. Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, XI(1), 3–15. Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of critical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59(3), 297–324. Government of Alberta. (2005). Social studies: Kindergarten to grade 12. Available at https​://ed​ucati​on.al​berta​.ca/m​edia/​32730​06/so​cial-​studi​es-10​-12-p​rogra​m-of-​studi​es.pd​f. Government of Canada. (2005). Recent immigrants in metropolitan areas: Canada - A comparative profile based on the 2001 census. Retrieved from http:​//www​.cic.​gc.ca​/ engl​ish/r​esour​ces/r​esear​ch/ce​nsus2​001/c​anada​/part​b.asp​. Graham, M., Hale, S. A., & Stephens, M. (2011). Geographies of the world’s knowledge. London: Oxford Internet Institute. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.oii​.ox.a​c.uk/​archi​ve/ do​wnloa​ds/pu​blica​tions​/conv​oco_g​eogra​phies​_en.p​df. Healthy Child Manitoba. (2017). Child and youth report. Winnipeg: Healthy Child Manitoba Office. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.gov​.mb.c​a/hea​lthyc​hild/​publi​catio​ns/ hc​m_201​7repo​rt.pd​f. International Baccalaureate Organization. (2015). Education for a better world. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.ibo​.org/​globa​lasse​ts/di​gital​-took​it/br​ochur​es/co​rpora​te-br​ochur​een.​pdf. Jones, G. A. (2011, November). The horizontal and vertical fragmentation of academic work: The academic profession in Canada and a proposal for a new international study. Graduate School of Education of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology. Wuhan: China. Paper presented at the International Workshop on the Changing Academic Profession. Kapoor, D. (2009). Education, decolonization, and development. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Knight, J. (2003). Updated definition of internationalization. International Higher Education, 33(33), 2–3. Knight, J. (2004). Internationalization remodeled: Definition, approaches, and rationales. Journal of Studies in International Education, 8(1), 5–31.

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Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Loriggio, P. (2017, August 30). Canadian high schools see spike in international students, boards say. Global News [Online]. Retrieved from http:​//glo​balne​ws.ca​/news​/3706​238/ i​ntern​ation​al-st​udent​s-can​adian​-high​-scho​ols/.​ Malcolm, C. (2016, September 14). Trudeau says Canada has no “core identity.” Toronto Sun. Retrieved from https​://to​ronto​sun.c​om/20​16/09​/14/t​rudea​u-say​s-can​ada-h​as-no​core​-iden​tity/​wcm/6​0461a​6d-7c​b4-42​a9-b2​42-05​be9aa​ea46c​. Marom, L. (2016). A new immigrant experience of navigating multiculturalism and indigenous content in teacher education. Canadian Journal of Higher Education, 46(4), 23–40. Mazawi, A. (2016, March 6). The location of globalization: On building dwelling thinking higher education [Keynote Address Globalization SIG]. Annual Conference of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) Vancouver, Canada. Retrieved from http:​//www​.fres​hedpo​dcast​.com/​andre​mazaw​i/. Mignolo, W. D. (2000). The many faces of cosmo-polis: Border thinking and critical cosmopolitanism. Public Culture, 12(3), 721–48. Odora Hoppers, C. A. (2009a). Education, culture and society in a globalizing world: Implications for comparative and international education. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 39(5), 601–14. Odora Hoppers, C. A. (2009b). From bandit colonialism to the modern triage society: Towards a moral and cognitive reconstruction of knowledge and citizenship. International Journal of African Renaissance Studies - Multi-, Inter- and Transdisciplinarity, 4(2), 168–80. Paulston, R. G. (1997). Mapping visual culture in comparative education discourse. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, 27(2), 117–52. Rogers, R., Sánchez-Querubín, N., & Kil, A. (2015). Issue mapping for an ageing Europe. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Retrieved from http:​//www​.oape​n.org​/sear​ ch?id​entif​i er=5​69806​. Rubenson, K., & Elfert, M. (2015). Adult education research: Exploring an increasingly fragmented map. European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 6(2), 125–38. Ryan, J., Pollock, K., & Antonelli, F. (2007, April 9). Teacher and administrator diversity in Canada: Leaky pipelines, bottlenecks and glass ceilings. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for the Study of Education, Toronto, ON: OISE. Retrieved from http:​//hom​e.ois​e.uto​ronto​.ca/~​jryan​/pub_​files​/Art.​April​09.nu​mbers​.pdf.​ Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. (1987). A map of misreading: Toward a postmodern conception of law. Journal of Law and in Society, 14(3), 279–302. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa (Ed.). (2007a). Cognitive justice in a global world: Prudent knowledges for a decent life. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. (2007b). Beyond abyssal thinking: From global lines to ecologies of knowledges. Binghamton University Review, 30(1), 45–89. Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. (2012, September 28). Spaces of transformation: Epistemologies of the south [Video File]. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.you​tube.​com/ w​atch?​v=Uze​cpSzX​ZOY. Shultz, L. (2018). Global citizenship and equity: Cracking the code and finding decolonial possibility. In I. Davies, K. Li-Ching Ho, C. Peck, A. Peterson, E. Sant, & Y. Waghid (Eds.), The Palgrave handbook of global citizenship and education (pp. 245–56). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

 The Geopolitics of Knowledge and “the Abyssal Line” 37 Shultz, L., & Elfert, M. (2018). Global citizenship education in ASPnet schools: An ethical framework for action. The Canadian Commission for UNESCO’s IdeaLab. Shultz, L., & Pillay, T. (Eds.) (2018). Global citizenship, common wealth and uncommon citizenships. Boston: Brill Sense. Sleeter, C. E., & Milner, H. R. (2011). Researching successful efforts in teacher education to diversify teachers. In A. F. Ball, C.A. Tyson (Eds.), Studying diversity in teacher education (pp. 81–104). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Spivak, G. (1990). The post-colonial critic: Interviews, strategies, dialogues. New York and London: Routledge. Statistics Canada. (2017). A look at immigration, ethnocultural diversity and languages in Canada up to 2036: 2011 to 2036. Retrieved from http:​//www​.stat​can.g​c.ca/​daily​quot​idien​/1701​25/dq​17012​5b-en​g.htm​. Ottawa: Statistics Canada. Stein, S., & Andreotti V. de Oliveira. (2015). Higher education, development, and the dominant global imaginary. The Association of Commonwealth Universities. Available at https​://ww​w.aca​demia​.edu/​11499​513/H​igher​_Educ​ation​_Deve​lopme​nt_an​d_the​_ Domi​nant_​Globa​l_Ima​ginar​y_201​5_ Stein, S., & Andreotti V. de Oliveira. (2016). Cash, competition, or charity: International students and the global imaginary. Higher Education, 72(2), 225–39. Stein, S., Andreotti, V. de Oliveira, Bruce, J., & Suša, R. (2016). Towards different conversations about the internationalization of higher education. Comparative and International Education, 45(1), 1–18. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future. Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Retrieved from http:​//www​.trc.​ca/as​sets/​pdf/H​onour​ing_t​he_Tr​uth_ R​econc​iling​_for_​the_F​uture​_July​_23_2​015.p​df. Venturini, T. (2010). Diving in magma: How to explore controversies with actor-network theory. Public Understanding of Science, 19(3), 258–73. Visvanathan, S. (1997). Carnival for science. essays on science, technology and development. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Zambakari, C. (2011, November 3). Africa and the poverty in knowledge production. Pambazuka News, 556. Retrieved from http:​//www​.zamb​akari​.org/​uploa​ds/8/​4/8/9​/ 8489​9028/​19_af​rica-​and-t​he-po​verty​-in-k​nowle​dge-p​roduc​tion.​pdf.

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Comparing Course Syllabi from A to Z Examining the Contexts, Contents, and Concerns for Social Foundations of Education in Australia and Zambia Matthew A. M. Thomas, Janet Serenje-Chipindi, and Ferdinand Mwaka Chipindi

Introduction To help prepare future teachers for the complexities of the teaching profession, many teacher education programs require preservice teachers (PSTs) to complete courses that focus on sociological aspects of education and are considered within the “social foundations of education” (SFE). While a considerable body of literature has examined the role(s) and pedagogies of SFE courses in teacher education (e.g., Doherty, Dooley, & Woods, 2013; Hogan & Daniell, 2012), scant attention has been paid to the syllabi that structure these courses and the perspectives they produce and, arguably, reproduce. Moreover, most research on SFE has been conducted at a single university in a higherincome country; global and cross-institutional emphases are largely absent from the literature. This chapter employs a comparative perspective to examine SFE syllabi from teacher education programs in two countries: Australia and Zambia. As teacher educators at the University of Sydney and University of Zambia, we draw on lived experiences to examine the distinct contexts, contents, and concerns for SFE coursework at our institutions. First, we begin by discussing the role of SFE within teacher education and, more specifically, reviewing research on undergraduate versions of sociology of education, the course understudy across our two universities.1 We then describe some of the geopolitical and sociocultural contexts that influence the production of course syllabi in Australia and Zambia. In the third section, we explore the contents themselves, including examinations of the course objectives, topics, readings, and forms of assessment. This section also considers what is omitted from the syllabi, These courses operate independently as core components of their respective teacher education programs. They are not part of a joint program across these institutions.

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 Comparing Course Syllabi from A to Z 39 and how omissions equally signal which sociological aspects of teacher education are valued, or not, between these two contexts. In the final section, we explore potential concerns related to SFE coursework and the enactment of these syllabi. In this section, we raise critical questions about the standardization of SFE coursework, and how constructing and teaching through different syllabi might cultivate among PSTs nuanced understandings of schools as social institutions and students as social beings.

Social Foundations of Education Generally, SFE courses aim to help PSTs understand how and why schools operate the way they do, and how varied social, political, economic, and cultural forces influence teaching, learning, and schooling processes (Antikainen et al., 2011). In education systems around the world, but particularly those associated with the British colonial legacy, SFE has held a firm place alongside other foundational courses in education, namely, history of education, philosophy of education, and educational psychology. This was true historically in Australia (Connell, 2009), as well as in other national contexts.2 The perceived necessity of these courses has been increasingly questioned in recent years, however. Indeed, SFE scholars/educators nearly unanimously acknowledge the precipitous decline of educational foundations within teacher education programs (deMarrais, 2001; Kerr, Mandzuk, & Raptis, 2011; Liston, Whitcomb, & Borko, 2009). One cause of this condition is the continued shift toward more practice-oriented teacher education. As a professional degree, teacher education has always maintained a unique relationship between theory and practice, due at least in part to the assumption held by many future teachers that they already know how to teach as a result of the “apprenticeship of observation” they experienced through years of watching their teachers (Lortie, 1975). Yet in recent years, calls have increased for more emphasis in teacher education on instructional practices (Zeichner, 2012), and students themselves are often eager to focus almost exclusively on the technical aspects of classroom instruction (e.g., behavior management). While the perceived binary between theory and practice is perhaps neither helpful nor necessary (see Thomas & Yehle, 2018), many teacher educators of SFE coursework experience resistance from their students to learning sociological theories that pertain to education. As Hogan and Daniell (2012) discuss, PSTs may question the relevance of exploring the social aspects of teaching, learning, and schooling, asking: “What’s that got to do with me being a teacher?” (p. 132). Yet cultivating critical reflection among PSTs about their own experiences as well as experiences of the early childhood, primary, and secondary school students they will teach in the future remains vital: The challenge for the teaching team is to engage the students to reflect on their own place in society and through this consider the circumstance which some of the There is a dearth of research on SFE in Zambia and, as such, this study itself is particularly important for informing future iterations of teacher education in Zambia.

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Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education children and their families may encounter outside the education environment will influence and effect their way of being in school or an early childhood education centre. (p. 132)

In sum, despite persistent critique from policymakers, students, and even some teacher educators, instructors of SFE generally remain committed to developing sociological thinking among PSTs. As teacher educators in Australia and Zambia, we consider ourselves among this camp of SFE champions.

Comparing Contexts For this reason, we engaged in a comparative analysis of our SFE syllabi. Previous discussions between authors Thomas and Serenje-Chipindi revealed similar roles within their teacher education programs, with both serving as coordinators of large, mandatory SFE courses for (primarily) second-year PSTs. Informal reflections on the comparative experiences of teaching these courses led to the desire to explore more systematically the similarities and differences of these units across two locales with their own distinct characteristics. In short, we wondered: How did SFE in Australia and Zambia aim to cultivate sociological thinking among PSTs? We began by exploring the geopolitical and sociocultural conditions that influence the production of course syllabi in Australia and Zambia. Because curricula (and syllabi) are enacted, it is always important to consider the specific conditions in which they will be utilized. In many ways, both nations of the Commonwealth remain closely linked to the British educational system; however, they are associated with Britain in varied forms and to differing extents. Zambia gained political independence from Britain on October 24, 1964 but, while fully independent, remains somewhat dependent on British structures and norms, and still experiences the lingering effects of the colonial enterprise. One legacy of British colonial rule is seen in the use of English as an official language in Zambia, particularly at the secondary and upper primary levels, along with seven other regional “local languages” that are taught at lower primary levels, which emanate from the larger Bantu language group. In addition, official development assistance from the UK accounts for up to 33 percent of national expenditure on education (Chipindi & Doyle, 2017), and the structure of primary and secondary schooling is strongly linked to the British model, with seven years of primary education and five years of post-primary or secondary education. Australia also maintains close ties to its British legacy, and its settler colonialist history has left an indelible mark on contemporary Australia, particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations. Queen Elizabeth of Britain is officially also the Queen of Australia, even if only ceremonially, and the Australian education system equally resembles the British model of schooling and higher education. Australia is comparatively wealthier than Zambia, however. Whereas Zambia’s gross domestic product (GDP) is estimated to be approximately $23 billion, Australia’s GDP is approximately $1.3 trillion (Statistics Times, 2017)—this is more than fifty times that of Zambia.

 Comparing Course Syllabi from A to Z 41 Another difference is the degree of centralization within the education system. In Australia, educational policies and decision-making is divided between national and state bodies. For example, although there is a national curriculum in Australia established by the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority, states have freedom to create syllabi to implement national goals in a more focused manner, as the New South Wales (NSW) Education Standards Authority did with its NSW Curriculum and Syllabuses (see NESA, 2017). With its entirely national curriculum and syllabi, Zambia’s system is comparatively more centralized than Australia. In addition, its system of placing teachers—wherein applicants apply to central hubs but could be placed, hypothetically, anywhere around the country (Thomas, Thomas, & Lefebvre, 2014)—also signifies a more centralized system of management.3 As the flagship institution in the nation, the University of Zambia (UNZA) has historically acted (in communication with the Ministry of Government Education) as the primary accrediting body for all teacher education programs in public- and grant-aided teacher training institutions throughout the country. As such, most colleges of education that prepare teachers have been affiliated with UNZA, which reviews their programs and underwrites their final diploma/degree examination processes. This policy context is different from that of Australia, where the University of Sydney (USYD) plays no role in the accreditation of other institutions. This therefore brings our discussion to the institutions and courses themselves. Both universities are publicly supported institutions and are members of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, an international network of over 500 degree-awarding institutions in over fifty commonwealth countries (ACU, 2017). Both the USYD and UNZA are officially accredited and recognized by the respective ministries of higher education of the two countries: Australia’s Department of Education and Training; and Zambia’s ministries of General Education and Higher Education. In terms of size, USYD is the larger of the two institutions, with a student body estimated at approximately 60,000 (University of Sydney, 2017). The student population at UNZA has also been steadily growing over the past 52 years, from 312 in 1966 to close to 30,000 as of 2017 (Lusaka Times, 2017). Both universities are considered to have some of the premier teacher education programs in their respective countries. Most pertinent to this chapter, both undergraduate teacher education programs offer SFE coursework. At USYD, this course is titled “Social Perspectives on Education,” and at UNZA it maintains the more traditional title, “Sociology of Education.” As noted previously, both courses are mandatory units for all second-year bachelor of education (B.Ed.) students across various certification areas (i.e., pre-primary, primary, and secondary). The course typically enrolls approximately 400 students at USYD and 1,200 students at UNZA. Due to the lack of facilities at UNZA to cater for this massive enrolment, students are divided into three streams for the lectures, and forty groups for tutorials, whereas the USYD version typically has eighteen tutorials. Even with these divisions, UNZA students sometimes stand waiting up to one hour before the lecture begins in the hopes A national policy directive from 1996, Educating Our Future, proposed a robust decentralization of the education system but this is yet to be realized fully.

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that they will be fortunate (and early) enough to claim a seat in the lecture theatre. Otherwise they stand through the lecture. As more junior academics, the institutional contexts in which we work as well as collegial dynamics influence our abilities to select and alter the content of the units we teach. At UNZA the power to “direct and determine the programme of instruction and the structure of degree courses within the higher education institution” resides with the University Senate, which is the supreme academic policy-making organ of the institution (UNZA, 2015, p. 40). The Senate reserves the ultimate authority to (dis) approve courses that are offered at UNZA as well as to determine assessments and the number of hours for teaching and tutorial sessions. Instructors do not uniformly have much flexibility to materially alter the content or deviate too much from the topics in the approved syllabi. Thus, instructors, and particularly junior academics, are often not keen to contravene Senate regulations, as this is regarded as extremely “unorthodox” and unacademic. In short, when one inherits a unit that has been preapproved, as SerenjeChipindi did, it is difficult to substantially alter its content. The content taught in the unit may be adapted, however, in response to changes in the academic calendar caused by student unrest and, at times, staff industrial action. When these disruptions occur at UNZA, which are quite common, instructors often alter content and assessments in accordance with the time remaining in the academic calendar. Moreover, because of over enrolment or the material conditions, an instructor may decide to give two tests rather than three due to the lack of facilities to administer a third test. For example, in the 2017–18 academic year Serenje-Chipindi faced considerable challenges securing space to administer examinations for the 1200+ students enrolled in the unit. At USYD, material constraints have little to no impact on the unit; however, accreditation processes and institutional systems do influence the course’s content. These are expounded upon later, but it is also important to note the role that the unit’s core text plays in helping provide a structure for the unit. Written largely for the SFE course at USYD, but also used at other institutions (primarily in Australia), Education, Change and Society (Welch et al., 2018) is now in its fourth edition. Most of the chapters are coauthored by academics at USYD, many of whom also give lectures in the unit. Thus, there are strong structures in the place for the unit, even while Thomas has some flexibility in setting the specific readings, pedagogical activities, and assessments (provided they are documented in the University’s catalogue). With these various contexts in mind, we now turn to the contents and compare how the syllabi reflect and respond to these different contexts.

Comparing Contents Michael Apple has long examined the ideological nature of teaching and learning, particularly as it relates to curriculum design, asking “Whose knowledge is of most worth?” (2004, p. xix). Indeed, the practice of assembling and curating university syllabi is a political and ideological act of knowledge production. This section explores the contents of the two syllabi under study, including an examination of the following areas, which are not necessarily mutually exclusive: structure and administration, proposed pedagogy, sociological themes, and assessments.

 Comparing Course Syllabi from A to Z 43

Structure and Administration In our first-level review of the syllabi we focused on the structures of the documents. Syllabi tend to vary from institution to institution, from department to department and from instructor to instructor (Liu & Wang, 2016). As there is no agreed upon standard structure for syllabi, it is not surprising that structural differences exist, but some common elements are generally expected in most syllabi. These include the course title, course overview, aims, objectives, assessments, content, required textbooks, and readings (Woolcock, 2006; Liu & Wang, 2016). Indeed, both syllabi analyzed in this chapter contain the course title, aims, objectives, content, assessments, methods of teaching, and prescribed readings. However, there are some variations in content and depth of the different elements mentioned. First and foremost, the USYD syllabus is considerably longer and more detailed. For instance, while both syllabi provide an overview of what students are expected to learn in the course, the UNZA syllabus offers brief descriptions of the course aims and objectives: “The aim of this course is to introduce students to sociological concepts and theories relevant to the field of education concerning the social institution of education” (p. 1). There are five objectives that, for example, focus on defining sociology and sociology of education, discussing sociology of education in relation to the Zambian education system, etc. (p. 1). Links to outcomes or accreditation processes are largely absent. By contrast, the USYD syllabus contains more than three pages of single-spaced linkages to various standards, “priority areas,” desired outcomes, and the rationale for the course. Connections to the “Australian Teaching Standards” and “Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority” are included as a means to substantiate the specific outcomes that this course addresses, and where it falls within the broader teacher education programming. Because this course includes PSTs in the early childhood, primary and secondary programs, it must meet the expectations and requirements of each of the certifying bodies that accredit these programs. For example, there is a detailed description of how the unit meets Australian Teaching Standard 1: “Know students and how they learn,” and the sub-standards, known as “Focus Areas,” of this broader standard. More specifically, the syllabus notes that “all students are guaranteed to have had teaching on cultural diversity and ethnicity, rural disadvantage, gender issues, social class and Aboriginal issues in seminar 2, 3, 4, 6, and 7, to name a few.” It further provides details of the specific assessments and projects, which must be shown to meet specific Focus Areas of the Australian standards. Perhaps due at least in part to the comparative autonomy UNZA has in terms of regulating other teacher education programs, there are no references to education policies, teaching standards, and so on in the UNZA syllabus. We will return to this theme later in the chapter.

Proposed Pedagogy Educational scholars and researchers unanimously agree that curricula and syllabi are enacted. Thus, it is impossible to gauge what actually happens in classrooms merely by examining syllabi. However, the material included in university syllabi necessarily hints at the pedagogical modes through which the content is proposed to be delivered, and new knowledge is intended to be (co-)produced. We therefore examined

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the university syllabi for their proposed pedagogies as a means to explore how the knowledge perceived to be of most worth is expected to be learned, co-constructed, or perhaps critiqued. One evident difference is the allocation of time for various components of the course. According to the syllabus, the unit at UNZA includes three “lecture hours per week” and “one tutorial hour per week.” This arrangement of course meetings may indicate a stronger emphasis on knowledge transmission through didactic forms of lecture, with 75 percent of the course hours devoted to large group lecture. However, given the number of students enrolled in the unit and lack of institutional resources to make additional sections or smaller classes, it is understandable from an institutional (and financial) perspective why UNZA’s School of Education would structure the unit in this manner. By contrast, the USYD unit includes one hour of lecture and two tutorial hours per week. While it is impossible to suggest merely from the syllabus what takes place during these lectures and tutorials, the additional time afforded to small(er) group meetings within the USYD unit might afford a course pedagogy more strongly focused on discussion and engagement with the material. There are also differences in the course’s schedules. The USYD syllabus includes a teaching schedule that outlines the topics and the teaching staff responsible for each specific lecture. Students are expected to complete certain readings by certain dates, and it is clearly noted which professors or lecturers will offer each lecture. At least twenty readings have been indicated in the syllabus for students to consult. In the UNZA syllabus there is a range of topics that are included (e.g., socialization, school community, teacher status), but no dates are attached to these topics. As such, instructors have greater flexibility to assign readings for students to complete before class meetings. The UNZA syllabus also includes a list of eight prescribed and recommended readings listed at the end of the course syllabus. The geopolitical and material conditions in Zambia offer one plausible explanation for these differences. Some universities in lower-income countries such as Zambia still face challenges in accessing recent teaching and learning materials. For instance, after teaching on the unit for close to seven years, Serenje-Chipindi learned not to list the specific readings she expected students to read weekly for each of the topics in the approved syllabus, as they may be unavailable, and instead rely on personally reading the pieces and then presenting them to the students during the contact hours. In short, she learned to build in flexibility and to adapt to the instructional context. A related consideration is the long-standing socialization into the more rote-based pedagogy that PSTs received at the secondary school level. Thus, students come to UNZA with similar expectations of and reliance upon instructors to provide notes of the readings, colloquially known as “dictation.” This socialization, in some ways, is so deeply entrenched that many instructors feel compelled to oblige.

Sociological Topics Analysis of the course topics also yielded valuable insights across the USYD and UNZA syllabi. While the content in both courses maintains a strong emphasis on developing the “sociological imaginations” of PSTs, the syllabi from Australia includes much

 Comparing Course Syllabi from A to Z 45 greater attention to structural elements related to the multiple, often overlapping, accreditation bodies that sanction schooling across different levels (e.g., Australian Children’s Education and Care Authority, Australian Teaching Standards). The UNZA syllabus focuses more on general concepts in sociology such as stratification, socialization, and theories of sociology as they apply to the field of education. Students are generally exposed to many theoretical concepts in the unit, including those espoused by the “Founding Fathers” of sociology (e.g., Comte, Spencer, Marx, Durkheim, Weber). The unit also emphasizes socialization processes, organizational theories, teachers’ roles and social status, etc. While some of these topics are addressed in the USYD syllabus, in general, it deviates from the historical and sociological canon toward social justice perspectives. Thus, one could also argue that the USYD syllabus is missing some key aspects of disciplinary sociology and maintains more of a “tapas curriculum” that covers a wide-ranging breadth but might lack some theoretical depth. The sociological topics in the USYD syllabus include social class, gender, race, ethnicity, rurality, Indigenous knowledges and experiences, globalization, and more. The course readings for the two courses also indicate their foci on sociological topics. As noted, much of the USYD course is grounded in the Education, Change and Society text, though several supplementary articles/chapters further support PSTs’ learning. The UNZA syllabus includes a balanced set of readings that focus on both broad sociological concepts and analyses specific to African, if not Zambian, contexts. For example, the readings list includes the following texts as “prescribed readings”: The Sociology of Education: A Systematic Analysis (2009) by Jeanne Ballantine and Floyd Hammack; The Sociology of Education (1983) by Edward Ezewu; and Fundamentals of Sociology of Education: With Special Reference to Africa (2007) by Lucy Kibera and Agnes Kimokoti. While the Ballantine text has a stronger emphasis on the traditional discipline of sociology—at least from a Eurocentric perspective—the Ezewu (1983) and Kibera and Kimokoti (2007) texts explore sociological concepts as embedded within African settings. One interesting area of comparison concerns the unit’s approaches to addressing the varied colonial histories across both nation-states, although it should be noted that at both institutions other units of study within teacher education more substantially address coloniality, Aboriginality, and systemic issues related to inequity and marginalization of colonialized and racially essentialized populations. Nonetheless, in the UNZA syllabus the trajectory of the teaching profession is traversed from those who held teaching positions during the colonial period to the modern epoch, wherein the teaching profession has experienced a decline in its sociocultural status. In observing the gradual loss of teacher status and autonomy over time, some students may perceive the colonial period to reflect a “golden age” of the teaching profession in Zambia—an assumption the SFE instructors work actively to prevent and correct as they place teacher identity and the broader profession in a sociopolitical context that acknowledges the more insidious effects of colonial processes. It remains a challenge, however, to further decolonize the unit, and teacher education in general, from its deeply entrenched structures and systems of thought. The USYD syllabus also addresses Australia’s settler colonialist history as well as modern examples of educational (in)equity, albeit with greater attention to identity

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differences between the general teaching populations and the students most affected by structural inequalities. For this reason, the framings of Indigenous populations in educational and popular discourses, often through deficit perspectives, are identified and critiqued in the USYD course. Moreover, most PSTs enrolled in the unit are nonIndigenous. Therefore, considerable efforts are made through readings and guest lectures (by an Aboriginal academic) to highlight Indigenous knowledge systems as well as the ways in which racist and structural violence carried out over centuries has contributed to historic and ongoing inequity in the Australian education system. A critique of the SFE syllabus at USYD is its minimal attention to this sociological issue, with only one week allocated to Indigenous knowledges and experiences and Aboriginality. However, attempts are made to connect the unit to others within the teacher education program (that are solely dedicated to concomitant issues) and to reinforce the concepts listed earlier through discussions of intersectionality, and how race, class, gender, etc., position individual students and teachers in particular ways in specific contexts. In sum, at both USYD and UNZA, the SFE instructors have aimed to address this area of vital concern, however provisionally, while also continuing to reflect on the ways in which their choices of sociological topics influence the thinking— and arguably future teaching—of the PSTs they instruct.

Assessments Both syllabi have assessment components, though there are notable differences in the nature of the assessments. The UNZA syllabus is oriented more toward examinations, with tests and a final examination totaling 80 percent of the total points for the unit, whereas there are no tests or examinations in the Sydney syllabus. Instead, students in the USYD course complete a summative project, write a critical policy analysis, and give an in-class presentation. Students in the UNZA unit also offer a presentation, but this is only weighted with 10 percent of overall marks for the unit. Again, the comparable size of the student cohorts, the structure of the lectures and tutorials, and the availability of facilities all create the conditions for alternate forms of assessment within the USYD course. Perhaps related to the unpredictability of student unrest or politicians’ abilities to close UNZA, the instructions and dates for examination periods are not set in the UNZA syllabus, in contrast to the USYD course, where students know from the outset the tasks and procedures for submitting assessment items. Students are guided on the assessment policies (marking and grading, submitting assignments, seeking an extension, penalties for late submission of work) as well as on polices related to plagiarism and academic honesty. In addition, the syllabus outlines the assessment criteria so that students understand how their work will be graded or marked. While these inclusions are certainly important in helping students plan and understand their assessments, they alone cannot prevent social reproduction of educational inequality. For example, outlining the characteristics of a “good essay” or assessment in a marking rubric can assuage some students’ concerns about meeting the criteria, but this may not eliminate the relative cultural capital held by students who have had certain educational experiences in the past.

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Continuing Concerns In this final section we examine our concerns related to the SFE syllabi and their potential enactment at these two institutions, and perhaps beyond. First, we have persistent concerns about the choices we made in setting the various components of the syllabi. As noted previously, both syllabi must be approved by authorizing bodies, although the extent of compliance varies between the Australian and the Zambian contexts, and our decisions are also mediated by our own relative statuses in our institutions. None of us are full or associate professors, and we are therefore ever attentive to the departmental and institutional politics in which we find ourselves involved, intentionally or not. Nonetheless, we always have some level of power in selecting which topics are dealt with in more detail than others, and perhaps which are overlooked all together. In the USYD version, for example, Thomas has wrestled with how much theory to include, which theories to include, and how to connect theory and practice for students who may view theory as disconnected from practice or as overly opaque and esoteric. Moreover, in selecting some sociological issues to address, others are provided less attention, and attaining a pleasing degree of balance often feels like an impossible endeavor. Yet, all of the decisions made at USYD must be done in consideration of the regulatory mechanisms—such as the various standards for pre-primary, primary, and secondary programs—which arguably exercise a disproportionate control over the USYD syllabus compared to that of UNZA. Nevertheless, in both contexts the syllabi exist as spaces of contestation where changing political (and institutional) machinations exert influence on teacher education, and on the professional expertise of the academics who prepare future PSTs. Secondly, we have concerns about which canon(s) of sociology (and broader literature) is taught and privileged in our units. Recent movements to decolonize the curriculum, and sociology specifically (Connell, 2018), have raised questions about the balances and sources of knowledge that are taught in our units. As Connell (2018) asserts, “Sociology is part of the global economy of knowledge that grew out of the imperial traffic in knowledge” (p. 400). Thus, it is important to acknowledge that the Zambian syllabus includes African references and perspectives of sociology. Yet concerns remain whether these sources are still too oriented toward the ‘Global North’ and whether they do indeed reflect ways of knowing, thinking, and doing sociology that go beyond European-isms while acknowledging the various knowledge structures that diverse societies and cultures create. One particular goal, therefore, is to consider what aspects of sociology are most appropriate for the Zambian context. And of course, a similar struggle materializes in the Australian context. Thirdly, we have concerns about how our units interact and intersect with other units across the suite of courses that PSTs are required to complete. For example, in both institutions, it would be helpful to know how and to what extent students attain a nuanced understanding of settler colonialism and Aboriginal cultures, rights, and histories, in Australia, and of colonialism and its residual effects on educational systems and policies as well as the embodied and lived experiences of black

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Zambians. While we have some interactions with other lecturers and instructors who teach the associated courses in which these topics are more fully addressed, we lack the quotidian experiences and perspectives of students, who move from one unit to the next day-by-day, and who ideally experience a scaffolded and organized deepening of their knowledges concerning these crucial areas of learning. Fourthly, and finally, we have concerns about the abilities of our students to make explicit and implicit connections between the content in our units and their future work as teachers. One of our key goals as SFE instructors is to cultivate among PSTs an ability to understand schools as social institutions and students as social beings. We further hope they are able to situate themselves within these contexts and to use their knowledges of sociological theories to help explain and understand the phenomena around them, and to develop robust understandings and identities of themselves as teachers. Yet we must achieve these goals while introducing complex ideas that are typically quite new to our students, meanwhile trying to convince them that these concepts are important to their developing work and identities as teachers. As noted earlier, the means through which we aim to reach these ends varies somewhat—with the Zambian syllabus having a stronger orientation toward disciplinary knowledge whereas the Sydney syllabus features social justice more prominently—but in both instances, we aim to encourage critical reflection and thoughtful action among our students, even as they play out differently across contexts. While these and other concerns remain central to our reflections, we simultaneously remain committed to the powerful potential of SFE to elucidate for students the various ways in which contractions of teachers, students, and schooling, writ large, can be influenced by a range of social forces and actors.

Conclusion In many ways, Australia and Zambia could not be more different. And while differences did emerge through our comparison of the contexts and contents of our SFE courses, the concerns we expressed as instructors were remarkably similar. Mediated through our own positionalities as instructors working in specific institutional, national, and sociopolitical contexts, the concerns we shared highlight the ways in which core sets of questions—and the answers we aim to provide— can yield new insights into the choices we make about our syllabi, and perhaps even how they are enacted. Indeed, even the mere act of exchanging the syllabi for review, as a first step in the process, raised, for each of us, critical questions about what our syllabi represented, or not, and how they came to appear as they do. Thus, we conclude by encouraging other SFE instructors (and teacher educators more broadly) to engage in similar exchanges and discussions. We found the exercise of looking externally and internally to be incredibly insightful as we compared course syllabi from A to Z.

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References Antikainen, A., Dworkin, A.G., Saha, L.J., Ballantine, J., Essack, S., Teodoro, A., & Konstrantinovski, D. (2011). Contemporary themes in the sociology of education. International Journal of Contemporary Sociology, 48(1), 117–47. Apple, M. (2004). Ideology and Curriculum (3rd ed.). New York: RoutledgeFalmer. Association of Commonwealth Universities [ACU]. (2017). ACU members. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.acu​.ac.u​k/mem​bersh​ip/ac​u-mem​bers/​ Ballantine, J., & Hammack, F. (2009). The sociology of education: A systematic analysis. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. Chipindi, F.M., & Doyle, H. (2017). Zambia scoping study. In H. Doyle, A.M. Barrett, & A. Reeves (Eds.), Improving the quality of teaching in secondary education: Scoping studies for Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Côte D’Ivoire and Senegal (pp. 4–32). Bristol: Bristol University. Connell, R. (2018). Decolonizing sociology. Contemporary Sociology, 47(4), 399–407. Connell, R. (2009). Good teachers on dangerous ground: Towards a new view of teacher quality and professionalism. Critical Studies in Education, 50(3), 213–29. deMarrais, K. (2001). Reflections on a social foundations approach to teacher education. Educational Foundations, 15(2), 23–40. Doherty, C., Dooley, K., & Woods, A. (2013). Teaching sociology within teacher education: Revisiting, realigning and re-embedding. Journal of Sociology, 49(4), 515–30. Ezewu, E. (1983). The sociology of education. Lagos: Longman Limited. Hogan, V., & Daniell, L. (2012). Creating an environment for active, relational learning and teaching educational sociology in large classes. New Zealand Sociology, 27(1), 132–9. Kerr, D., Mandzuk, D., & Raptis, H. (2011). The role of the social foundations of education in programs of teacher preparation in Canada. Canadian Journal of Education, 34(4), 118–35. Kibera, W., & Kimokoti, A. (2007). Fundamentals of sociology of education: With special reference to Africa. Nairobi: Nairobi University Press. Liston, D., Whitcomb, J., & Borko, H. (2009). The end of education in teacher education: Thoughts on reclaiming the role of social foundations in teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(2), 108–11. Liu, Z., & Wang, W. (2016). A comparison of Chinese and American graduate syllabi in regard to their content and style. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 6(6), 1207–19. Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lusaka Times. (2017, February 10). University of Zambia student population now stands at 30,000. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.lus​akati​mes.c​om/20​17/02​/10/u​niver​sity-​zambi​ a-stu​dent-​popul​ation​-now-​stand​s-30-​000/ NSW Education Standards Authority [NESA]. (2017). Schooling in NSW. Retrieved from http:​//edu​catio​nstan​dards​.nsw.​edu.a​u/wps​/port​al/ne​sa/pa​rents​/pare​nt-gu​ide/s​chool​ ing-i​n-nsw​ Statistics Times. (2017). List of countries by projected GDP. Retrieved July 18, 2017 from http:​//sta​tisti​cstim​es.co​m/eco​nomy/​count​ries-​by-pr​oject​ed-gd​p.php​ Thomas, M.A.M., & Yehle, A.K. (2018). A framework for enacting the metapedagogy method in teacher education: What, why, where, when, and how? In A.E. Lopez &

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E.L. Olan (Eds.), Transformative pedagogies for teacher education: Moving towards critical praxis in an era of change (pp. 51–68). Charlotte, NC: IAP. Thomas, M.A.M., Thomas, C., & Lefebvre, E. (2014). Dissecting the teacher monolith: Experiences of beginning basic school teachers in Zambia. International Journal of Educational Development, 38, 37–46. University of Sydney. (2017). About us. Retrieved from http://sydney.edu.au/about-us.html University of Zambia [UNZA]. (2015). The University of Zambia Calendar 2014 – 2016. Lusaka: University of Zambia Press. Welch, A., Connell, R., Mockler, N., Sriprakash, A., Proctor, H., Hayes, D., Foley, D., Vickers, M., Bagnall, N., Burns, K., Low, R., & Groundwater-Smith, S. (2018). Education, change, and society (4th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Woolcock, M.J.V. (2006). Constructing a syllabus: A handbook for faculty, teaching assistants and teaching fellows. Providence, RI: The Hariet J. Scheridan Centre for Teaching and Learning, Brown University. Zeichner, K. (2012). The turn once again towards practice-based teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 62(5), 376–82.

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Islamization and Indigenization of Faculties of Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran Golnar Mehran and Fariba Adli

Introduction A year after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the monarchy and led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic, the religio-political leaders of Iran called for a Cultural Revolution (enqelab-e farhangi) that aimed at transforming higher education in the country. Universities were closed during the 1980–83 period in order to “purify” (paksazi) them from “counterrevolutionary” professors and students and to Islamize the curriculum, deemed to be Westoxicated (gharbzadeh)—“inflicted” by Western thoughts and theories—especially in the social sciences and humanities. One of the faculties that was affected by the Cultural Revolution was education, the curricular content of which was transformed to create the “ideal Muslim”—one who is pious and politicized, a devout Shi’i, and a loyal follower of the revolutionary ideals and rule of the religious jurisprudent (vali-ye faqih). The early revolutionary discourse on Islamization (eslami sazi) has more recently been supplemented by attempts at “Indigenization” (boomi sazi)—emphasizing de-Westernization, re-Islamization, compatibility with the local culture and values, and prioritizing the “real” needs of the society. This chapter aims at studying the Islamization and Indigenization of faculties of education in Iran. It seeks to answer the following questions: 1. What are the roots of transformation at Iranian universities? 2. What are the general goals of Islamization and Indigenization in higher education? 3. How have the faculties of education been affected by the dual attempts? and 4. How does education curricular content reflect attempts at Islamization and Indigenization? Content analysis of official documents and the education curriculum along with interviews with higher education authorities have been used to obtain information about the Islamization and Indigenization process at faculties of education. The following sections will shed light on the goals of the 1980–83 Cultural Revolution

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and the Islamization of higher education in general and in faculties of education in particular. In addition, they will portray the more recent attempts to Indigenize the curricular content.

Cultural Revolution It is not possible to understand what happened in Iranian higher education after the 1979 revolution unless one is familiar with the 1980–83 Cultural Revolution that shook Iranian universities and continues to define the framework in which they function, especially in the humanities and social sciences. The tenets of the Cultural Revolution (Sobhe, 1982; Razavi, 2009) remain at the roots of transformation in the universities. Islamization continues to be a top priority of Iranian authorities in the High Council of Cultural Revolution (HCCR) and the Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), previously called the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education (MCHE). The religio-political leaders of Iran have at all times emphasized that the 1979 revolution was first and foremost a cultural one that aimed at bringing a “revolution in values” (enqelab-e arzeshha). Fundamental transformation in the realm of culture has led to the “command of ideology” (Sobhe, 1982) in all areas. There has been an overt and direct attempt to enforce the revolutionary ideology, the essence of which is a politicized Shi’ism. Schools were among the first institutions in which ideology took command, marked by the “purification” of textbooks from pro-monarchy material and Islamization of the content; expulsion of “counterrevolutionary” teachers; banning of coeducation; and compulsory veiling of female teachers and students (Mehran, 2003). The remaining “trenches” (sangar) to be conquered were the universities— longtime bastions of political activism and meeting ground of liberal, Marxist, and Islamic ideas. A year after the revolution, universities were declared to be “at the service of colonialists” (este’margaran) and “dependent on foreigners” (ajaneb). In 1980, Ayatollah Khomeini called for the necessity of a “fundamental revolution” at all institutions of higher education and aimed at “filtering” professors linked to the “East (sharq) and West (gharb)” (referring to the then existing socialist and capitalist camps) and transforming universities into a “healthy environment for the development of high Islamic sciences” (’olum-e ’ali-ye eslami) (IRI, 2018). Universities were closed for three years during which faculty members at the religious seminaries (howzeh) and universities, identified to be Muslim—committed (mote’ahed), pious (mo’men), and loyal to the Islamic Republic—were invited to form the Headquarters of Cultural Revolution, later transformed into the HCCR. The aim was to bring about a cultural as well as an Islamic educational revolution (enqelab-e eslami-amuzeshi) with the following goals: 1. “selection” (gozinesh) and training of “competent” professors; 2. “selection” of students; and 3. Islamization of the university environment and transformation of the educational programs (IRI, 2018).

 Islamization and Indigenization of Faculties of Education 53 The “selection” process refers to the screening of candidates on the basis of their religiosity and ideological commitment. Once again in 1984, Ayatollah Khomeini warned the university community about the “deep-rooted influence of the West” and the need to replace it by the “Islamic, national, and revolutionary culture.” The same concern is stated in different words by Ayatollah Khamenei who warns about the “cultural aggression” (tahajom-e farhangi) of the “enemies” (doshmanan) against Islamic values and national culture, and emphasizes the need for a “national crusade” (jihad-e melli) against “scientific backwardness” and “cultural servitude” (taba’iyat-e farhangi) (IRI, 2018). The specific measures taken at the higher education level once the universities were opened include establishing Islamic associations (anjoman-e eslami), “mobililization” (basij) units, and the university “crusade” (jihad-e daneshgahi); forming “discipline” (enzebati) committees to monitor the political and religious “commitment” of the university community; enforcing compulsory veiling (hejab) among female members; construction of mosques and prayer centers, and, more recently, tombs for the martyrs of the 1980–88 Iran-Iraq war at university campuses; “uniting” the seminaries and universities (vahdat-e howzeh va daneshgah) leading to the increased presence of Shi’i clerics at the teaching and administrative levels; establishing the foundation representing the leadership (nahad-e namayandegi-ye maqam-e moa’zam-e rahbari) where a representative of the office of Ayatollah Khamenei plays a key role in university affairs; Islamizing the content; and screening of professors and students on the basis of their religious devotion and political loyalty. The HCCR has been assigned twenty-three responsibilities, some of which are directly related to the universities. The HCCR is, first and foremost, assigned the task of preparing the “cultural engineering” (mohandesi-ye farhangi) plan of the country. Once it is deemed appropriate and possible to “engineer culture,” it follows that all scientific and cultural principles, goals, and policies are planned by a highly centralized organization in the capital Tehran. The HCCR is also responsible for planning and policy making in order to “develop and transform” the research and educational system of the country; confront the “cultural aggression of the enemies” in an active and innovative way; determine the criteria for establishing universities and “selecting” scientific and cultural administrators, professors, and students; determine the necessary policies for the rule and expansion of the “pure Islamic culture of Prophet Mohammad” (farhang-e eslam-e nab-e Mohammadi); determine the policies to create “cultural” products on the basis of Islamic values and national criteria; provide the macro plan for the cooperation of religious seminaries and universities; and determine the policies for the revision and transformation of the content in the humanities and social studies, based on Islamic values and cultural necessities of the country (IRI, 2018).

Islamization Educational authorities at the MSRT state that Islamization and Indigenization remain the top priorities in higher education along with the more recent addition of internationalization (beynalmelali sazi) in order to raise the worldwide rankings of

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Iranian universities. They view such measures as key steps in maintaining the “IslamicIranian identity” of the nation and remaining “loyal” to the national and religious beliefs of the people. They also criticize the inability of higher education, especially in the humanities, to address the “immediate needs” of the society (interviews conducted by the authors, January 20 and February 5, 2018). According to Dangor (2005), the “Islamization project” is a response to the secularization of Muslim societies and their educational institutions. As such, Islamization refers to the process of “including Islamic disciplines in the curriculum and providing an Islamic perspective on issues in the syllabi” (p. 519). The Islamization process in Iran includes, but is not limited to, the dual goals mentioned. It is also an indivisible part of politicization—political Islam lies at the foundation of educational transformation in the country. The interplay of Islamization and politicization in education has been studied by Mohsenpour (1988), Shorish (1988), Habibi (1989), Rucker (1991), Haghayeghi (1993), Wiseman and Alromi (2003), Sakurai (2004, 2017), Paivandi (2006), Hamdhaidari, Agahi, and Papzan (2008), Fozi (2009), Settie and Mabokela (2009), Arjmand (2017), and Golkar (2017). The rule of politicalreligious ideology in Iranian higher education is illustrated in the general (’omumi) courses that have to be taken by all undergraduate students throughout the country. They have to take six general courses titled Islamic Culture, Knowledge, and Beliefs (farhang, ma’aref va aqayed-e eslami), which is a combination of Islamic teachings and the political ideology of the ruling leaders, including Islamic Knowledge, Islamic Ethics, History of Islam, Islamic Texts (in Arabic), and Islamic Revolution and its Roots (MCHE, 1994a, p. 7). What is the goal of Islamization in postrevolutionary Iran? The answer lies in the official documents that determine the direction undertaken by authorities in their planning and policy making. The 2003 Twenty-Year Outlook of the Islamic Republic of Iran envisions the country as having an “Islamic and revolutionary” identity, inhabited by “pious” individuals who are “committed” to the revolution and the Islamic government (IRI, 2003, p. 1). The cultural policies of the Twenty-Year Outlook emphasize the deepening religious insight based on the Qur’an and the teachings of Prophet Mohammad and his family; keeping alive the religio-political thoughts of Ayatollah Khomeini; strengthening national identity based on Islam, Islamic revolution, and the Islamic government; and confronting “cultural aggression” and “global oppression” (p. 3). The 2010 Comprehensive Scientific Plan of the Country, ratified by the HCCR, is an ambitious call for the “revival of the great Islamic civilization” (tamadon-e eslami) and establishing a “new Islamic-Iranian civilization” (tamadon-e eslami-irani) (IRI, 2010, p. vi). Based on the “school of Islam and the revolution” (maktab-e eslam va enqelab), the Scientific Plan seeks to promote Persian as an international scientific language and revive the “pivotal and historical role” of Iran in the Islamic culture and civilization (p. 6). The main strategies identified by the Scientific Plan are knowledge production based on Islam; Islamization of educational and research institutions; transforming the system of education on the basis of Islamic philosophy; educating “virtuous” (motaqi) individuals imbued with Islamic values; promoting the interaction of Islamic seminaries with universities; strengthening the “religious look” (negah-e dini) at science and

 Islamization and Indigenization of Faculties of Education 55 scientific learning by promoting the teachings of the Qur’an, Prophet Mohammad, and the Shi’i Imams; facilitating the intellectual interaction of religious scholars; examining “un-Islamic” (gheir-e eslami) approaches in educational texts, including humanism and secularism, and revising them based on Islamic teachings; introducing Muslim scholars and their works; explaining the relationship between “modern sciences” (’olum-e jadid) and the teachings of Islam; writing about the history of natural sciences and mathematics during the Islamic civilization; acquainting students with the Islamic culture and civilization; compiling textbooks to deepen Islamic teachings; using the fundamentals of Islamic and Iranian architecture in designing educational buildings; reforming teaching methods based on the viewpoint of Islamic education; revising the content of education and research to bring about abidance by the values of the Islamic revolution; and religious training and “empowerment” (tavanmand sazi) of the students (IRI, 2010, pp. 21–39). The Islamization of the humanities is stated as one of the priorities of the 2010 Scientific Plan. It seeks to transform and strengthen the “human sciences” (’olum-e ensani) and direct the “elite” (nokhbegan) toward studying in these fields. The development of the humanities, however, is at all times based on Islamic foundations and linked with scholars in religious research centers. The Scientific Plan aims at attracting exceptional talents, creating centers to train the elite, and support research in the humanities if, and only if, they are compatible with the Islamic viewpoint and use “competent” faculty members who are “in command” of the fundamentals of Islam (IRI, 2010, pp. 51–52). The priorities are Islamization of economics, sociology, political science, law, psychology, education, and management (p. 16). The religio-political ideology is also reflected in the Sixth Economic, Social, and Cultural Development Plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran (2017–2021). The cultural section emphasizes the preservation and promotion of “Islamic, revolutionary and national values,” strengthening of “cultural-religious” foundations, and support for “forces committed to the Islamic revolution” (IRI, 2017, p. 27). Promotion of the “Islamic identity” (hoviyat-e eslami) is declared as the main objective of “cultural engineering,” and education is assigned the task of “engineering” human resources. There is, once again, a call for transformation in the system of education, especially in the humanities at the university level. Human sciences are to be Islamized through changes in the curriculum and textbooks, training of faculty members, and “selection” of students (IRI, 2017, p. 17).

Indigenization The literature on Indigenization (Cupples & Glynn 2014; Jackson, 2005; Smith, 2005) is accompanied by studies about Eurocentrism (Alvares, 2011); neocolonialism (Murphy & Zhu, 2012); postcolonialism (Adams, Luitel, Afonso, & Taylor, 2008); academic dependency (Alatas, 2008); and the creation of the “captive mind” (Alatas, 1974). Research on Indigenization points to the “questioning of the self ” in marginalized societies and calls for de-colonization (Chan-Tiberghian, 2004; Chinn, 2007), de-Westernization (Gunaratne, 2010), and a search for “alternative” discourses (Alatas, 2006).

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Indigenization in the Iranian context is, to a large extent, a combination of de-Westernization and Iranianization. It should be noted, however, that the authorities of the Islamic Republic view Iran as part of the Muslim world and the country is always referred to as “Islamic Iran” (Iran-e eslami). “Indigenization” is a recent addition to the official terminology in the country. “Indigenous needs, standards, capacities, production, science, and technology” are mentioned in the Scientific Plan without further explanation (IRI, 2010, pp. 3, 7, 25, 27). The term is clarified to some extent in the short explanations about the need for the “critical study of the West” (gharb shenasi-ye enteqadi) (p. 17) and “critical confrontation” with translated texts in the humanities (p. 51), referring to the dominant use of Persian translations of Western textbooks. There is a direct call for the replacement of “foreign” (biganeh) terminology and emphasis on the use of Persian in all fields of study in an effort to transform the latter into a “scientific language” (zaban-e ’elm) (p. 52). Indigenization of the humanities and making them compatible with and responsive to the “real needs” of the country is a top priority of the 2010 Scientific Plan. The ultimate aim of Indigenization is to train “local” experts and promote “self-belief ” (khod bavari) and “national empowerment” in order to safeguard the future needs of the country (p. 54). The two pillars of cultural transformation in Iran have affected higher education in Iran. The following sections will provide a general overview of faculties of education, followed by an illustration of attempts to Islamize and Indigenize the curricular content at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

General Overview Higher education is highly centralized and “engineered” in the Islamic Republic. As a result, the curricular content of all programs offered at faculties of education in public and private universities is determined by the Education Committee (komite-ye ’olum-e tarbiyati) of the Humanities Group (goruh-e ’olum-e ensani) at the High Council of Educational Planning (shora-ye ’ali-ye barnameh rizi amuzeshi) or, more recently, the Council of Higher Education Planning (shora-ye barnameh rizi amuzesh-e ’ali) (hereafter referred to as the Council) at the MSRT (MSRT, 2001a, p. i). The Council determines the title of courses, number of units, duration of studies, prerequisites, electives, nature of courses (theoretical, practical, general, specialized), goals (ahdaf), intended results of each course, detailed curriculum (barnameh-ye darsi), course content (sarfaslha), teaching-learning methods, and sources in Persian, English, and/or Arabic. For some courses, the Council even determines what to teach in each weekly session (MSRT, 2014b). In reality, not every student at every faculty of education is taught exactly the same thing. Diversity among students and professors, individual preferences, and exigencies of time and place do not lead to such uniformity and standardization, yet this is what is deemed appropriate by the authorities at the Ministry. It is apparent that for a long period of time universities have not had official independence in determining the content and structure of programs offered at the faculties of education. They are obligated to implement the decisions made by the

 Islamization and Indigenization of Faculties of Education 57 authorities in the Council and ratified by the Ministry. At certain points of time, however, education departments have volunteered or been invited to participate in “transforming and revising” the curriculum and/or designing new or updated content. This has been true in the master’s and doctoral programs since 2003.1 Although education faculties are “allowed” to propose and design the curriculum of selected programs, they are “permitted” to teach the courses if, and only if, the content is approved by the Council at MSRT to ensure that it leads to the creation of a “committed expert” (motekhasses-e mote’ahed) (MSRT, 2016a, p. 3). At present, Iranian universities offer one undergraduate, eleven master’s, and seven doctoral programs in education, some of which have been thoroughly transformed or revised (baznegari) during the past decade. Different faculties of education offer different programs at the undergraduate and/or graduate levels. A single program is offered at the undergraduate level titled Education (’olum-e tarbiyati) (MSRT, 2015b) with four branches to choose from Educational Administration and Planning; Educational Technology; Education of Children with Special Needs; and Pre-primary and Primary Education. Students have to take 140 units, including a final research project to obtain a bachelor’s degree in education. The four-year program consists of the following courses: basic (payeh) (twenty units); major (asli) (seventy units); specialized (takhassosi) (eighteen units); and electives (ekhtiyari) (ten units) (MSRT, 2015b, p. 17). The remaining units include general (’omumi) courses taken by all students. The most recent curriculum was ratified by the Council of Transformation and Promotion of the Humanities (shora-ye tahavol va erteqa ’olum-e ensani) at the HCCR in 2015. It is designed to replace the ones ratified in the 1980s and 1990s. The curricular content is presented in 233 pages including a full description of the “appropriate” structure and content of each course along with detailed instructions on how to implement it. Universities offer eleven programs at the master’s level. The following are the titles along with the dates on which the content was ratified by the MCHE and later High Council of Educational Planning at MSRT—History and Philosophy of Education: Islamic Education (MCHE, 1989); Adult Education (MCHE, 1993); Educational Research (MCHE, 1994b); Education (MSRT, 2001a) with three branches (Comparative Education, Primary Education, and Pre-primary Education); Education and Improvement of Human Resources (MSRT, 2003); Educational Technology (MSRT, 2014a); Curriculum Studies (MSRT, 2014b); Educational Evaluation (MSRT, 2014e); Higher Education Administration and Planning (MSRT, 2015a); Philosophy of Education: Teaching Philosophy to Children and Young Adults (MSRT, 2016a); and Educational Administration (MSRT, 2016b). Students have to take thirty-two units,

At the master’s level, curricular content has been revised, updated, and designed in such programs as Education and Improvement of Human Resources designed by Shahid Beheshti University in 2003; Educational Technology prepared by Isfahan University in 2014; Curriculum Studies proposed by Kharazmi University in 2014; Philosophy of Education: Teaching Philosophy to Children and Young Adults designed by Shiraz University and Kharazmi University in 2016; and Educational Administration prepared by Ferdowsi University in 2016. Doctoral programs have been transformed or designed by education departments at Allameh Tabatabai University including Assessment and Measurement in 2005 and Educational Technology in 2008 as well as Tehran University including Philosophy of Education and Curriculum Development in 2014.

1

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including a thesis, to obtain a master’s degree. The course work can be finished in three semesters and students spend a semester or two to complete their research. Iranian faculties of education offer seven programs at the doctoral level including Educational Administration (MCHE, 1995); Psychology and Education of Exceptional Children (MCHE, 1999); Higher Education (MSRT, 2001b) with five branches (Higher Education Administration, Economics and Financial Management, Development Planning, Curriculum Planning, and Information Technology); Assessment and Measurement (MSRT, 2005); Educational Technology (MSRT, 2008); Philosophy of Education (MSRT, 2014c); and Curriculum Development (MSRT, 2014d). Students need to take thirty-six units, including dissertation, to obtain their PhD. The doctoral program is divided into two sections: educational (amuzeshi), during which students take three semesters of course work, and research (pazhuheshi), when they work on their dissertation. Students are obliged to complete their studies in eleven semesters (MSRT, 2014d, p. 3).

Pillars of Educational Transformation at the Faculties of Education Authorities in the Islamic Republic have made every effort to predetermine the courses taught at the faculties of education. They have drawn and heavily guarded the boundaries within the “approved” framework. More than anything else, they have attempted to enforce uniformity and discourage individuality and autonomy. The ultimate goal has been what the 1980 Cultural Revolution originally aimed at— namely, Islamization and de-Westernization of education, more recently referred to as Indigenization. An attempt will be made to illustrate how the two pillars of educational transformation are implemented at the faculties of education through a critical analysis of the curricular content since the 1980s.

Islamization Islamization is an integral part of the 2015 Education undergraduate curriculum. It is presented as a key factor in the “reform, revision, and critique” of ideas that openly oppose religious principles and “Iranian people’s belief in Islam” (eslam bavari) (MSRT, 2015b, p. 11). Higher education authorities view Islamization as a means to reach “cultural self-belief ” (khod bavari-ye farhangi) and “pure life” (hayat-e tayebeh), as expressed in the teachings of Islam (pp. 13–14). Among the strategies introduced by the Ministry to Islamize the curriculum are identifying the “rich Islamic-Iranian cultural heritage” in education; developing the Islamic philosophy of education; drawing educational concepts from Islamic texts; introducing the original educational thoughts in Islam; identifying research methods that are “compatible” with Islamic education; and producing books and articles based on Islamic principles and religious teachings (pp. 11–14). The undergraduate curriculum in Education seeks to “empower” students by deepening their religious beliefs and “developing their thinking abilities based on

 Islamization and Indigenization of Faculties of Education 59 the Islamic culture”; promoting the understanding of Islamic moral values; deepening the students’ “knowledge of the self ” (khod shenasi) based on religious texts; and enabling them to conduct research based on Islamic teachings (pp. 15–16). How is the content of education curriculum Islamized in practice? The first step is including courses with a religious content. Among the ten basic courses offered at the undergraduate level, four have an Islamic title and content, including Islamic Education, Educational Ideas of Muslim Thinkers, Educational Teachings of the Qur’an, and Family in Islam. There is also a specialized course in the Educational Administration and Planning branch titled Fundamentals of Islamic Administration (MSRT, 2015b, pp. 19, 23). Islamization also takes place by including the following themes in the content of courses in education: the teachings of Islam; religious seminaries (howzeh) as centers of Muslim education; goals and methods of training Shi’i clerics (talabeh) at seminaries; fundamentals of religious education; teachings of Prophet Mohammad and the Shi’i Imams; educational implications of Islam; Islamic lifestyle; educational ideas of (Arab and Iranian) Muslim thinkers; methods of education in Islam; characteristics of Islamic education; moral education from an Islamic viewpoint; Qur’anic teachings; importance of education in Islam; relationships in Muslim families; Islamic models of child rearing; the concept of motivation in Islamic texts; psychological therapy based on Islamic culture; role and importance of management from the viewpoint of Muslim scientists; the Islamic-Iranian model of progress in management; psychological aggression from the viewpoint of Islam; Islamic view of child development; Islamic educational leadership; Islamic view of professional ethics among educators; using Qur’anic tales to promote thinking among children and young adults; religion and mental health; culture, religion, and media; fundamentals of human communication in Islam; human behavior from the point of view of Islam; Islamic approach to organizational behavior; social services in Islam; history of social work in Islam; importance of pre-primary and primary education based on Islam and the viewpoint of Muslim thinkers; Islamic viewpoint on personality; individual difference in Islam; Qur’an and psychology; learning from the point of view of Muslim philosophers; and psychological approaches in Islamic texts.2 Yet another attempt to Islamize the education curriculum has been the introduction of Islamic sources to the students’ reading lists. The following examples are some of the books in Persian, which are published by Islamic centers established after the revolution: Great Muslim Educators published in 2013; The Ideas of Muslim Thinkers on Education (Four Volumes) prepared in 2006 by the Office of Cooperation Between the Seminary and University (dafter-e hamkari-ye howzeh va daneshgah), founded shortly after the 1979 revolution to create a link between religious scholars at the seminaries and university professors; Education in Islam (2001) by Ayatollah Morteza Motahari, a leading ideologue of the Islamic Republic; Developmental Psychology with a Glance at Islamic Sources (Two Volumes) (2011); Fundamentals of Education in the Qur’an published by the Islamic Culture and Thought Research Center in 2008; Family in Islam (2014); Comparative Study of Family in Islam and the West (2013); Responsible Child Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT). (2015b, pp. 32, 34, 36, 42, 44, 46, 48, 51, 53, 56, 57, 58, 59, 62, 63, 65, 66, 100, 116, 124, 150, 151, 155, 181, 204, 213, 214, 222, 228).

2

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Rearing in Islam (2012); Research on Islamic Educational Issues (2012); Research on the Training of Shi’i Clerics (1980); Islamic Morality (2008); Organizational Ethics in the Words of Imam Ali (2000); Professional Ethics in Islam (2002); Mental Health in Islam published by the Office of Islamic Propagation in 2003; Islamic Administration (2014); Management in Islam (2015); Fundamentals and Principles of Islamic Administration: A New Approach to Management in the Third Millenium and (the) Globalization (Era) (2004); The Ideas of Great Muslim Educators on Child Development (1987); and The Psychological Viewpoint of Ayatollah Mesbah-e Yazdi published by Imam Khomeini’s Education and Research Center in 2006 (MSRT, 2015b). There is less emphasis on Islamizing the curricular content at the master’s level. Some specializations offer Islamic education as a prerequisite, basic course, or elective (MCHE, 1993, pp. 7, 28; MSRT, 2014b, p. 6; MSRT, 2001a, p. 8; MSRT, 2016a, p. 8). A number of graduate courses include Islamic concepts such as legal rights of teachers and administrators in Islam (MSRT, 2016b, p. 28); philosophical and political thought in Islam; leadership and administration based on the Islamic viewpoint (p. 30); Islamic ethics (p. 35); Islamic view of children and childhood (MSRT, 2016a, p. 10); teaching philosophy to children from the viewpoint of Islamic philosophy (p. 15); philosophy for children in Muslim nations (p. 24); Islamic values; happiness in Islam; Islamic educational methods (MSRT, 2001a, p. 31) and the religious foundations of curriculum planning (MSRT, 2014b, p. 16). Similar to the undergraduate program, sources on Islamic education are included in the students’ reading lists at the master’s level, especially in Educational Administration. Some of these are Principles and Fundamentals of Administration from the Viewpoint of Islam published in 2005; Politics and Administration from the Viewpoint of Imam Ali (2000); Imam Khomeini’s Leadership Strategy (2005); Islamic Thoughts in Administration (2005); Fundamentals of Islamic Humanities (2004); and Methodology in the Humanities from the Viewpoint of Muslim Thinkers (2003) (MSRT, 2016b, pp. 18, 31–32). The teachings of Islam have a special place in the master’s program titled History and Philosophy of Education: Islamic Education. Ratified in 1989, it seeks to train educators who are familiar with the philosophical principles of Islamic education, able to teach and conduct research in that realm, and use Islamic philosophy to lay the foundation of educational goals in Iran. The addition of this program, a decade after the 1979 revolution, was deemed necessary to bring about an “Islamic university” (daneshgah-e eslami) (MCHE, 1989, pp. 3, 6). The program comprises thirteen courses, three of which are about Islamic and Shi’i teachings: Islamic Education, Educational Thoughts of Shi’i Imams, and the Teachings of Imam Ali (p. 7). The content of the course on Islamic education includes the history of education in the Muslim world; principles and goals of education in the Qur’an, the words of Prophet Mohammad, and the Shi’i Imams; education in traditional schools (maktab) and seminaries (howzeh ’elmiyeh) in Qom (Iran) and Najaf (Iraq); educational methods in Islam; education and ethics; and the governance of religious jurisprudence (velayat-e faqih) and education (p. 16). Religion is a central theme in the curricular content covering the role of education in Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and Islam (p. 24). In addition, sources on Islamic education written by Iranian and Arab scholars are then introduced to the students (pp. 32–33).

 Islamization and Indigenization of Faculties of Education 61 Islamization of the master’s program in educational technology has taken an interesting turn in recent years. In 2014, the Council of Higher Education Planning revised the 1995 curriculum, replaced a course on Advanced Islamic Education, and introduced Pathology of Virtual Spaces (with a Religious-Islamic Approach) (MSRT, 2014a, pp. 15–16). The goal, as stated by the Council, is to use “religiousethical teachings based on Islamic values” in producing educational software and “protecting” the country from the import of products that “are not compatible with our culture, values, and ideology” (p. 7). The result is the design of three courses. One is titled Philosophy and Ethics in Technology and contains a large portion of religious teachings on how to prevent “moral damages” while using technology and avoid “counter value” (zed-e arzeshi), “anti-Islamic” (zed-e eslami), and “unethical” (zed-e akhlaqi) issues in virtual spaces (p. 36). In the course on Web-Based Education, students are introduced to the necessity of web-based education in Islamic education and use of teaching models practiced at the religious seminaries (p. 60). Religion plays a significant role in the course on Pathology of Virtual Spaces in which students are made aware of the adverse impact of such spaces on the “religious-Islamic attitudes of individuals in society.” They are informed about the “danger” of using virtual spaces among the youth and their tendency toward “new mysticisms” (erfanha-ye nozohoor) and “satanism” (sheytan parasti) (p. 42). Among the sources introduced on the reading list are books in Persian, including Critique of the Trend in Rising Mysticisms (2009) and An Introduction to Real and False Mysticisms (2008), as well as articles in English titled “Satanism and the Decline of Morality” (1991), “Satanism in America” (1989), and “Media Construction of Satanism in Norway” (2005). Islamization, establishment of an “Islamic university,” teaching the “religious foundations” of curriculum development, adopting an “Islamic orientation” in policy making, training curriculum specialists with a strong “religious foundation,” and introducing the educational issues of Islamic countries are all among the goals of the doctoral program in Curriculum Development (MSRT, 2014d, pp. 1, 2, 3, 32, 35). As a result, the course on the Philosophical Foundations of Islamic Education discusses the principles of education in Islam, the aims of Islamic education, and how the educational philosophy of Islam and the teachings of the Qur’an and Shi’i Imams have affected the curriculum (p. 8). A number of books are introduced to students including Religion and Curriculum (2008), Why Religious Education? published in 2010 by the Center for Islamic Education Studies, and Educational Schools of Thought in the Islamic Civilization (2005). Other sources on the reading list have been prepared by Islamic centers, including the Education Institute of Imam Khomeini’s Research Center; Iranian Society for Islamic Knowledge; the Islamic seminaries; the Foundation Representing the Leadership (of Ayatollah Khamenei) at the universities; and the Research Center of the Office for the Cooperation of the Seminary and University (MSRT, 2014d, pp. 9–11). The doctoral program in Philosophy of Education also aims at reviving the teachings of Islam, addressing the influence of Islamic philosophy on education, and studying the ideas of prominent Muslim philosophers in the field of education (MSRT 2014c, p. i). Prerequisite or elective courses offered are titled Islamic Philosophy, Philosophy of Islamic Education, Education from the Viewpoint of the Qur’an, and education

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in Imam Ali’s Nahj al-Balagheh (pp. 3, 5, 24–26, 30–32). Curricular content is filled with discussions about the Islamic approach to education; philosophical foundations of education based on Islamic texts; and the Islamic philosophy of Iranian education (pp. 13–14, 35–36). References to Muslim educators include both Arabs and Iranians (p. 33) and the books on the reading list are in Persian and Arabic—published in Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt—as well as English (pp. 26, 32, 37).

Indigenization Although the term “Islamization” has appeared in official educational documents as well as curricular content since the 1980 Cultural Revolution, the term “Indigenization” is quite recent. The 2015 undergraduate curriculum in education defines “Indigenization” (boomi sazi) as “paying attention to the antiquity and depth of the Iranian-Islamic culture” and the “richness” of the theoretical and practical foundations of education “in our dear country Iran” (MSRT, 2015b, p. 9). It also aims at responding to the real and urgent needs of the society. The key words used in the discourse on Indigenization are “adaptability” (sazvari), “suitability” (tanasob), “context” (matn), “compatibility” (senkhiyat), “knowledge of the self ” (khod shenasi), and “belief in one’s culture” (khod bavari-ye farhangi) (pp. 9, 11, 15). A sense of pride, nostalgia, and regret is clearly felt when the Ministry notes that long before teaching philosophy to children became popular in the rest of the world, the “East” (mashreq zamin) valued thinking and logic and prepared stories to develop philosophical and creative thinking among young adults based on the “rich Islamic culture” (MSRT, 2016a, p. 3). This indicates a returnto-the-roots movement and a response to the dominance of Western theoretical frameworks in education. Forty years after the revolution, despite continuous calls for de-Westernization, Iranian universities are still criticized for being “imitations” (taqlid) of Western institutions of the past (MSRT, 2014b, p. 3). The Western viewpoint has been criticized by Iranian authorities for neglecting the “spiritual dimension of humanity” and focusing only on the “biological, psychological, and social aspects” (MSRT, 2015b, p. 9). What is the alternative offered by the Islamic Republic? The answer is familiarizing university students with the teachings of Islam and the “Indigenous (boomi) culture” in the field of education (p. 15). Understanding “Indigenous problems” in education (p. 16); designing “Indigenous educational models” (p. 89); offering school guidance and counseling with regard to the “Islamic and Indigenous culture” (p. 92); using “Indigenous stories” in teaching thinking to children and youth (p. 100); and career counseling based on “cultural and Indigenous foundations” (p. 112) are some of the attempts at Indigenization at the undergraduate level. Indigenization in the curricular content at the master’s and doctoral level includes the addition of such concepts as the need for “Indigenous research” (MSRT, 2016a, p. 4); learning about successful educational models in the world and making them compatible with “Indigenous cultural conditions” (MSRT, 2014b, p. 57); “Indigenizing the curriculum” and taking into consideration the “Indigenous” needs of the “IranianIslamic society” (MSRT, 2014a, pp. 1, 4, 8); the necessity of “Indigenous education” (MSRT, 2014c, p. 1); and having an “Indigenous orientation” in national policy making (MSRT, 2014d, p. 3).

 Islamization and Indigenization of Faculties of Education 63 Indigenization is in fact a combined effort to re-Islamize and Iranianize the curricular content of education. Although as far as Iranianization is concerned, the attempt to deal directly with national issues includes offering merely two courses titled History of Education in Iran Before and After Islam and Pre-primary, Primary, and Secondary Education in Iran at the undergraduate level (MSRT, 2015b, pp. 19, 29–31, 38–41). The curricular content at the master’s level comprises three courses: the History of Education in Iran and the World; Seminar on the Comparative Study of Educational Problems in Iran and Other Countries in the World; and Critical Study of Educational Planning and Curriculum Development in Iran (MSRT, 2001a, pp. 6, 7, 11–12, 25, 27). Two courses titled Administration and Strategies of Research Centers in Iran and the World (MSRT, 2001b, p. 5) and Philosophical Foundations of Education in Iran (MSRT, 2014c, p. 4, 13–15) are the ones that directly address education in Iran at the doctoral level. The Ministry has included national educational experiences in weekly sessions and introduced sources on education in Iran. It is apparent that in the duality of Islamization and Iranianization, the former is deemed more important by education authorities who always present Iran as part of the “Islamic world”; introduce Iranians as first and foremost Muslims despite the fact that Iran is, and has always been, inhabited by non-Muslims as well and refer to the culture as an Islamic-Iranian one. One can, therefore, conclude that Indigenization is just a more recent version of Islamization and a continuation of the “revolutionary” attempt to reduce the influence of Western thought. In reality, the Western schools of thought and the ideas of prominent Western thinkers continue to exist in the scientific discourse at the faculties of education. Idealism, realism, pragmatism, existentialism, Marxism, (neo) liberalism, (post) structuralism, and (post) modernism are among the theories introduced along with the teachings of Islam in education (MCHE, 1989; MSRT, 2014c). It is true that every effort is made to introduce the achievements of the Islamic world and familiarize the students with the thoughts of Muslim scholars throughout time, yet it does not mean that they are not exposed to what the West has introduced to the world. In a statement on the goal of a master’s level course titled Fundamental Theories in Comparative Education, it is stated that since “comparative education is a global science with emphasis on the identity of different civilizations,” this course aims at helping students understand the ideas of theorists in both the “developed and developing” countries of the “north and south” (MSRT, 2001a, p. 22).

Concluding Remarks The transformation of Iranian higher education has been one of the goals of an ongoing cultural revolution that aims at Islamizing the universities and “purifying” them from “Western elements.” Islamization has never been restricted to religious teachings and has always been accompanied by politicization and an attempt to instill the ruling religio-political ideology. The ultimate aim of cultural transformation at institutions of higher education has been the creation of a “committed expert” who is pious and loyal to the ideals of the revolution and the ruling leaders. Islamization has recently been accompanied by Indigenization. The term refers to a three-dimensional effort

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at de-Westernization, a return to the Islamic-Iranian roots, and the responsiveness to the needs of the country. The command of the religio-political ideology in the highly centralized system of higher education in Iran is portrayed in the predetermined curricular content, designed by the MSRT and implemented by public and private universities throughout the country. The Islamization and Indigenization of the humanities and social sciences in Iran, including the faculties of education, is a priority of authorities who warn against the dangers of “cultural aggression” by the “enemy” and insist on the need for the transformation of educational content based on the philosophy of Islam and the “Islamic-Iranian” model. The result is re-Islamization and calls for the Indigenization of the content and sources. Yet almost forty years after the onset of the 1980 Cultural Revolution that sought to Islamize and de-Westernize the universities, the authorities of the Islamic Republic are still concerned about the existence of “un-Islamic approaches”—such as humanism and secularism—in higher education. An analysis of curricular content offered at the faculties of education points to the paradoxical coexistence of two realities. On the one hand, every attempt is made to include Islamic courses and sources and address the “Indigenous” context in the syllabi. On the other hand, a significant part of many courses consists of Western theories and thoughts. This paradox remains to be a challenge for the authorities who have sought to bring about an Islamic revival and have enforced the ruling religio-political ideology at Iranian universities since the 1979 revolution.

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Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2001a). ’Olum-e Tarbiyati: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Karshenasi-ye Arshad [Education: Master’s curriculum]. Tehran: High Council of Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2001b). Amuzesh ’Ali: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Doktora [Higher education: Doctoral curriculum]. Tehran: High Council of Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT) , Islamic Republic of Iran. (2003). Amuzesh va Behsazi-ye Manabe’ Ensani: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Karshenasi-ye Arshad [Education and improvement of human resources: Master’s curriculum]. Tehran: High Council of Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2005). Sanjesh va Andazehgiri: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Doktora [Assessment and measurement: Doctoral curriculum]. Tehran: High Council of Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2008). Teknoloji-ye Amuzeshi: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Doktora [Educational technology: Doctoral curriculum]. Tehran: High Council of Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2014a). Teknoloji-ye Amuzeshi: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Karshenasi-ye Arshad [Educational technology: Master’s curriculum]. Tehran: Council of Higher Education Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2014b). Barnamehrizi-ye Darsi: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Karshenasi-ye Arshad [Curriculum studies: Master’s curriculum]. Tehran: Council of Higher Education Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2014c). Falsafeh-ye Ta’lim va Tarbiyat: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Doktora [Philosophy of education: Doctoral curriculum]. Tehran: Council of Higher Education Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2014d). Barnamehrizi-ye Darsi: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Doktora [Curriculum development: Doctoral curriculum]. Tehran: High Council of Educational Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2014e). Arzeshyabi-ye Amuzeshi: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Karshenasi-ye Arshad [Educational evaluation: Master’s curriculum]. Tehran: High Council of Educational Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2015a). Modiriyat va Barnamehrizi-ye Amuzesh-e ’Ali: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Karshenasi-ye Arshad [Administration and planning of higher education: Master’s curriculum]. Tehran: High Council of Educational Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2015b). ’Olum-e Tarbiyati: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Karshenasi [Education: Undergraduate curriculum]. Tehran: Council of Higher Education Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2016a). Falsafeh-ye Ta’lim va Tarbiyat: Amuzesh-e Falsafeh beh Kudakan va Nojavanan: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Karshenasi-ye Arshad [Philosophy of education: Teaching philosophy to children and young adults: Master’s curriculum]. Tehran: Higher Council of Educational Planning. Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran. (2016b). Modiriyat-e Amuzeshi: Barnameh-ye Darsi-ye Doreh-ye Karshenasi-ye Arshad [Educational administration: Master’s curriculum]. Tehran: High Council of Educational Planning.

 Islamization and Indigenization of Faculties of Education 67 Mohsenpour, B. (1988). Philosophy of education in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Comparative Education Review, 32(1), 76–86. Murphy, J., & Zhu, J. (2012). Neo-colonialism in the academy? Anglo-American domination in management journals. Organization, 19(6), 915–927. Paivandi, S. (2006). Islam et éducation en Iran [Islam and education in Iran]. Paris: L’Harmattan. Razavi, R. (2009). The cultural revolution in Iran, with close regard to the universities and its impact on the student movement. Middle Eastern Studies, 45(1), 1–17. Rucker, R.E. (1991). Trends in post-revolutionary Iranian education. Journal of Contemporary Asia, 21(4), 455–68. Sakurai, K. (2004). University entrance examination and the making of an Islamic society in Iran: A study of the post-revolutionary Iranian approach to “Konkur.” Iranian Studies, 37(3), 398–99. Sakurai, K. (2017). Western and Islamic models of higher education in Saudi Arabia and Iran. In D.F. Eickelman & R.M. Abusharaf (Eds.), Higher education investment in the Arab states of the Gulf: Strategies for excellence and diversity (pp. 23–41). Berlin: Gerlach Press. Settie, F.N., & Mabokela, R.O. (2009). Islam and higher education in transitional societies. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Shorish, M. (1988). The Islamic revolution and education in Iran. Comparative Education Review, 32(1), 58–75. Smith, L.T. (2005). Building a research agenda for Indigenous epistemologies and education. Commentary. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 36(1), 93–95. Sobhe, K. (1982). Education in revolution: Is Iran duplicating the Chinese cultural revolution? Comparative Education, 18(3), 271–80. Wiseman, A.W., & Alromi, N.H. (2003). The intersection of traditional and modern institutions in Gulf states: A contextual analysis of educational opportunities and outcomes in Iran and Kuwait. Compare, 3(2), 207–34.

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Part Two

Building “the House of Life”

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Embodying Raven’s Knowledge in Indigenous Teacher Education Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem

Introduction As I write this chapter on the ancestral and unceded lands of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Tsleil-Waututh Indigenous Peoples,1 I think about the Indigenous trickster, Raven. In British Columbia, Canada, trickster characters such as Raven, Coyote, and Mink are featured in traditional Indigenous stories. These tricksters can change shape and form, and usually they get into trouble when they forget or ignore good Indigenous teachings (values and actions). However, they can also do some positive things, and through their actions, whether positive or negative, they challenge and teach us humans to be thoughtful, respectful, responsible, and caring to ourselves, to others, and to our environments. This very short story about Raven and the Sun has guided an Indigenous teacher education program, NITEP— the Native Indian Teacher Education Program,2 which is a bachelor of education degree program for Canadian Indigenous (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) people at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The founders of NITEP were mainly Indigenous teachers. They worked with a non-Indigenous faculty ally to create this program that started in 1974 (More, 2015). This story has been told for many years of using the oral tradition, so no source is cited. During Raven’s travels, it noticed that the world was in darkness. Raven took pity on the people living in darkness and figured that it could help them. Raven had See info about xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam)—https://www.musqueam.bc.ca; Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) http://www.squamish.net; and Tslei​l-Wau​tuth—​https​://tw​natio​n.ca/​our-s​tory/​. The majority of Indigenous nations in British Columbia did not give up their traditional lands; therefore, the term, “unceded” is used to emphasize that point. 2 NITEP has become a name, going beyond an acronym. The terms for Indigenous Peoples in Canada have changed over the years such as Indian, Native Indian, Aboriginal, and Indigenous. The NITEP decision-makers have kept the use of the name NITEP, but in 2017 onwards, refer to NITEP as “UBC’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program.” NITEP is a concurrent bachelor of education degree program only for Canadian Indigenous people. It takes four plus years to complete this program. For program details, see: http://nitep.educ.ubc.ca 1

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Figure 5.1  NITEP Logo (used with permission from NITEP)

heard about the Sun that could spread sunlight. So, Raven went on a journey, found a hole in the sky, and through all of Raven’s cunning and determination captured the Sun, and brought the Sun to the people living in darkness. Raven’s hope was that the people would have better lives.

The NITEP founders asked Philip (Opie) Oppenheim of the Nlaka’pamux First Nations of British Columbia to create a logo using this story (see Figure 5.1). The founders believed that the Sun symbolized the NITEP graduates who could provide good quality education to all students, especially to Indigenous students. Education was viewed as a way to contribute to peoples’ well-being. To appreciate the difficulty and importance of education to fulfill this goal, it is necessary to recognize and understand the legacy of colonization in Canada, the concerted efforts toward decolonization through education, and the movement for Indigenous self-determination through Indigenous knowledge systems. Many stories related to this book’s theme of “bodies of knowledge” and Indigenous discontent and contentment with teacher education courses could be told. In this chapter, I will use personal stories of experience to exemplify how one Indigenous teacher education program, NITEP, created learning opportunities and space for Indigenous knowledge systems to be a central part of a body of knowledge within a faculty of education. The Indigenous Raven gets a turn or two to tell its version of this story throughout this chapter.3 Raven figures that the knowledge of

Raven’s stories will be shown in italics to distinguish the orality of Raven’s perspectives.

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 Embodying Raven’s Knowledge in Indigenous Teacher Education 73 the colonization effects that created a “darkness” for generations of Indigenous people could be a starting point of discontent.

Raven’s View: Colonizing Canada In my Raven journeys throughout the years, I have witnessed the ways that the leadership of the Canadian federal government and churches created a darkness for Canada’s Indigenous peoples through laws, policies, and practices that forbade, denied, or decimated Indigenous cultures, languages, and familial relationships. The darkness that the Indigenous people were living in could symbolize the dislocation of many Indigenous people from their traditional territories through treaties and government actions, the establishment of Indian reserves, the legacy of the Potlatch Law/Ban, the Indian Residential Schools, public schooling and much more (Royal Commission on Indigenous Peoples, RCAP, 1996). I get too depressed and tired just thinking of the years of continuing forms of colonization that Indigenous people have endured. But, it is important to acknowledge and understand the legacy of colonization forced upon Canada’s Indigenous people, and which impact all Canadians today. From contact with non-Indigenous explorers, traders, and missionaries starting in the 15th century, Indigenous peoples’ culture, language, land, and identity in Canada experienced drastic changes (RCAP, 1996). For example, laws such as the Potlatch Ban, 1884-1951 were introduced which prohibited Indigenous people from gathering to practice their culture through ceremony (Cole & Chaikin, 1990). For over 100 years, approximately 150,000 First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children were sent to Indian residential schools across Canada, which had the goal of Christianizing and Civilizing the children by separating them from the influences of their families for much of the year, and from the ages of 6-16 (The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, TRC, 2015). The TRC recorded numerous individual stories of experiences that often included physical, sexual, and emotional abuse. In Canada, the decades of the 1960s-1970s were fraught with federal government political action that attempted to abolish Indigenous peoples’ rights and to continue the government’s assimilationist agenda (Cardinal, 1969). Known as the Sixties Scoop, many Indigenous children were taken away from their families by provincial and federal governments and fostered or adopted to mainly non-Indigenous families, which continued Indigenous family and community disruption and diaspora (RCAP, 1996). Today, Indigenous children are grossly over-represented in children-in-care across Canada.4 I often wonder how Indigenous people were able to survive these continuing colonial assaults. Luckily, there are colonial survivors who have worked very hard to make educational and other changes so that Indigenous peoples’ Annie Turner wrote a report for Statistics Canada in 2016 that examines the data from the 2011 National Household Survey, which indicates that First Nations, Métis, and Inuit children under fourteen years of age constitute 48 percent of the total children in care, even though they represent just 7 percent of this age group across Canada.

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Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education knowledges, cultures, and identities can grow. I have heard of the term, decolonizing, which is what these folks are doing. Jo-ann can talk about this fancy term and how NITEP has addressed it.

Jo-ann Meets Raven In 1980, when I was a K-12 schoolteacher, I met Verna J. Kirkness, a national Indigenous/Cree education leader. She was one of the founding authors of the 1972 Indian Control of Indian Education Policy, which began the self-determination educational movement where Indigenous people and Indigenous knowledge had central roles in education. Verna had also been a schoolteacher and principal, and at that time, one of the few Indigenous people with a master’s education degree in Canada. Verna had recently been appointed to the role of NITEP director, becoming the first Indigenous person to hold this appointment. She asked me to work for NITEP, at the Faculty of Education, UBC. I was very interested because NITEP was a bachelor of education degree program for people of Indigenous ancestry. She wanted to revise NITEP’s Indigenous education courses to make them stronger in Indigenous content and approach. In 1980, I had been teaching in a public school district in Chilliwack, BC, in my home area and completing my master’s degree. That is how I met Raven and how I became a NITEP family member. Besides revising the existing Indigenous education courses, I eventually developed new ones. I then taught these courses at various field center locations in British Columbia. Part of this process included working with other Indigenous instructors who taught these courses. I learned much from the NITEP students whom I taught. In the 1980s, some students had attended the former Indian residential schools where a couple of the NITEP field centers were located. It was hard for the adult students to be in a classroom where they were young school students. They recalled terrible memories of loneliness and physical, sexual, and emotional abuse that they and their family members had experienced. The program offered Elders’ guidance, student and staff support, and counseling options, but most importantly, a safe space in which to share these difficult memories. During the Indigenous Studies courses, the NITEP students often experienced a conscientization of the impact of colonialism, sometimes getting mad because of the policies that prohibited their Indigenous languages to be practiced or feeling despair because they realized the intergenerational effects of years of schooling that took away their Indigenous identity and family closeness. Their anger increased when they realized how colonization continued in their communities and schools. I recall NITEP students coming into the program, with some who knew little about their culture and not thinking it was that important, to moving to anger about the impact of colonization, to eventually finding a way to understand what happened to their parents and grandparents during this dark time of their history, to leaving with a strong sense of who they are as an Indigenous person, and to feeling proud to be associated with the NITEP family network. NITEP provided a wholistic space for its

 Embodying Raven’s Knowledge in Indigenous Teacher Education 75 students to learn (intellectual), to vent and experience their emotions (emotional), to soothe and strengthen their inner spirit (spiritual), and to develop pedagogical plans for their future teaching (physical). At the same time, some students had a strong knowledge base about their Indigenous culture and could speak their Indigenous language. NITEP provided a safe space for them to let this knowledge flourish and for them to share it with others. What I admired most was that the NITEP students were determined to be teachers who would make a difference in the lives of the children whom they would teach. That commitment kept them going and kept bringing them back each year until they completed their bachelor of education. I also experienced a conscientization similar to that of NITEP students during my early days with NITEP.

A Personal Story about Decolonization My realization about the impact of colonial history and educational policies that aimed to assimilate Indigenous students to Western dominant ways, as well as the national Indian Control of Indian Education Policy (1972) that promoted the movement of decolonization and educational self-determination, was sparked when I was hired to develop and revise NITEP’s Indigenous education courses, starting in 1981/2. I had lived these educational goals of assimilation in my public and university education. But, I did not really know their origins or the generational implications of them. I knew that the school curriculum did not include any Indigenous content to which I could relate to or which could make me feel good about being Indigenous. The only high school content that I remember was the “Indian” wars or the “Indian problems” in the society. However, I grew up on a First Nations reservation that was a tight-knit community of a few families. Some family members were fishers, others worked in the logging industry, and some had social problems, but there was a sense of community and extended family caring and support. In the wider Stó:lō community, various annual and seasonal cultural events were practiced. During my university studies, I took anthropology courses as an academic concentration where I learned more about the cultural study of Indigenous peoples in Canada, especially British Columbia, which focused on the past and aspects of material culture. In my teacher education and subsequent master’s and PhD studies programs, Indigenous content was not included as course topics either. For my early NITEP curriculum and course work, I used the very few Indigenous education resources and publications that existed in the early to mid-1980s, such as Harold Cardinal’s provocative Unjust Society written in response to the federal government’s attempt to obliterate Indigenous rights. Verna J. Kirkness led a review of elementary social studies/history texts used in Manitoba schools during the 1970s, The Shocking Truth about Indians (Manitoba Indian Brotherhood, 1974) that contained derogatory examples of stereotypes and racist views toward Indigenous peoples of the past and the present. I also used some archival material about land claims commissions that I had used for my master’s final project. Educational agreements between the federal, provincial, and First Nations governments were also examined.

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What I remember from this course revision experience was that I could not believe (and still have a hard time accepting today) that it was the government and church practices through policy and law that denied Indigenous people their culture and language, separated them from their traditional lands, and also took these lands away. I believed that it was important for NITEP students to engage with this material, from an Indigenous perspective, and to begin asking critical questions about the colonial history and its impact. Luckily for me, Verna Kirkness had ensured that the Indigenous instructors teaching NITEP courses could gather to discuss the course outlines, learning resources, pedagogy, assessments, challenges, and successes. I had a collegial group, which reduced the feelings of isolation that occur when one is teaching in community-based settings. Even though one can talk to the community members, sharing teaching experiences with other instructors who are grappling with similar issues or getting ideas on how to teach certain topics is beneficial. Over the years, this cooperative pedagogical process has continued mainly with the NITEP coordinators who now teach the majority of the Indigenous education courses. Over a forty-fiveyear period, many changes have occurred in these courses; however, there are some similar elements that have remained constant, which will be highlighted next.

NITEP’s Courses The following samples of NITEP’s Indigenous education courses will summarize the course objectives, topics, and assessments:5 EDUC 140, EDUC 141, EDUC 240, EDUC 143, EDUC 244, and EDCP 362. These courses continue to be only for NITEP students and are under the purview of NITEP administration, which means that NITEP is responsible for the academic integrity, quality, instructor selection, and course delivery. EDUC 140, Introduction to Indigenous Studies, objectives include developing students’ understandings of the diversity of Indigenous peoples’ worldviews; the complex nature of cultural identities; the impact of colonial history, policies, and laws that have negatively impacted generations of Indigenous peoples; making connections between colonial history and current issues faced by Indigenous people today; and critical thinking and presentation skills in researching Indigenous topics. Assignments have included oral presentations; writing a paper, book reviews, critique of media stories; exams; developing lesson plans; and online discussion forums and reflections. Over the years, specific topics have changed depending on national and provincial pressing issues such as land claims, Indian residential schools, the Indian Act, the Canadian Constitution, and the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. EDUC 141, Indigenous Studies/A Cultural Study, objectives include enhancing students’ awareness and appreciation of Indigenous peoples of British Columbia and Canada, with an emphasis on Indigenous traditional values, Indigenous knowledge The NITEP course outlines were examined for this purpose: EDUC 140; EDUC 141; EDUC 240; EDUC 143 and 244; EDCI 396/EDCP 362. The earliest course descriptions and outlines were dated 1978. The most recent course information was 2016–17.

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 Embodying Raven’s Knowledge in Indigenous Teacher Education 77 and practices related to education; learning basic research methods for interviewing Elders; and understanding the diverse meanings of culture. Topics include culture and identity; historical and contemporary cultural practices; Indigenous knowledges; representations of Indigenous people’s culture in British Columbia; contemporary expressions of Indigenous youth culture; and learning about Indigenous educational resources. Assignments have included conducting interviews with Elders and community members; a research paper; oral presentations about aspects of Indigenous culture; a lesson plan; the critique and development of Indigenous educational resources; and online discussion forums. EDUC 240, Issues in First Nations Education, objectives include focusing on historical and contemporary perspectives that relate to Indigenous education; selecting, adapting, and developing Indigenous education learning resources; and developing students’ knowledge and understanding about their future roles as Indigenous educators. Topics include the history of Indigenous education; the role of early missionaries and Indigenous residential schools; the Indian Control of Indian Education Policy; various contemporary issues such as urban Indigenous education, media stereotyping of Indigenous youth; and Indigenous language revitalization. The assignments include individual and group oral presentations; written papers, exams, and the development of Indigenous educational resources. EDCP 362, Curriculum Development and Evaluation: An Indigenous Education Focus, objectives include reviewing Indigenous education history with an emphasis on curriculum philosophy and policy; deepening understandings about Indigenous knowledge and how they can shape curriculum; and developing curriculum understandings of Indigenous curricula and programs in K-12 contexts, and current local and provincial Indigenous curricula. Topics include Indigenous educational overview with an emphasis on curriculum philosophy and policy; learning from place; Indigenous knowledge sources; Indigenous community engagement with curriculum; assessment considerations; Indigenous language revitalization; Indigenous education pedagogies; and curricular innovations. Assignments range from case study presentations; to reflection journals; curriculum assessment projects; written papers; and a major curriculum project. EDUC 143, Seminar and Classroom Observation 1, focuses on education in a local school/district context; professional development expectations of teachers; wholistic NITEP approaches to both self-care and education; and understanding basic professional qualities expected of teachers. Students also complete ten days of classroom or education experiences. The provincial professional educators’ standards for certification are also addressed through the course objectives and approaches. Topics of self and profession; group building; education in the local context; and technological competences are addressed. Assignments include in-class activities, journal reflections, lesson plans EDUC 244, Seminar and Classroom Observation 11, focuses on Aboriginal education in the local context. This course addresses similar topics to EDUC 143 but uses Indigenous education as a central lens. The topics include self and profession; Indigenous education in the local context; self as part of the Indigenous education community; and technological competencies. In this course, students examine their

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personal family histories to understand better the intergenerational impact of their families’ educational experiences. More recently, they are asked to consider the meaning of questions such as, “What is a transformative educator?” that may be a thematic organizer for class discussions and activities. They can also learn more about local and provincial Indigenous education curriculum, how they are used, who is working on them, and the challenges to teaching such curriculum.

Discussion After telling a story, it is the listener/readers turn to share their perspectives, questions, and understandings gleaned from the story. Raven gets a turn first. Then lessons learned through the NITEP course experiences are shared. These lessons center on what has created or facilitated students’ learning success and identify key challenges related to student and program success.

Raven’s Pride What makes me feel proud is that the NITEP students learn more about me through their courses. They are introduced to the Raven and Sun story and then they get to appreciate my influence through the wholistic learning approach of this program, which includes the development of their intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual realms as well as understanding the relational impact of their families and communities on their education (see Figure 5.2). Through the course work, the students learn a lot about colonial history and its educational impact; the importance of Indigenous educational policies, practices, and curricula; the emergence of Indigenous self-determination; and the potential success of Indigenous education. They experience emotions such anger, sadness, happiness, and excitement that move them to develop Indigenous learning materials and teaching approaches. Above all else, the NITEP students get to address their spiritual natures in whichever way works for them through the help of Elders, cultural knowledge holders, and heroes such as me through traditional stories. Jo-ann says that maybe NITEP is like the Raven instead of the Sun. I don’t know if I like that idea. But I admit that there are some educational lessons that emerge from decades of discontent, struggle, and action.

NITEP Lessons NITEP, as an Indigenous teacher education exemplar, has an extended family of other Indigenous teacher education programs (ITEPs) across Canada and elsewhere. Many of these ITEPs began during the 1960s and 1980s (RCAP, 1996). In 2016, Archibald and Hare identified nineteen ITEPs across Canada that resulted in a bachelor of education degree. Some of these ITEPs, along with NITEP, have weathered various programmatic and funding challenges and have become stronger over the years (Martineau, Steinhauer, Wimmer, Vergis, & Wolfe, 2015). Still, new ITEPs are emerging

 Embodying Raven’s Knowledge in Indigenous Teacher Education 79

Intellectual Nation

Family

Spiritual

Physical

Community

Students NITEP Profession Emotional Figure 5.2  NITEP Wholistic Model (used with permission from NITEP)

that have specialties such as Indigenous languages (McIvor, Rosborough, McGregor, & Marinakis, 2018). I believe that NITEP and other ITEPs in Canada continue today because of their emphasis on the principles and practice of Indigenous control of Indigenous education; the central role of Indigenous knowledge for students’ learning; and the commitment, cooperation, and continuity that drives these programs. At the same time, the challenges related to funding, systemic racism, and the continuing impact of colonization are always present.

Indigenous Control of Indigenous Education One of the NITEP founders, the late Robert Sterling, attributed NITEP’s success to its Indigeneity: Programs in which Native people have been actively involved in the planning and throughout the developmental phases have shown the greatest success. Among these, our Native Indian Teacher Education Program, NITEP, stands at the forefront of our success. The program is an Indian idea, is Indian-controlled and its philosophy is Indian, although the program falls under the jurisdiction of the University of British Columbia. (Archibald, 1986, p. 33)

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Indigenous leadership, instructors, staff, Elders, and community members involved with NITEP continue to ensure that its programmatic approach and its Indigenous education courses fulfill the Indigenous philosophy and vision that started this program. The foundational principles of the 1972 Indian Control of Indian Education Policy that focused on local control, parental/community responsibility, and the centrality of Indigenous culture-knowledge for learning are still important and present through NITEP courses. Because NITEP is a UBC degree program, there are many parts of the program that are not controlled by NITEP, making it crucial for NITEP faculty and staff to work effectively with others in teacher education by providing Indigenous education awareness and advocacy on an ongoing basis.

Central Role of Indigenous Knowledge The community-based NITEP field centers require a partnership with local Indigenous communities/organizations in which a community representative participates on the NITEP Council that guides the policies of the program, and local Elders and community resource people participate in course learning activities both within the community/ on the land and in the classroom. The diversity of Indigenous knowledges is a strength of the program since NITEP students come from many different Indigenous cultural communities; however, special attention is paid to the local Indigenous culture where the field site is located. Students learn more about their own and about their classmates’ Indigenous culture. Over the duration of the NITEP courses, which constitute an Indigenous education concentration, the students learn many facets of what Indigenous knowledge means and how it can be both content and pedagogy. Students get to question, develop, and strengthen their Indigenous cultural identities through course experiences. They also engage in decolonization/critical questioning in a fairly safe learning space.

Commitment, Cooperation, and Continuity NITEP’s forty-five years of service have depended on a long-term commitment on the part of university leadership to make systemic changes to policy, funding, and curriculum to support it. NITEP’s community-based nature and Indigenous emphasis means that this commitment requires cooperation among university, Indigenous communities/ organizations, other postsecondary institutions, and professional educational associations. Continuity implies that the courses are not “one-off ” special topics courses but are part of the core program requirements and offered each year, with Indigenous instructors. At times a non-Indigenous person, who is also a NITEP coordinator, has given Indigenous educational seminars. Continuity of learning is better when those who teach meet to share their course experiences and engage in cooperative course planning.

Challenges: Funding, Online Instruction, and Systemic Racism Financial limitations such as budget cuts make maintenance of Indigenous community aspects difficult to continue and often these are the first to be reduced.

 Embodying Raven’s Knowledge in Indigenous Teacher Education 81 In addition, much energy and time is spent in rationalizing the value and benefit of community-based field centers and Indigenous courses so that their funding continues. The increased use of online learning has begun to offset budget reductions; however, the interpersonal dynamics among the student group is lessened. Certainly family/cohort relationships and land-based learning cannot be developed solely through online learning. Steinhauer, Ottmann, and Pidgeon completed an external evaluation of NITEP in 2018. In relation to the Indigenous education courses, one of the major challenges that students identified was the recent increase in online course delivery, especially for those who were based at the university’s main campus in Vancouver, British Columbia. These students wanted to have more face-to-face interaction and learning experiences so that they could be with other Indigenous students. Another key issue that some students identified was the unevenness of the quality of teaching that they received through online course delivery. The review recommended that NITEP continue using a blended approach (face to face and online) to course delivery. The reviewers also recommended that instructors be given more professional development and support for online instruction (Steinhauer, Ottman, & Pidgeon, 2018). Another key challenge that the external reviewers identified was the systemic racism. Comments surfaced about NITEP as a program and its courses not being as good as those in a mainstream program. In response, the reviewers presented some recommendations on this issue. Some challenges that NITEP and its students face are the systemic racism and colonial biases that exist within the institution and broader society regarding Indigenousfocused programs and Indigenous peoples. Comments related to addressing this issue included the following: There is a need to understand prejudice and racism; Students need coping strategies to combat racism on and off campus; Teachings of land and identity are important and will act as a buffer to racist acts that students experience; [and] . . . UBC should work at changing the culture and climate to be more welcoming. (Steinhauer, Ottman, & Pidgeon, 2018, p. 21)

Conclusion In 2018–19, NITEP had a student enrollment of about 120 students, which is the program’s highest student enrollment since the 1990s (personal communication, NITEP Office Staff, December 17, 2018). There are four regional field centers, in addition to one on-campus center for years 1 and 2 students who prefer to be at the Vancouver campus, and years 3 and 4 on-campus students. These increased numbers indicate the keen interest from Indigenous students to become teachers through an Indigenous teacher education program. In the past three years, more Indigenous communities have indicated that they want

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to partner with NITEP in the future (personal communication, NITEP Office, December 2018). As I reflect upon the many different Indigenous NITEP student gatherings, which include their cultural traditions and practices that have been held over a forty-five-year period since the program began, I am very appreciative of the many Indigenous people who defied the attempts of the church and government to annihilate Indigenous knowledge, culture, and identity. Somehow, these individuals kept their Indigenous knowledges alive in their hearts, minds, bodies, and spirits so that they could pass this knowledge onto the younger generations. Today, NITEP students are encouraged to learn, practice, and share their Indigenous culture and knowledge with each other and to use this knowledge to guide their teaching approaches. Raven reminds us that NITEP adult learners of today have family members which may be their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles who were denied culturally responsive education. NITEP and Raven still have a lot more work to do.

Raven’s Last Words I am very pleased with these increased NITEP student numbers and interest because it means that I, the Raven, get to influence these potential teachers. However, I also know that there is a lot of work ahead for those who work and study in this Indigenous teacher education program to ensure that the bodies of knowledge in the Indigenous education courses are responsive to Indigenous knowledges, values, and Indigenous communities. I also know that universities engaged in Indigenous teacher education need to continue and to step up their commitment to address the challenges and barriers already mentioned. For universities and faculties of education that have not addressed Indigenous teacher education then they must look at or be prodded by educational associations that have prioritized the need for more Indigenous teachers and the inclusion of Indigenous knowledge, history, and curriculum such as the Association of Canadian Deans of Education6 (2010), Universities Canada’s Principles on Indigenous Education (2015) and the Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (2015). What more will it take?

I think that Raven needs a break. It seems only fitting to conclude this chapter with the thoughts of some NITEP students about the benefits of learning within an Indigenous program, its Indigenous courses, and other Indigenous programmatic aspects. An early research project that conducted a follow-up with Indigenous graduates from NITEP

The Association of Canadian Deans of Education, “Accord on Indigenous Education” (2010) emphasized priorities such as including Indigenous knowledge, history, and values with Faculty of Education undergraduate and graduate programs. The Accord recommended partnerships with Indigenous communities/organizations to increase the numbers of Indigenous teachers, and that all teacher candidates learn about Indigenous ways of knowing.

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 Embodying Raven’s Knowledge in Indigenous Teacher Education 83 about their perspectives on its strengths and challenges summed up this person’s experiences metaphorically: [Before UBC ] I was curled up, not feeling too good about who I was . . . also I didn’t quite feel I knew who I was . . . and after attending the NITEP program . . . and working . . . it was . . . like . . . the rose has bloomed . . . that’s what it was like for me7. (Archibald et al., 1995, p. 73)

Renee Diemert, a Métis/Cree from Saskatchewan, and a 2004 NITEP alumna, has taught in public schools for over a decade. She is currently enrolled in a PhD program. Renee recalled NITEP’s influence upon her: I chose NITEP because my grandma attended residential school and was taken from her family and unable to receive the love and nurturing ways of her family that she deserved. She grew up feeling ashamed of her culture and not proud of who she was. I always felt driven to bring back First Nations history and culture from an Aboriginal perspective into the mainstream public education system . . . [through NITEP] I learned a lot about my own history and culture as well as about the history of First Nations education across Canada . . . I was very inspired by my NITEP instructors. . . . I felt supported and mentored through my entire [program]. Attending NITEP is a life-changing process. It opens up many doors and provides you with the skills and strength to walk through those open doors. (NITEP Newsletter, 2014, p. 15)

A third year NITEP student, Stephen Jolly, Cree First Nation from Northern Quebec contrasted his experience at UBC between NITEP and his other arts courses taken from another faculty: The experience that I get at NITEP, it almost feels like I’m at a small college. We have the Longhouse [at UBC] and we’re taking courses together and engaging frequently in other ways. Even though UBC is a large institution, and some students might say that you’re just a number, at NITEP I don’t feel like I’m just a number. The staff and faculty are familiar with me and treat me well, they don’t treat me like I’m just a number. There’s a community and personal feel that you don’t get in other programs. (NITEP Student Stories, http:​//nit​ep.ed​uc.ub​c.ca/​ stude​nt-st​ories​-meet​-step​hen-j​olly/​)

ITEPs, such as NITEP, that have substantial decision-making and oversight by Indigenous faculty, staff, and community have embodied Indigenous knowledge and teachings in their programmatic structure and in the Indigenous core courses. The journey to do so has been filled with challenges that continue. At the same time, NITEP’s experiences are filled with successful learning approaches that enable NITEP students and alumni to decide whether they are the Sun or the Raven or both. This research project guaranteed participants’ anonymity so no name is given here.

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References Archibald, J. (1986). Completing a vision: The Native Indian Teacher Education Program at the University of British Columbia. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 13(1), 33–46. Archibald, J. (2015), A Raven’s story: Leadership teachings for an Indigenous teacher education program. In D. Aguilera-Black Bear & J. Tippeconnic III (Eds.), Voices of resistance and renewal: Indigenous leadership in education (pp. 76–98). Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. Archibald, J., & Hare, J. (in press). Thunderbird is rising: Indigenizing education in Canada. Manitoba: University of Manitoba Press. Archibald, J., & LaRochelle, J. (2018). Raven’s response to teacher education: NITEP, an Indigenous story. In P. Whitinui, M. Rodriguez de France, & O. McIvor (Eds.), Promising practices in Indigenous teacher education (pp. 207–20). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. Archibald, J., Bowman, S., Pepper, F., Urion, C., Mirehouse, G., & Shortt, R. (1995). Honoring what they say: Postsecondary experiences of First Nations graduates. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 21(1): 1–247. Association of Canadian Deans of Education. (2010). Accord on Indigenous education. Retrieved from http:​//css​e-sce​e.ca/​acde/​wp-co​ntent​/uplo​ads/s​ites/​7/201​7/08/​Accor​don-​Indig​enous​-Educ​ation​.pdf Cardinal, H. (1969). The unjust society. Vancouver BC: Douglas & McIntyre. Cole, D., & Chaikin, I. (1990). An iron hand upon the people: The law against the Potlatch in the Northwest Coast. Vancouver: Douglas & McIntyre. Manitoba Indian Brotherhood. (1974). The shocking truth about Indians in textbooks: Textbook evaluation. Winnipeg: Manitoba Indian Brotherhood. Martineau. C., Steinhauer, E., Wimmer, R., Vergis, E., & Wolfe, A. (2015). Alberta’s Aboriginal teacher education program: A little garden where students blossom. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 38(1), 121–48. McIvor, O., Rosborough, T., McGregor, C., & Marinakis, A. (2018). Lighting a fire: Community-based delivery of a university Indigenous-language teacher education program. In P. Whitinui, M. Rodriguez de France, & O. McIvor (Eds.), Promising practices in Indigenous teacher education (pp. 189–203). Singapore: Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. More, A. (2015). Building NITEP: The Native Indian teacher education program at the University of British Columbia, 1969–1974. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 38(1): 21–38. National Indian Brotherhood. (1972). Indian control of Indian education. Policy paper presented to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. Ottawa: National Indian Brotherhood. Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP). (1978–2017). Course outlines, EDUC 140, EDUC 141, EDUC 240, EDUC 143/244; EDCP 362/EDCI 396. Vancouver, BC: NITEP NITEP. (2014). NITEP News. UBC’s Indigenous Teacher Education Program. 40th Anniversary Edition 1974-2014. Winter 2014. Issue 40: 15. Available online: https​://ni​tep-e​duc.s​ites.​olt.u​bc.ca​/file​s/201​4/12/​Issue​40-20​14-Wi​nter-​NITEP​-News​.pdf (accessed 29 December 2019).

 Embodying Raven’s Knowledge in Indigenous Teacher Education 85 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP). (1996). Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Volume 3: Gathering strength. Ottawa: Canada Communications Group. Steinhauer, E., Ottmann, J., & Pidgeon, M. (2018). NITEP: Indigenous education should be everyone’s responsibility. External Review Report. Vancouver: UBC Faculty of Education. Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future: Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. Available online: http:​//nct​r.ca/​asset​s/rep​orts/​Final​%20Re​ ports​/Exec​utive​_Summ​ary_E​nglis​h_Web​.pdf (accessed December 29, 2019). Turner, A. (2016). Insights on Canadian society. Living arrangements of Aboriginal children aged 14 and under. (Catalogue number 75-006-X). Retrieved June 12, 2019 from Statistics Canada. Available at https​://ww​w150.​statc​an.gc​.ca/n​1/en/​pub/7​5-006​-x/20​ 16001​/arti​cle/1​4547-​eng.p​df?st​=WsoQ​EdbF Universities Canada. (2015). Universities Canada principles on Indigenous education. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.uni​vcan.​ca/me​dia-r​oom/m​edia-​relea​ses/u​niver​sitie​s-can​ ada-p​rinci​ples-​on-in​digen​ous-e​ducat​ion/

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Leçons de Ténèbres Colonialism and Political Struggles over Teacher Education among Palestinians André Elias Mazawi1

Introduction The struggles over teacher education among Palestinians have long and complex histories, yet to be written, particularly following the 1948 war that saw the establishment of the State of Israel over the ruins of Palestinian society. Known as the year of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, 1948 references more than 700,000 refugees out of a population of about 1.4 million Palestinian Arabs. This shattering event was followed by the destruction of more than 400 Palestinian villages, land dispossession and expropriation, and the displacement of Palestinians living, since then, stateless, under different regimes, and in refugee camps across the Middle East (Sa’di & AbuLughod, 2007; Masalha, 2012; Abdo & Masalha, 2019).2 From the early twentieth century onward, the number of teachers grew dramatically in Palestinian society despite persisting colonialism. From roughly a thousand teachers at the end of the First World War (1918)—the majority employed in Christian I am very grateful to Rosemary Sayigh, Elia Zureik, Ahmad H. Sa’di, Michelle Stack, and Hartej Gill for their critical readings and constructive feedback on earlier drafts. I am also grateful for reprints and clarifications provided by Nader Wahbeh. Responsibility for the contents is exclusively mine. 2 In the 2017–18 period, the majority of Palestinians in the Middle East, 9.6 million, lived in the following regions: within the State of Israel (almost 1.6 million Palestinian inhabitants, or 18.2 percent of the total Israeli population, excluding occupied East Jerusalem); under Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (almost 4.8 million inhabitants, 42 percent of whom are classified as refugees, including those living in twenty-seven UNRWA-managed refugee camps); and in thirty-four UNRWA-managed refugee camps across Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon (almost 3.2 million registered refugees). Throughout the chapter, unless otherwise indicated, cited demographic and teacher-related figures were downloaded from each of the respective websites of the Central Bureau of Statistics of the State of Israel and that of the State of Palestine . Statistics on Palestinian refugees were obtained from the website of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Middle East, aka UNRWA . For a timeline of historical events pertaining to the colonization of Palestine, refer to . 1

 Leçons de Ténèbres 87 congregational schools (Tibawi, 1956, pp. 271–72)—teachers emerged into the largest single professional group by the mid-twentieth century. By 2016, 92,639 teachers were employed in schools that served Palestinians, both in the State of Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (roughly, 40 percent and 60 percent, respectively). Teachers employed in “government schools” represent the largest subgroup among Palestinian teachers. From being a tiny minority in the early twentieth century, by 2016, women represented 65.2 percent of all teachers in Palestinian-serving schools (70.1 percent in Israel and 61.4 percent in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip). While Palestinian teachers are known to resist a teacher education that has remained colonized and colonizing, they have shown, as they still do, a consistent interest in promoting a self-determining teacher education. The political involvement of Palestinian teachers did not abate, even under the most adverse conditions of political subjugation, when teacher unions were forbidden and their operation hindered, under either British colonial rule or Israeli occupation (Al-Mhissen, 2015). In this chapter, I do not intend to discuss specific teacher education institutions, programs, or syllabi and their role in the education and training of Palestinian teacher candidates. The extant literature on teacher education among Palestinians, in Israel (Abu-Saad, 2018; Sa’di, 2014; Jabareen & Agbaria, 2014) and in the Israelioccupied West Bank and Gaza Strip (Shinn, 2012; Khaldi & Wahbeh, 2002), shows that teacher education institutions are colonized by agendas that aim to subdue teachers, both as labor force, and as practitioners who are well versed in resistance. Instead, I have opted to focus on the multifaceted involvement of social movements and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and their role in promoting alternative conceptions of teacher education. Over the decades, Palestinians have created a network of organizations, and designed alternative curricula and course syllabi to those introduced by the powers that are. However, the involvement of social movements and NGOs represents a double-edged sword of sorts. While they seek to promote a responsive teacher education as part of an anti-colonial struggle, by the same token, some run the risk of becoming hostage to priorities dictated by external funders. The implications of the above reviewed processes stand at the center of this chapter’s reflections on teacher education among Palestinians within what is currently known as Israel, and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.3 Notwithstanding, I cannot detach the reflections I offer on the matter from my lived experiences, as a Palestinian involved in teaching and teacher education. Before emigrating to Canada, I worked (at different points in time) as a French language teacher in a public and a church school; as an instructor in a teacher education institution for Palestinian Arab teachers within Israel; as a tenure-track/tenured faculty member in a school of education at an Israeli university; as an adjunct For reasons of space and focus, in the present chapter I do not discuss teacher education in diasporic and refugee Palestinian communities in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. Nor do I discuss UNRWA’s engagement with teacher education across the Middle East and the extent to which it has been contested by different Palestinian social and political movements and groups. These contexts will be discussed in a forthcoming study.

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professor of a sociology of education seminar in a Palestinian university in the West Bank; and as a member affiliated with a Palestinian institution dedicated to teacher research and development in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. These experiences—roughly stretching from the early 1980s to the early 2000s—were akin to moving between and betwixt fragmented and enclaved teacher education spaces, each subjected to different histories, modes of governance, and political contingencies. Distinctive curricula were laid out within each of these contexts, each characterized by its regulative frameworks, labor conditions, value emphases, and professional subjectivities. Teachers and instructors working in each of these settings originated from different teacher education institutions, based on different pedagogies, teaching methods, and professional orientations. While this complex web of educational settings may be perceived by some as accommodating a wide range of lived experiences, I argue that in the different geographic contexts in which Palestinians live, teacher education is still a major space of struggle over self-determination and emancipation. It remains equally true that, throughout their recent history, Palestinians have lacked control over teacher education. Teacher education curricula remain under the purview of the powers to which Palestinians are subjected, whether colonial, geopolitical, or ideological. The struggles over teacher education transcend the narrow questions pertaining to curricular and course syllabi contents. Rather, since the late nineteenth century, these struggles have witnessed considerable initiatives, experimentations, and resistances in an effort to institute alternative modalities of teacher education to those offered by the powers that are, as part of an agenda of social and, later on, national emancipation. By positioning the struggles over teacher education in Palestinian society in relation to anti-colonial struggles, my aim in this chapter is to critique the subjugating, reductionist, and technicized “professional” discourses that currently affect Palestinian teachers and their well-being. Current reform discourses obliterate the Palestinians’ multifaceted and long-standing engagement with, and struggles over, teacher education and professional development over the past century. They emphasize certifiable practices, skills, beliefs, and orientations, grounded in neoliberal assumptions and “globalized discourses” on academic knowledge and professional standards, disseminated by international organizations, and controlled by the Global North. These often fuel violent conflict that accentuates the precariousness of the teaching profession in Global South societies, in terms of teacher recruitment, remuneration, and teacher education (Tsehaye, 2015). At the same time, these discourses do not consider the conditions of political freedom and justice that must prevail in order for teachers to make sense of what it means to teach in relation to a “normative core that gives meaning to this activity” (Tardif, 2014, p. 23). Henry Giroux (1988) observed that educational institutions are not “removed from the dynamics of politics and power.” They are involved in struggles over “what forms of authority, types of knowledge, forms of moral regulation, and versions of the past and future should be legitimated and passed to students” (p. 126). I argue that such an involvement is even more significant within the context of anti-colonial struggles.

 Leçons de Ténèbres 89 In a colonial context, the encounter between the forms of teacher education imposed by the colonial power and the effective vernacular (context-specific) performance of the colonized teacher, within and outside classrooms and schools, is always already fraught with entrenched antagonisms. In the case of Palestinian society, I further argue, these antagonisms displace the emphases of teacher education from its formally mandated articulations, imposed by the colonial state, into coded “hidden transcripts” (Scott, 1990) through which a teacher judges how best to enact their role as a socially and politically aware social actor. While the protagonists (colonizer and colonized) involved in a colonial encounter might formally agree on the articulations of teacher education and the professional knowledge necessary for the preparation of a good and effective teacher, they are most likely to fundamentally disagree over the social and political ends for which this knowledge should be mobilized and how it should be applied. Hence, in colonial contexts, the struggles over teacher education are not necessarily or exclusively located within teacher education institutions, their curricula, and course syllabi. They rather involve a larger web of participatory modalities and spaces that extend into social and political movements and organizations located outside teacher education institutions. These struggles operate at the interface of the “hidden transcripts” of institutional “infrapolitics” and resistance (Scott, 1990, 1998) within teacher education institutions. In addition, these struggles involve the participation of social movements and groups, located outside of teacher education institutions within the colonized society. Seeking to challenge the formal articulations of teacher’s role, these social movements and groups devise alternative platforms that inform the teacher’s role in ways that resonate with the struggle for emancipation and self-determination. Few studies have attempted to examine these processes in struggles for self-determination and what roles do social movements and NGOs play in that regard.

Why Focus on the Contexts in Which Palestinians Live? Central to this chapter stands the argument that teacher education, its contents, and the professional development of teachers represent salient spaces in the colonial subjugation of Palestinian society. Teacher education and professional development are marked by complex archaeologies of entrenched violence, dispossession, and oppression, which continue to affect the lived experiences and well-being of teachers and their approaches to teaching (Mazawi, 1994; Sultana, 2006; Akesson, 2015; Qaimari, 2016; Veronese, Pepe, Dagdukee, & Yaghi, 2018). The emergence and expansion of teacher education in Palestinian society evolved over the backdrop of the colonial adversities that continue to affect Palestinian society from the late nineteenth century onward, following its encounter with the Zionist colonization of Palestine and its subsequent articulations under British colonial rule (1917–48). The emergence of the State of Israel in 1948, and its (ongoing) 1967 occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip following almost two decades of Jordanian and Egyptian rule, brought the entire area of Palestine, once ruled by Britain, and all the educational systems that serve Palestinians, fully under Israeli colonial control. In his book, Israel’s Colonial Project in

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Palestine: Brutal Pursuit, Elia Zureik (2016) observes, “The Zionist project can be best described as a cumulative, colonial enterprise that has continued unabated since its inception” (p. 59) in the late nineteenth century. He further notes that “British-Zionist collusion,” as manifest in the Balfour Declaration of 1917,4 the Zionist settlement of Palestine, and the subsequent are underpinned by “a focus on effecting population management and territorial control so as to ensure perpetual Jewish dominance in historical Palestine” (p. 89). This backdrop offers a particularly compelling context to examine Palestinian struggles over teacher education under various articulations of colonialism over an extended period of time. This chapter focuses on teacher education in Palestinian society within the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip and within the State of Israel, respectively: Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip remain stateless. They are deprived of an established, sovereign, and legitimate form of government. Subject to Jordanian (West Bank) and Egyptian (Gaza Strip) rules, they have remained under Israeli military law since June 1967. The establishment of a Palestinian Authority in 1994 followed the eruption of a generalized uprising against Israeli occupation in December 1987 (first Intifada) that led to the signing of accords in 1993 and 1995 (Oslo I and II) between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Mandated with limited authority over parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Authority was not intended to serve more than an “interim self-government,” “for a transitional period not exceeding five years,” pending the conclusion of a permanent settlement between Israel and the PLO, “based on [United Nations] Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338.” Yet, with the collapse of the interim agreements by the early 2000s, the de facto continued operation of the Palestinian Authority—“born enslaved” to the “matrix of control” imposed by Israel and the United States (alMadbouh, 2017, pp. 81–82)—meant that Palestinians were left stranded. They oscillate between continued statelessness and an Israeli colonialism that has become, since then, animated with renewed political and military vigor and determination, tampering with the cornerstones required for a viable, stable, and legitimate Palestinian government to emerge.5 What does it mean for a Palestinian teacher in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to be trained/educated under such a political order and the forms of violence within which it operates? What prospects and meanings does teacher education and professional development have under these social and political conditions? The legal status of Palestinians living within Israel differs only in degree when compared to that of Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Despite their Israeli citizenship, the former are openly treated as “second-class citizens,” among other in the field of education and schooling (Coursen-Neff, 2004; Sa’di, 2014). Arthur Balfour, then British foreign secretary, acting on behalf of the British government, issued a declaration to the Zionist movement, on November 2, 1917, which viewed “with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” Thus, the 1917 British military occupation of, and colonial projects in, Palestine predate the establishment of a League of Nations as a “mandatory” government in 1922, which legitimized British occupation and rule over Palestine until 1948. 5 For this reason, throughout this chapter, I refer to the West Bank and Gaza Strip as still Israelioccupied territories, despite the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994. 4

 Leçons de Ténèbres 91 They remain marginalized at all levels of policy making and enactment. Their citizenship is rendered “hollow” by a combination of entrenched discriminatory laws, policies, and practices (Jamal, 2007). The adoption of a Basic Law in 2018, that confers the right of self-determination, not to all Israeli citizens equally, but only to those deemed Jewish, marginalizes their political status further and deprives them of full and equal rights as citizens.6 Under such conditions, what does it mean for Palestinian teachers within Israel to be employed in an “ethnocratic” (Yiftachel, 2006) political system that upholds their civic, political, social, and cultural subordination, both de jure and de facto? In August of 2019, this question acquired a particularly pertinent political and pedagogic twist following a directive issued by the far-right Israeli minister of education. The minister instructed that The Basic Law: Israel–the Nation-State of the Jewish People, voted in the summer of 2018 (see footnote 6), must be taught as part of the civic education curriculum in all secondary schools, including those serving Palestinians. For the minister, “The law demonstrates our historical right as a sovereign nation and constitutes a legal basis for the State of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, and it is appropriate that it be taught in the education system.” In practical terms, this ministerial directive means that teachers in secondary schools serving Palestinians are expected to faithfully “teach” their students that they hold a subordinate civic status within a state which is not and cannot be theirs. One can also surmise that secondary school students will be failed in their high school matriculation exam in civics if they do not provide this answer in an examination that refers to this law. The cumulative impacts of these long-standing and intensifying policies of marginalization and subordination on Palestinian teachers’ professional identities and wellness are overwhelming. Both in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Palestinian teachers work under extremely stressful and professionally debilitating conditions. Guido Veronese, Alessandro Pepe, Jamal Dagdukee, and Shaher Yaghi (2018) concluded their study on Palestinian teachers in Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip by noting that, in both contexts, Palestinian teachers feel excluded from decision-making processes both inside and outside of schools, as well as limited in their professional development due to widespread and institutionalized racism, repression, and persecution. . . . The In July 2018, a Basic Law entitled “Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People,” was voted and promulgated by the Israeli parliament. It stipulates that the “exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish People.” As such, this right is not applicable to the collective of all Israeli citizens who would or could determine what the state stands for and what ought to be its identity and politics, for instance, via elections. This legislation enacts, ipso facto, two categories of citizenship with regard to the right of “national self-determination,” distinguishing between citizens who would be allowed to participate and have a say in determining the state’s identity and those citizens forbidden and excluded from doing so, effectively erecting in Israel an ethnocratic hierarchy of political rights and duties. Under this Basic Law, calling for the State to be a “state of all its citizens,” or observing that the state belongs to all its citizens equally, let alone being active to that end, would be deemed illegal and subversive. Refer, for instance, to clauses 1(b) and 1(c) in the “unofficial” English text, Basic Law: Israel the Nation State of the Jewish People on the parliament’s official website < https​://kn​esset​.gov.​il/la​ws/sp​ecial​/eng/​Basic​LawNa​tionS​tate.​ pdf>.​See also the legal texts and commentaries compiled by Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel ​.

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Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education absence of adequate democratic representation enabling them to contribute to changing institutional policies heightens teachers’ sense of marginalization. (p. 24)

How do these contextual dynamics shape the struggles over the scope and breadth of teacher education and over what it means to be a teacher in Palestinian society, whether under a hollowed citizenship regime in Israel, or under military regime in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip? How does this existential predicament of Palestinian teachers inform the articulation of vernacular approaches to teacher education within Palestinian society? Avoiding or circumventing these questions—as has been the case of many studies to date—means locking the education of Palestinian teachers, including in teacher education programs, into irremediably formalist, ritualistic, and prescriptive behavioral frameworks, disconnected from the lived colonial experiences of Palestinians, and emptied from the emancipatory potentialities that critical and anti-racist education emphasize. Unlocking the vernacular configurations that inform what it means to be educated as a teacher in Palestinian society is a necessary, though definitely not sufficient condition for the articulation of emancipatory approaches to teacher education in a society that remains captive of an encompassing colonization.

Chasms The chasms between rhetoric and practice in curricula and syllabi are endemic to teacher education in Palestinian society. How a teacher education instructor “travels” between the different forms of power, and the incommensurable worlds of words they seek to uphold in the classroom, lies at the core of the troubled political history of education experienced by Palestinians. Ever since the first attempts to design Palestinian curricula and syllabi, in the early twentieth century, Palestinian teacher educators have been—and continue to be—confronted with the constraining contingencies imposed by the powers that are. Notwithstanding these contingencies, as we will see, leading Palestinian educators have had a remarkable engagement and experimentation with principles of progressive education from the early years of the twentieth century onward, well before British colonial rule over Palestine took place. This enthusiastic engagement with a “modernist” vision of education—as Tibawi (1979, p. 108) observed—prevailed across the Middle East, not just in British-ruled Palestine from 1917 onward. It was perhaps captured best by two seminal bodies of work: that of the Ottoman-Syrian educationist and Arab nationalist Sāti’ al-Husri (1880–1968) (Cleveland, 2015) and of the Lebanese-Egyptian and British educated George Antonius (1892–1942) in his 1938 classic, The Awakening of the Arabs: The Story of the National Arab Movement. Such a modernist vision sought to revive the heydays of Arab culture and science along the lines of nation building, emancipation, and decolonization, proposing a new ideal of citizenship and society. The design and introduction of curricula and syllabi that encompass subject matters beyond religious studies, as was generally the case in the traditional mosque-attached kuttab or madrasa in Palestinian society, can be traced back to individual initiatives. As an example, in 1906, Sheikh Muhammad Suleiman al-Salih (died 1940) of Jerusalem,

 Leçons de Ténèbres 93 founded the Rawdat al-ma’arif al-wataniya (“National [or patriotic] Garden of Knowledge”), to which Kamal Boullata (2009) refers as the “first Islamic school that developed a modern curriculum” (p. 73). In 1909, Khalil al-Sakakini (1878–1953), influential educator and advocate of progressive education, founded Al-Madrasa Al-Dusturiya or “constitutional school” in Jerusalem. Declared open to students from different religious denominations, the school’s curricula were grounded in the spirit of progressive education, inspired by the values of Enlightenment and progress and of the 1908 Ottoman constitutional reforms. This said, it was not until the second decade of the twentieth century, following the occupation and colonization of Palestine by the British starting from 1917, that the first postsecondary institutions of higher learning emerged within the Palestinian society. These were “teacher training” institutions, such as the Arab College of Jerusalem, the highest learning institution in the land available to Palestinians, launched by the British colonial government in March 1918, known until 1927 as the Men’s Teachers Training College (Nijm, 2007). Subsequently, teachers’ training institutions were gradually extended by the British colonial administration in Palestine, during the 1920s and 1930s, mainly in urban areas and for men, and much less in rural areas (villages), and even less so for girls who made it into secondary education. Ela Greenberg (2004) notes that “girls’ education was not a high priority for the British Mandate” in Palestine (p. 4). She further notes: The only public secondary school for girls was the Women’s Teachers’ College, which accepted a small number of pupils each year. The British repeatedly claimed that they could not expand girls’ education because of the lack of Muslim female teachers. When the number of Muslim women entering the profession increased, the British were unable to increase the number of available posts because of budgetary considerations. . . . Top pupils in village schools were invited to attend the Women’s Rural Teachers’ Training Center in Ramallah, where they studied elementary-school subjects in addition to simple pedagogy, domestic science, and agricultural skills. Its opening in 1935, seventeen years after the establishment of the Department of Education, also manifests the sluggish speed of the British in expanding girls’ education in the villages. (Greenberg, 2004, p. 4)

Thus, British colonial policies regarding teacher education reproduced, if not amplified, differential geographic, social class, and gender access patterns to teacher education in Palestinian society. While the official colonial rhetoric exuberantly emphasized the need to offer adapted and relevant forms of knowledge to teachers trained for rural areas, as part of “rural reconstruction,” the actual funding and implementation was fraught with contradictions and disregard (Tibawi, 1956). This policy attitude stood in stark contradiction with the significance Palestinian rural communities attributed to schooling and education and the eagerness with which they often acted on that attribution. In her extensive archival study, Government and Society in Rural Palestine, 1920–1948, Ylana Miller (1985) observed that, during the 1930s and 1940s, till the very end of British rule, many Palestinian village communities, which lacked a government school, funded on their own account the hiring of teachers, the building of school premises, including the provision of the school’s furniture (p. 186, fn. 22).

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Teacher education in the main cities, such as Jaffa and Jerusalem, differed radically. The colonial government modeled the Arab College of Jerusalem along the lines of established British colleges (such as Eaton) reflecting, in the view of Samir Hajj (2017), Rudyard Kipling’s notion of the “‘White Man’s Burden,’ that the white European man has an important mission in the dissemination of culture and education to other races” (p. 28). Hajj (2017) notes that the college’s curricula and syllabi were “saturated with English culture” (p. 24). Moreover, curricula and syllabi used in other British colonies, such as in India, Pakistan, and Egypt, were drawn upon to design the college’s program of study along British colonial traditions. Hajj cites a sample of examination questions, part of the Final Examination for the Palestine Diploma, one of the three degrees for which the college prepared future teachers: Question no. 4: What is the difference between the critical theories of Matthew Arnold, Hazlitt, and Lamb? Question no. 5: Is it possible to claim that Shelley is the main lyricist today? Question no. 7: What are the innovative aspects in the novels of Scott? Question no. 9: Write a critical description of the short poetic works of Browning. (Final Examination for the Palestine Diploma, July 1932. As cited in Hajj, 2017, p. 33)

Entangled in questions of colonial power, imperial culture, and the imposition of particular notions of modernity, British colonial policies enacted teacher education as a conduit of subordination, both internal and external. Urban teacher education in Palestine was evaluated by the colonial center, along a division of labor that distinguished between those who taught (e.g., in Jerusalem) and those who were entrusted with the upholding of professional orthodoxy and its endorsement.7 Rural-urban differences added their intra-social problematics, in a society undergoing intense urbanization. The positioning of the local in relation to the colonial center, and the imposition of the latter as the norm to be followed by those colonized, raised many concerns among Palestinian educators. Abdul Latif Tibawi (1910–81), one of a few Palestinians to serve in a senior position in the Ministry of Education of the British colonial administration in Palestine, observed: Arab dissatisfaction with the system [of education] was vociferous on many counts. . . . The school syllabus never satisfied Arab thinkers, not because of its modernism, which was here as elsewhere in Arab lands taken for granted, but because in content and tone it had too little Arab and Muslim character. This was The educational system that served the majority of the land’s inhabitants—Palestinian Arabs— was the only educational system fully under the control of the colonial government in Palestine, including the Arab College of Jerusalem. Other systems, whether the Zionist schools or the schools run by Christian religious congregations, were subject to a different legal arrangement, by virtue of which these systems maintained, throughout the colonial period, a wide-ranging autonomy over their governance, including curricula and teacher appointments. Under British colonial rule, the Zionist movement not just maintained the full autonomy of its K-12 school systems. It was further supported in the founding of a full-fledged university—the Hebrew University of Jerusalem with the official opening ceremony (1925) being honored with the visit of Arthur Balfour, then British foreign secretary and the signatory on the document known as the Balfour Declaration.

7

 Leçons de Ténèbres 95 particularly directed to the history syllabus which was beyond the average village and small town school teacher. How could he teach anything of value about the Greeks if he could not even pronounce Themistocles listed in the syllabus? Was it not more profitable and practical for those with his qualifications to concentrate on Arab and Muslim names? (Tibawi, 1979, p. 108)

Palestinian teacher educators, teachers, and teacher candidates dissented against British colonial curricula for Palestinian schools. They argued, for instance, as did Dr. Khalil Totah (1932), that “the general policy of the Government education is to bring up a generation which is to be docile and subservient to imperialism and its chief attendant evil, Zionism” (p. 162). Teacher education institutions, such as the Arab College of Jerusalem, saw their faculty and students committed to progressive education, entangled as it was with an ardent anti-colonial struggle for Palestinian sovereignty and nationhood.8 Engagement with the works of John Dewey and Edward Thorndike, to name just two among many, has been significant and consistent throughout the years of British colonial rule. A cursory review of books, textbooks, manuscripts, and syllabi written by Palestinian teacher educators, philosophers, and scientists during that period unearths an impressive compilation of translated works, the introduction of new educational ideas and teaching practices, and the publication of innovative and groundbreaking titles.9 True, teacher educators were affiliated to established and Western-educated Khalil Al-Sakakini (1878–1953) was the first director of the Arab College of Jerusalem, in 1919. Dr. Khalil ‘Abdallah Totah (1886–1955) served as its second director (Davis, 2003; Hajj, 2017). While the college was perceived as an elitist institution, limited to the intake of students in their majority from urban background, it was followed with the founding of a women’s teacher education institution. Early on during the British colonial rule it became identified as a hotbed of Palestinian Arab national activism. The departures of its first two directors underscored the difficulty of reconciling Arab national aspirations with the colonial government’s expectations of its Indigenous Palestinian Arab employees. Rochelle Davis (2003) points out that in submitting his resignation, Al-Sakakini “did not see himself as merely a figurehead of the college and sub-ordinate to the British Department of Education, but instead actively promoted his own agenda for education” (p. 193). The college was also paralyzed by anti-British demonstrations in 1925, leading to the departure of its second director, Dr. Totah, who had opposed strikes in which faculty and students participated (Ricks, 2008). 9 A comprehensive compilation of such books, textbooks, and syllabi lies well beyond the scope of the present chapter, though such a compilation and archives would offer invaluable materials for the study of Palestinian education and intellectual life. The examples listed in this footnote are exclusively illustrative and necessarily incomplete. For instance, Khalil Beydas (1874– 1949), educated in a Russian school in Palestine, was a leading magazine editor and author of several educational books, including reading textbooks. Khalil Sakakini (1878–1953), already mentioned above on p. 93, founded Al-Nahdhah (Renaissance) school in 1938 along the lines of progressive education. Ahmad Samih Al-Khalidi (1896–1951) introduced the works of leading British educators in the fields of educational administration and teaching methods (Classroom Management, Jerusalem, 1938, in Arabic). He undertook a comparative study of teaching methods (published in 1934) and a comparative study of school systems in different national settings (two volumes published in 1933 and 1935, respectively). He translated and introduced numerous works in the field of education, psychology, and philosophy, in addition to editing old Arabic manuscripts. Thabet Al-Khaldi authored a textbook for the teaching of chemistry. Wasfi ‘Anabtawi authored textbooks for the teaching of geography. Salim Kattoul and ‘Ali Rasheed Sha’th, at different points in time principals of Al-Amiriyeh school in Jaffa, each authored a number of textbooks in the sciences. Kadri Hafez Tukan, principal of Al-Najah (Success) school in Nablus, published works in mathematics. The American-educated Dr. Khalil Totah, principal of the Friends school in Ramallah, 8

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urban social classes, often located in Jerusalem and Jaffa. Nonetheless, their activities bear witness to the importance schooling had in their view as the political confrontation between Palestinians and the Zionist movement escalated. Their publications reflect a thriving field of educational thought within Palestinian society and the consolidation of a Palestinian national identity. That said, within the context of a colonial British administration, the impact of this social class remained relatively limited, despite prominent positions some of its members held. All powers remained firmly in the hands of heads of departments, chairs of curriculum approval committees, and British state officials. They had the final say over matters of curriculum and educational policies, frequently with little input or participation on the part of Palestinian Arab educators (see, for example, Tibawi, 1956, 1979; Nijm, 2007). The intensification of the political conflict between Palestinian Arabs and the Zionist movement’s settlement of Palestine prompted many school teachers to join militant and guerrilla groups. Tibawi (1956) noted that during the Arab uprising of 1936–39 “there was no power capable of controlling all [the teachers’] activities all the time in this sphere of their work. While conforming to the letter of the officially published syllabus, they lost no opportunity to give it a national spirit which is theirs.” Arrested for sedition, many teachers “were kept in detention camps,” while others were fired, transferred to other schools, or penalized in different ways (pp. 197–99). The Nakba (1948) abruptly brought an end to half a century of Palestinian Arab engagement with progressive education and the national aspirations that were associated with a modernist vision of education and schooling. The Nakba signaled the collapse, if not the abrogation, of efforts at nation building promoted as part of the consolidation of the political power of professional urban social classes. With the Nakba, Palestinian educators and literati found themselves dispersed, geographically, politically, and institutionally. Having lost their platforms (though not necessarily their assets), many took on political, administrative, and educational career opportunities offered by nascent and expanding state systems across the Arab region and, for some, within the former colonial state system as well. Others, emigrated, settling permanently in different European and North and Latin American countries, with their legacies relegated largely to the books of history.

Embodiments The largely peasant Arab society of Palestine was deeply transformed by the consequences of the Nakba. The same can be said regarding the social bases of the teaching profession with the demise of the Arab College of Jerusalem in 1948 and of teacher education institutions for women. Their demise brought to an end a territorially authored a book on education in the Arab region. Ahmad Al-Qasim, Inspector of Gardening in government schools, authored a book on the foundations of agricultural education. Ishak Musa Al-Huseini (1904–90), from Jerusalem, was an active educator and author. ‘Issa Al-Sifri, educator, author and columnist, was particularly engaged with the politics of the day. Mustafa Murad Al-Dabbagh (1897–1989), a social science instructor in the Arab College of Jerusalem, authored two volumes on village schools in Palestine (1935) and several volumes on Palestine’s history. For a select compilation of biographies, refer to the following database .

 Leçons de Ténèbres 97 defined teacher education. Substituted by a myriad of teacher education programs, the “training” of Palestinian teachers would, henceforward, be overseen by different states (Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Israel) and UNRWA. Each party promoted its visions of schooling and ideal teaching practices, and pursued its distinctive political agendas in relation to the role of teachers in society. In her seminal study, Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries, Rosemary Sayigh (1979) observed that throughout the period of British colonial rule in Palestine, “a trickle of peasant boys did manage to complete their education in the cities, and to find administrative and clerical work there”; an observation that resonates with those offered by Tibawi (1956) in his influential history of Arab Education in Mandatory Palestine. Following the Nakba, Sayigh further observed that “this small stratum of educated fellaheen [peasants] was to play an exceptionally important role after the Uprooting; as teachers, as organizers, as social workers, they stayed close to the camp populations, unlike Palestine’s urban population, who mainly used their educational and financial advantages for personal advancement” (p. 52). Sayigh noted, “Teachers became the leaders and guides in this community of exiles, consciously striving with small means to create a ‘new generation’” (p. 118). Palestinian refugees represented the largest single group among teachers during the 1950s and 1960s, thus infusing the plight of refugees into the core of teachers’ activism (Moussa, 1972). The memoirs of Salah Khalaf (Abu-Iyad, 1981), one of the founders of Fatah, the leading component of the PLO, perhaps best capture this new approach to the teacher’s role after the Nakba. Recalling the refugee years spent with his family in Gaza “among the saddest of my life—years of uncertainty, despair, years of misery” (p. 13), Khalaf speaks to his début as a teacher, following his graduation from Dar Al-‘Ulum in Cairo, and having obtained a “teachers’ certificate” from ‘Ain Shams University in Egypt. In the period 1957–58, at the age of twenty-four, he was appointed to a school teaching position in Gaza city, in the Gaza Strip, then under Egyptian administrative control: The [Egyptian] Security Police must have understood that I had ulterior motives in applying for work in Gaza at a time when numerous officials there were trying desperately to improve their lot by getting transferred to Cairo or some other large Egyptian city. I was appointed to Gaza anyway, but to my astonishment it was as a teacher in a girls’ school. This was an exceptional measure, generally applied as a sort of punishment, since it’s very embarrassing for a man in a traditional Islamic society to work in a feminine environment. I went to see the director of national education and pointed out that my nomination was contrary to the regulations, which stipulated that only married men could teach in girls’ schools. . . . They were trying to prevent me from having any political activity by isolating me in a milieu where I would be treated like a pariah. All the same, I wasn’t discouraged. I decided to “abuse” my position to devote myself openly to political agitation. . . . I had my students form civic action groups called “patriotic committees” which were to lead debates during the class hours.

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Course Syllabi in Faculties of Education Six months later . . . the school principal abruptly informed me that I had been transferred to a secondary school for boys. Located in the open desert outside of Gaza [city], its students came from nearby refugee camps. The classrooms were minuscule, desperately overcrowded with sixty to seventy pupils in each, and dilapidated. In the winter we shivered with cold while rain seeped through the fragile roof. On the other hand, it was the perfect environment for the political activities I intended to engage in. My pupils were poor, living in pitiful conditions and suffering with their parents from the trauma of exile. . . . I remember an incident which touched me deeply. I had formed a support committee for the Algerian revolution and asked [my pupils] to contribute what they could to a collection. Despite their poverty, every one of them responded as of the very next day. . . . . I took a number of precautions to get [plays I wrote at that time] past the evervigilant censors. . . .The same day [one of my plays was performed] I received an urgent summons from Colonel Kamal Hussein, chief of the local security police. He had seen the play too, but more perceptive and informed on my opinions, he hadn’t missed its militant nature and clearly wanted to make me pay for my insolence. . . . What the colonel didn’t know was that my literary exercises were merely the tip of the iceberg. The bulk of my activities, besides teaching, were underground and consisted recruiting and organizing groups of militants. (pp. 25–27)

Leila Khaled (1944–present), a refugee from Haifa, offers her own narrative regarding her experiences in teaching. In an autobiographical account, she recalls “the period of intellectual and reflexive incubation” (Khaled, 1973, p. 97) she experienced while working as a teacher in Kuwait, in 1963, at the age of nineteen. She adds that she did not miss an opportunity “to inject her political virus in small doses” into her teaching, “linking all of the world’s problems that surrounded us, and at every opportunity, to the Palestinian question” (pp. 91–92). As a teacher, Khaled was active, too, in recruiting fellow teachers—Palestinians and other Arabs—as part of her involvement with the founding of a Marxist-Leninist Palestinian movement, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Subsequently, her political and armed engagement in the Palestinian struggle led her to state, “I am not a refugee anymore because I am a revolutionary” (p. 125). In their respective narratives, Khalaf and Khaled reflect a significant departure from progressive education accounts prevalent before the Nakba. Some would argue that the vision of the teacher as a revolutionary crystallized in the late period of British colonial rule over Palestine, as the political and military events leading to the Nakba unfolded (e.g., Tibawi, 1956, pp. 197–99). I would agree with such a view. Yet, I would point out that the difference is one of historical conjuncture and social science terminology, which is itself historically situated. True, many Palestinian teachers were effectively involved in resistance and military activities against British colonial rule. Their involvement was primarily on grounds of their participation in what they perceived as representing a national struggle, without necessarily articulating a sustained critique of

 Leçons de Ténèbres 99 schooling and of its colonizing power. As shown by Tibawi (1956), teachers did critique prevalent colonial educational policies, writing “anonymously the most informed, if not always the most level-headed, criticism of the education service that were ever written in the local press” (p. 197). In contrast, the embodied experiences of Khalaf and Khaled, strongly associated with uprootedness and dispossession, explicitly opt for a “revolutionary” lens that references similar political movements in Egypt, Algeria, Vietnam, and the Latin American countries. This “global” dimension of struggle in the role of teachers emerges as a distinctive feature of post-Nakba Palestinian movements, and also against the backdrop of decolonization that took place after the Second World War. The critique of both Khalaf and Khaled is grounded in what may be described as a Marxist critique of schooling. Such a construction of the role of the teacher resonates with Franz Fanon’s engagement with the colonial phenomenon and with tenets of existentialist and anti-colonial forms of activism. In that sense, the autobiographical narratives of Khalaf and Khaled—among several others I do not touch on here for reasons of space—take as their point of departure a critique of the oppressive, normalizing, and colonizing role of education and schooling, with a commitment to support decolonizing struggles wherever they occur. This is evident in Khalaf ’s explicit reference to the Algerian revolution against France’s colonial subjugation (1954–62). It is equally evident in Khaled’s adoption of what I would call a “redemptive” revolutionary identity. Both Khalaf and Khaled emphatically struggle against what Fanon referred to as the “epidermalization of inferiority”—that is, they considered their role as teachers as combating against the “absorption” by the colonized of the colonizer’s racist gaze, which penetrates “through the skin and into the mind,” resulting in the colonized self-subjection to an “internalized oppression” (Irrizary & Raible, 2014, p. 441). This construction of the role of the teacher as a “revolutionary” was promoted by various Palestinian ideological factions, whether those active within the frame of the PLO, following its foundation in 1964, or outside of it.10 For instance, the founding of the General Union of Palestinian Teachers in 1969—known, since 1994, as the General Union of Teachers in Palestine—represents an important channel through which this construction of the role of the teacher was promoted by leading PLO figures, among The activities of Khalaf and Khaled should be understood over the backdrop of the wider political and ideological spirit of that time. The emergence of a revolutionary praxis among Palestinians was boosted by the dynamics associated with the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement, following the Bandung Conference in 1955. Close exchanges developed, for instance, between the leadership of the Cuban revolution and Palestinian resistance groups (ultimately, with the PLO following its formation in 1964) (Henry, 2019). On June 18, 1959, revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara (1928– 67) landed in the Gaza Strip for what seems to have been a very short visit at the invitation of President Nasser of Egypt, one of the leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement. He visited refugee camps in Gaza, accompanied by Cuban General Caprera, “an expert in Guerilla warfare,” who “met with community leaders to advise on methods of resistance” (Abu Sitta, 2015, p. 7). Guevara’s message to Palestinians was, in the words of Henry (2019), that “there was no option but resistance.” Abu Sitta (2015) observed, “Guevara became the icon of the Palestinian resistance and struggle for freedom” (p. 7). Guevara’s visit was soon followed by the visit of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s prime minister and a leader of the Non-Aligned Movement (Ibid., p. 11). Guevara’s and Nehru’s (and other) visits to the Gaza Strip took place at about the same time Khalaf was preparing to leave for the Gulf, ultimately obtaining a new teaching position in Kuwait (as did Khaled a few years later). His plans were to avail himself more freely to the organization of Palestinian resistance, in what would become, eventually in the 1960s, the Fatah (Conquest) movement, the PLO’s largest faction under the leadership of Yasser Arafat (Khalaf, 1981, pp. 27-28).

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others Farouk Qaddoumi (1931–), then member of the PLO’s Executive Committee and in charge of the department concerned with popular mobilization (Al-Mhissen, 2015, pp. 44–48). In fact, not a few Palestinian leaders and members of militant groups were teachers. The role of the teacher as a “revolutionary” aligned itself with the phase of armed struggle that underpinned the foundation of the PLO and its entry into the regional balance of forces, from the late 1960s onward.11

Steadfastness Between mute submission and blind hate—I choose the third way. I am Sāmid! Raja Shehadeh, The Third Way From the late 1970s onward, Palestinian social movements and NGO activism—whether in Israel or in West Bank and Gaza Strip—signaled a marked departure from the role of the teacher as a revolutionary, as articulated in the previous section. Increasingly, an emphasis was placed on the teacher as a significant agent of Sumūd. In Arabic, Sumūd translates perhaps best as “steadfastness,” that is, staying firmly anchored in one’s land and in one’s culture and sense of community, resolute and unwavering in the face of colonial adversities and displacement, with dignity and resilience. For Nijmeh Ali (2018), Sumūd represents “a form of infrapolitics or everyday resistance” and a “stubborn insistence on continuing on with life despite all the obstacles” (p. 71). For Toine van Teefelen and Victoria Biggs (2011), Sumūd represents “a powerful cultural and psycho-educational tool, and it has become a distinguishing feature of non-violent resistance in Palestine,” “a rooted Palestinian narrative challenging the many attempts to suppress or deform it.” As Sumūd, Palestinian educational activism was consolidated through coalition network building, with law and human rights NGOs and organizations, either with international and national movements or with local cultural and social movements and groups.12 Palestinian NGO activism—whether in Israel or in the West Bank—takes On this period in Palestinian history, refer to the Oxford University-based website on “The Palestinian Revolution,” at . 12 The number of NGOs in Palestinian society has expanded exponentially since the 1970s. Khalil Nakhleh (1991) estimated that over 800 NGOs were active among Palestinians in Israel in the 1980s. More recently, Samir Awad (2017, p. 161) estimated that at “the apex of the first Intifada [early 1990s–AEM], there were about 2000-2200 Palestinian NGOs, including women’s organizations, human rights groups, trade unions, voluntary cooperatives, and voluntary work committees in the West Bank and Gaza [Strip]” (p. 161). Two Palestinian NGOs are particularly important for this chapter. First, the establishment in 1979 of Al-Haq (Right), a human rights NGO based in Ramallah (West Bank). It has special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). See . Secondly, the establishment of Adalah (Justice) in 1996, a legal center “as a joint project of two leading Arab NGOs–The Galilee Society and the Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA),” represents an example with regard to Palestinians within Israel. Adalah, too, has a special consultative status with ECOSOC. It is member of the EuroMediterranean Human Rights Network alongside some eighty human rights NGOs from across the region. Central to this network and alliance building, both domestic and international, is the grounding of the Palestinians’ challenging of discriminatory and oppressive policies and practices in international United Nations (UN) sanctioned human rights conventions and, more recently, 11

 Leçons de Ténèbres 101 the form of court petitions and “strategic litigation”; participation in and contribution to international convention reviews held by the UN; the initiation of campaigns; the holding of awareness raising workshops for teachers, students, and community groups; and the dissemination of specialized publications and particularly of vision documents, alternative curricula, and instructional materials and resources for teachers to be used in the classroom and the school. In what follows I discuss some aspects of NGO and social movement activism in fields associated with teacher education and professional development for teachers, in ways that outline some alternative bodies of knowledge promoted in each of the two main geographic areas inhabited by Palestinians.

Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip The military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Israel, in June of 1967, brought the entire territory once included under British colonial rule under the same state power. The Israeli occupation barred the formation of bodies that could or would claim any representative capacity, such as professional unions or national committees (Graham-Brown, 1984; Hiltermann, 1991). This included constrains, limitations, and military orders against the establishment and activity of teacher unions (Al-Mhissen, 2015). As a circumventing route, the activism of community-based groups and NGOs gradually assumed a mass mobilization role, including in the field of education and teacher education. They promoted alternative emphases for teacher education and professional development. This included the design of instructional resources in areas that have been eliminated, erased, or marginalized in formal teacher education curricula and syllabi by the occupying military authorities. Based outside teacher education institutions, NGOs were often established and led by teachers. The eruption of the first Palestinian Intifada against Israel’s occupation, in December of 1987, consolidated the role of popular committees, NGOs, and social movements, which henceforward directed the confrontation with Israeli forces, signaling a “proliferation of ‘mass movement’ NGOs” (Awad, 2017, p. 61). In the field of education, this included the holding of clandestine schooling and educational activities in defiance to the closure of schools by the Israeli military.13 Educational NGOs sought to reconnect teachers’ professional development, its relevance to the community, and teachers’ political awareness to meaningfully engage the conditions of a national struggle under military occupation and colonization. Some NGOs also sought to circumvent constrains imposed by the Israeli military occupation on professional development activities organized by Palestinian universities (Khaldi & Wahbeh, 2002, pp. 196, 198). Over the years, many educational NGOs regrouped

conventions concerning the rights of Indigenous minorities and peoples. See ​. The two organizations cooperate in challenging Israeli policies and practices in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, including in the area of higher education. 13 On the role of teachers and teacher groups during the first (1987–93) and second (2000) Intifada, refer to Qaimari (2008, pp. 23-27 & 27-39, respectively). For a summary of teachers’ loss of life and injuries during the first and second Intifada, refer to Mazawi (1994) and Qaimari (2008, p. 33), respectively.

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under wider umbrellas, creating educational networks and coordination fora through which they promoted their activities under a charter.14 The establishment of a Palestinian Authority in 1994 introduced new dynamics in the relations between civil society and NGOs, on the one hand, and a nascent Palestinian administration struggling for legitimacy and authority, on the other hand. While the Palestinian Authority introduced newly designed school curricula and textbooks within the frame of ministries of education and higher education,15 significant tensions emerged in relation to the activities of NGOs, including those active in teacher education and professional development. First, the Palestinian Authority’s drive toward centralized and uniform policies, through which it sought to assert its legitimacy as a state, meant enacting its own frameworks regarding the education and certification of teachers and their professional development. This line of policy disregarded the experiences of civil society groups and teacher experiences accumulated under the Israeli occupation. Sobhi Tawil (1998) pointed out that the Palestinian Authority “did not take into account” teachers’ experiences and engagement with “underground education out of schools which developed in the West Bank and Gaza in response to school closures imposed by Israel” (p. 13). These tensions fueled controversies regarding the optimal relationship that ought to prevail between the Palestinian Authority (and its ministries) and civil society-based organizations. NGOs and civic groups, organized within the Educational Network, observed: Until the establishment of the Palestinian authority [sic] and its Ministry of Education non-governmental organisations were the only instrument for preserving the integrity and quality of Palestinian education under the shadow of repression, censorship and neglect. It was the NGO’s which protected the right to education, which formed lobbies to defend it, and which provided a channel for innovation, creativity and change, in other words constituting pockets of creative, free thought and challenging visions regarding education. Indeed, NGO’s provided the experimental edge that continuously challenged and motivated progress in Palestinian education under the Occupation. (Educational Network, n.d.)

NGOs active in the field of education further pointed out that their “well-developed links with the community and its various groups and organisations allow them to link education with the community and to cover areas that, at least at present, the government does not reach” (Ibid.). Notwithstanding, educational NGOs and social movements maintain a complex relationship with “solidarity donors,” who fund their operations. One the one hand, NGOs have to balance between their commitment to their respective publics and their commitment to donor funding agendas and preferences For instance, the Educational Network, based in Ramallah, included in the late 1990s the following groups: Almawrid Teacher Development Center; the Center for Applied Research in Education; the Early Childhood Resource Centre; Education for Awareness and Involvement; Tuffah Educational Development Center; Tamer Institute for Community Education; Birzeit University Continuing Education Department; Ibda’ Educational committee. 15 Such initiatives took place under the pioneering leadership of the late Professor Ibrahim AbuLughod (1929–2001) and his team, discussed elsewhere. Refer to Mazawi (2000, 2017) and Brown (2003, pp. 191-243). 14

 Leçons de Ténèbres 103 (Meizner, 2018). On the other hand, Palestinian Authority officials perceive projects promoted by NGOs as interfering with the capacity of the government to enact its own policies and their concomitant priorities and effectiveness (Awad, 2017). Secondly, in a context in which over 60 percent of all aid to basic Palestinian education currently comes from the United States, the European Union, the United Nations, the World Bank, and Germany, the influence of Palestinian teachers on educational policies remains limited, as Chris Shinn (2012, p. 614) has shown. Shinn observed that reforms in teacher education and professional training, introduced under the Palestinian Authority since 2005, included the establishment of a National Institute for Education and Training. In 2008–09, an initiative entitled “Quality Systems for Quality Teachers” was introduced as part of a UNESCO-funded program to improve the quality of initial and continuing education. Subsequent initiatives were further introduced, for example by the World Bank in 2010, to empower Palestinian teachers with “supervised and managed” skills by the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Education. These initiatives are caught, in the misplaced emphasis on the role of universities in continuing education, exacerbating the “confusion over authority and responsibility” with regard to “the development of new knowledge and skills for teachers” (Shinn, 2012, p. 626). NGO-based educational activists and researchers complained about the deleterious effects of international aid on teacher education and professional development opportunities offered to teachers. Musa Khaldi and Nader Wahbeh (2002), affiliated with an educational NGO founded in the aftermath of the first Oslo accords, poignantly observe that teachers express their discontent over the training programs held by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and UNRWA. These intensive programs are considered to be compulsory. Yet they are increasingly irrelevant to teachers’ reality. Every year, teachers, including the newly hired teachers are required to attend sixty hours of in-service training programs, which are usually held during their vacations. During these sessions, Foreign European and American volunteers lecture the teachers about new teaching methodologies without any practical application to the Palestinian classroom. The top-down instructions of the training programs frustrate teachers and prove insufficient to change either the teachers’ beliefs or practices. Teachers are isolated without any support in the implementation of research findings or policy decisions. (pp. 199–200)

Mathematics teachers expressed very similar concerns over the coherence and usefulness of professional education opportunities they were offered (Khalili, 2010, pp. 159–60). In what follows, I offer a few examples of community and NGO activism to illustrate some of the bodies of knowledge they seek to introduce into teacher education. The Tamer Institute for Community Education, founded in 1989, emerged within the wider context of the first Intifada. Among other goals it aims to “develop alternatives and resources to those offered by formal education” institutions, promote reading among children and youth, and consolidate educational research and development

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with the aim of “building a free Palestinian society which believes in the importance of education, justice, and equality.” Tamer’s introduction to its 2008 magazine issue, Tayf, noted: In the past fourteen years, the Institute has published about 160 titles with at least 2000 copies [printed] per title. The Institute strives to introduce its publications into government schools in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, even though the Institute prints these publications in Gaza too because of difficulties in entering these publications into the [Gaza] Strip. Up to 2008 the Institute introduced more than 34 titles from among its publications into school and public libraries in agreement with the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education and the Ministry of Culture.

Almawrid (The Resource) Teacher Development Center, founded in 1991, aims to “ensur[e] the complementarity” between education and knowledge of the homeland by “learning through the natural and social environment and interacting with it towards [building] the Palestinian homeland” (p. 1). Almawrid’s principle of action rests on the belief that “the collective work of teachers in terms of preparation, training and experience, rests on more than just reliance on available resources, as is the case in many workshops, and this means having teachers participate in the development of appropriate creative methods in different subjects” (p. 1). Thus, Almawrid organizes workshops, such as in the area of oral history and its integration into teaching. This included activating teachers to locate and compile textual, audio, and/or visual stories from cities, towns, and refugee camps, as well as collecting recordings of folk stories as part of developing teaching modules and activities for the classroom (see, for example, Learning about Palestine, Almawrid, 1996). Along the same lines, the Teacher Creativity Center (TCC), set up by teachers working in public and UNRWA schools in 1995, as an offshoot of Almawrid, seeks “to empower teachers and improve the wholistic educational environment concentrating on human rights, children rights, and gender in addition to contribute the concept of civic education.”16 Bihan Qaimari (2008) notes that the TCC also promoted the investigation of “the effects of political conflict on the process of teaching and learning in Palestine and suggested the need to research the topic of the professional identity of Palestinian teachers in the current political violence” (p. 13). The Qattan Centre for Educational Research and Development (QCERD) was founded in Ramallah in 1998. Funded by and affiliated with the UK-based A. M. Al-Qattan Foundation, QCERD serves as “an independent research institution . . . to improve the quality of teachers’ education in Palestine through its Action Research Unit (ARU)” (Khaldi & Wahbeh, 2002, p. 203). Musa Khaldi and Nader Wahbeh (2002), affiliated with the QCERD, point out that the “institution co-operates with the [Palestinian] Ministry of Education, NGOs, and the Palestinian Universities to empower the Palestinian teacher, to improve his or her teaching qualifications and to provide teachers with the opportunity to become researchers” (p. 203). Under the Statement cited from the TCC Facebook page: https​://ww​w.fac​ebook​.com/​pg/Te​acher​Creat​ivity​ Cente​r

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 Leçons de Ténèbres 105 leadership of Professor Fouad Moughrabi and Wasim Kurdi, this activity included the translation into Arabic from English literature on action research, the invitation of experts, the holding of pre- and in-service workshops for teachers from public and UNRWA schools (see, for example, Al-Qur’an et al., 2001), the conduct of innovative research into applications of Action Research in Palestinian schools, the establishment of a professional library, and the publication of an Arabic language magazine, Al-Ru’a (Vision), disseminated online and free of charge resources to teachers and the wider community. Al-Ru’a’s issues contain, among other, teaching modules and resources in a range of subject matters, and professional literature in the field of educational research, teaching methods, drama education. The more recent issues of Al-Ru’a focus more particularly on teachers’ stories, through which teachers can make sense of the struggles in which they practice. Through diverse forms of narrative and autoethnographic approaches, teachers are invited to scrutinize the wider contexts of their practice as part of articulating horizons for change and transformation. This shift—from Action Research to story narratives— signals a significant move away from a formal approach to Action Research toward the privileging of “reflexive writing” as a tool that teachers can engage as part of unpacking their practice in a wide range of subject matters, ranging from literacy to drama, and to science education. Particularly significant in the work of the QCERD is the introduction of critical teacher and teacher education research into Palestinian schools, a phenomenon hardly imaginable prior to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994. Nader Wahbeh and his team undertook a series of ethnographic studies into the daily practices of Palestinian teachers, starting from 2004, in collaboration with teachers in six public schools in three governorates in the West Bank (Ramallah, Al-Bireh, and Hebron). In the post-1994 period, this study was instrumental in igniting the linkages between research and teacher education and professional development. Focusing on teachers’ meaning making of teaching, the project opened up an important channel through which the voices of teachers in public schools could be heard, understood, and placed in perspective. The involvement of teachers in the very design and implementation of the study broke with established hierarchical evaluation and assessment approaches to teachers’ performance. Rather, it provided teachers with the opportunity to articulate what it means to be a Palestinian teacher under occupation, how do teachers experience the daily realities in school, and how their work is impacted by ministerial and wider political and social circumstances and dynamics that surround the schools. The findings revealed the controversies surrounding existing teacher evaluation systems, the crises that underpin the curriculum, the inadequacy of school textbooks and dogmatic emphases on test- and accountability-driven pedagogies, and disconnect from the life of the community, with school teachers working under extreme conditions (Wahbeh & Kishek, 2006; Wahbeh, 2014). The authors indicated that the study revealed the multilayered forms of surveillance and disciplining which is saturating teachers’ daily realities. In fact, these superimposed layers colonise teachers’ worlds and lives leaving little space for them to bring their own knowledge and practical

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wisdom, whether as a group or as individuals to bear on the teaching-learning in which they are engaged. (Wahbeh, and a team of teacher-researchers, 2011)

Despite the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, Israeli restrictions on movement still significantly affect the activities of educational and communitybased NGOs. The online dissemination of NGO publications is widespread to ensure that materials can reach teachers and schools, circumventing, to some extent, restrictions on physical movement and the dissemination on materials imposed by Israel, either within each of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, or between them. Reaching the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, or ensuring participation in NGO activities from Gaza, has become virtually impossible since 2007. This is how the organizers of a recent professional development workshop for English-language teachers, held at the Islamic University of Gaza, experienced the unfolding of their project: The course was conducted via Skype, email, and using the WizIQ software in order to bypass the impossibility to move in and out of the Gaza Strip. Poor Internet connection (on all sides), numerous power cuts, audio and video distortion were constant challenges imposed by the online environment, but they were bypassed thanks to determination, a shared desire to establish human connections, and creativity. The workshops were video and audio recorded whenever possible. (Imperiale, Phipps, Al-Masri, & Fassetta, 2017, p. 8)

Teacher education in the West Bank and Gaza Strip is thus caught in a “triplehelixed”-dependency iron cage of sorts: spatial (vis-à-vis the capacity of Palestinians to fully own, articulate, and implement policy initiatives independently of Israeli occupation and its infringements); geopolitical, in relation to priorities and reforms imposed by international aid bodies and their regulative and neoliberal regimes of accountability (Shinn, 2012), and to a lesser extent by “solidarity donors” to NGOs (Meizner, 2018); and intra-social, between and betwixt factional and ideological rivalries prevalent within Palestinian society and in relation to government-society tensions over authority and legitimacy (alMadbouh, 2017). NGO and grassroot initiatives stand at the convergence point of these three contingencies that renders a coherent and impactful engagement with teacher education particularly challenging.

Among Palestinians in Israel Among Palestinians in Israel, public schools and their administration are subject to entrenched and persisting discriminatory budgeting compared to Hebrew schools. Moreover, schools serving Palestinians are controlled by the state in terms of curricula and appointments, with a General Security Services (GSS) official serving, until recently, as the deputy director of Arab education. As stated in a petition launched by Adalah, this official intervened “in the appointment of teachers, principals and inspectors to the Arab Education,” ensuring tight state oversight over

 Leçons de Ténèbres 107 schools.17 The practice persists, though it has changed in form and focus. Ismail AbuSaad (2018) notes that “Arab teaching candidates holding all requisite qualifications must undergo a security check and get the approval of a GSS representative (who is the chair of the appointments committee for the Arab educational system) before they can be hired. This is a process from which they are completely excluded and have no means to appeal” (p. 206). Such institutionalized mechanisms of control and subjugation are part of systemic and entrenched state discrimination against Palestinians in Israel in all domains, including in the provision of public services. The emergence of representative platforms among Palestinians in Israel reflect disillusionment with the state’s policies and practices—including land expropriation and dispossession. Disillusionment intensified with the 1976 killings of Palestinians protesters against the government’s continued land expropriation policies; killings that have been commemorated annually since then as Land Day (Nakhleh, 2011). In 1982, the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel was set up. It emerged out of the National Committee of Heads of Arab Local Authorities, which acted mainly within communities along partisan affiliations and kinship networks. The High Follow-Up Committee (lajnat al-mutaba’a al-‘ulya) was meant to offer a nonpartisan collective platform and assume “the character of a representative, leadership body for the Arab public in Israel” (Amara, 2011, p. 94). In 1984, the Follow-Up Committee on Educational Affairs was set up as part of the National Committee of Heads of Arab Local Authorities, signaling the positioning of educational issues as a matter of collective political and social significance. Against this backdrop, from the mid1970s onward, Sumūd activism among Palestinians in Israel shifted gradually toward active forms of political engagement that allow “the Palestinians in Israel to fulfill their potential away from romanticizing their physical remaining in their homeland” (Ali, 2018, p. 100). From the early 2000s onward, the meaning of Sumūd among Palestinian academics and activists in Israel was being increasingly anchored in constructions of Indigeneity, Indigenous rights, and Indigenous legal and political activism, as enshrined in international conventions and declarations.18 Three documents, known as “vision documents,” issued in the period 2006–07 by Palestinian activists and scholars affiliated with leading Palestinian NGOs in Israel, Refer to Adalah, “Demanding End to GSS Intervention in Appointments of Arab Educators,” in relation to Israel’s High Court of Justice petition 8193/04, Union of Parents of Arab Students in Israel, et al. v. The Ministry of Education, et al. Source: ​. For a detailed archival study of these practices and how the state-controlled teachers and teacher candidates, refer to Sa’di (2014). 18 The introduction of notions of indigeneity in reference to Palestinians is reflected, starting from the late 1990s onward, in the work of Professor Ismail Abu-Saad on schooling among Palestinian Bedouins in the Negev region. Professor Abu-Saad’s engagement with questions of indigeneity and questions of spatiality reflect interdisciplinary collaborations. These included Duane Champagne, Professor of sociology, law, and American Indian Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa (North Dakota) (Champagne & Abu-Saad, 2005), and Israeli Palestinian and Jewish scholars such as political geographer Professor Oren Yiftachel (Amara, Abu-Saad, & Yiftachel, 2012). Affiliated with the Bedouin community in the Negev, Professor Abu-Saad studied how Bedouin educational governance and schooling were subjugated by the Israeli government as part of a planned relocation of Bedouin communities, in view of evicting and dispossessing them from their ancestral lands (refer, for example, to Abu-Saad, 2005, 2008; Abu-Saad & Craemer, 2012). 17

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incorporate diverse notions of Indigeneity, as part of redefining the relationships between Palestinians in Israel and the state. Amal Jamal (2008) pointed out that the vision documents were “the product of the growth of a Palestinian intellectual class in Israel, a class that refuses to internalize suppressive policies and is conscious of its political and cultural environment” (p. 7). The first document, released in 2006, entitled A Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, was issued by the National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities in Israel (2006), declared in its opening paragraph, “We are the Palestinian Arabs in Israel, the indigenous peoples,19 the residents of the State of Israel, and an integral part of the Palestinian People and the Arab and Muslim and human Nation” (p. 5). As an “Indigenous national group,” the Palestinian people enjoy “the right within their [Israeli] citizenship to choose its representatives directly and be responsible for their religious, educational and cultural affairs” within the purview of “international conventions” (pp. 10–11). Adalah–The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel (March 2007) issued a second vision document, entitled The Democratic Constitution, to serve “as a constitutional proposal for the state of Israel, based on the concept of a democratic, bilingual, multicultural state” (p. 3) within a consociational power-sharing arrangement, as an alternative political framework to the ethnocratic legal structure prevalent in Israel (Jamal, 2008; Waxman & Peleg, 2008). The document declares that “the Arab citizens in the State of Israel are a homeland minority” (p. 4). The term “homeland minority” appears in the third vision document, issued by Mada al-Carmel—Arab Center for Applied Social Research (May 2007), entitled The Haifa Declaration. The latter refers to “our right to self-determination as a homeland minority” (p. 16). Will Kymlicka (2008) observes that “the label ‘indigenous peoples’ would become virtually synonymous with ‘homeland minority’” (p. 15).20 The three vision documents remain largely declarative, having met fierce rejection by the state and Zionist political parties and social movements. Jamal (2008) points out to “the fact that the documents were a result of collective effort” that brought together social and political formations among Palestinians in Israel, including activists, politicians, and scholars. These documents further show “the deep changes that have been taking place among Arab society in general and its leadership in particular” (p. 3). Chief among these changes is the centrality “legal advocacy”—both domestic (within Israel) and international (in international bodies)—has come to assume, as a distinctive form of engagement. Legal advocacy has been particularly significant in terms of acting upon government policies in the field of education, schooling, teacher education, and professional development.21 The original Arabic version reads “ahl al-watan al-asliyun.” This term would probably best translate as “the original [authentic] people of the homeland.” 20 Kymlicka (2008) observes that “because virtually all of the moral principles and arguments invoked at the UN to defend indigenous rights also apply to national minorities, an attempt to draw a sharp distinction in legal status between national minorities and indigenous peoples is morally problematic. It is also conceptually unstable” (p. 12). 21 View, for example, the sections on “Legal Advocacy” and “International Advocacy” on Adalah’s website, . For instance, Michal Rotem and Neve Gordon (2017) point out that considerable part of the struggle over education among Palestinian Bedouin communities took 19

 Leçons de Ténèbres 109 None of the vision documents invokes teacher education explicitly as such. That said, in its chapter “Educational vision and strategic planning of the Arab educational system in Israel,” the document entitled A Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel (The National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities in Israel, 2006) does entertain the prospect of “self-administration” with regard to the governance of the Palestinian educational system in Israel, including in the areas of curricular design, the preparation of “teaching cadres,” and the fostering of school leadership capacities.22 It attributes the poor quality of teaching in schools serving Palestinians in Israel to “the absence of an Arab university and developed educational faculties.” As a result, it further noted, “This leads to producing weak teaching cadres and researches [sic]. These issues expand the gap between the world of education at school and the outside world” (pp. 27–28). The document also emphasizes the “need” to rethink the design of state-imposed school curricula in all subject-matter areas. It calls for teachers to be granted the opportunity “to exploit and nurture the abilities and potential of their students” in ways that are responsive to their culture, ethnic identity, and the history of the Palestinian people (p. 28). It proposes the “creation of an educational leadership school” and “a research center for strategic educational planning that works within the High Follow-Up Committee” (p. 29). It concludes by calling on Palestinian representative institutions in Israel to follow three concurrent and interlocked “work tracks” in view of promoting the proposed changes: “legal”—by “demanding selfadministration of the educational system within international laws and conventions through addressing international organizations that deal with such issues, appealing to justice in all matters of official discrimination”; “educational-public” by designing “new alternative curricula” to those imposed by the state (italics added); and “practical” by creating detailed strategic study on building an Arab university, creating high educational council for the Arabs (within the High Follow up committee and in coordination with the Committee for education); altering the work methods of the Follow-Up Committee for education to become a professional committee able to prepare educational programs and developing the education departments within the local authorities in order to implement such programs. (p. 29)

Implied in such a formulation is that the Future Vision document considers inadequate existing state-controlled teacher education programs for Arab teachers, as well as teacher education programs which operate within Israeli postsecondary institutions and in which the language of instruction is Hebrew. Finally, the Future Vision document calls to establish a “self-administered” education system for Palestinians in Israel. In itself, the call is not new. Already in the 1970s, calls were made to grant “autonomy” place in the legal arena, inseparably from the wider political struggle against their dispossession from their land. Between 1998 and 2013, more than sixteen different petitions pertaining to different aspects of educational policy were submitted to the Israeli High Court of Justice. These petitions were submitted by Adalah–The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (refer to p. 19 for a list of petitions). 22 The Future Vision chapter on education is based on a discussion of a position paper initially prepared by Dr. Khaled Abu-Asbah, a Palestinian sociologist of education.

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to the school system serving Palestinian Arabs in Israel. In his book Arab Education in Israel the late Professor Sami Khalil Mar’i (1978) discussed “autonomy” as one of three “alternatives” facing any reform that aims to improve the education provided to Palestinians. The first consisted in maintaining the status quo while “Arabizing” the leadership of a separate and centrally managed Arab department of education. The second alternative would be to “abolish” the separate Arab department, integrating it into the district directorates. The third alternative is “autonomy,” that is, “lessening the level of [state] intervention and granting more autonomy to Arabs in Israel in their educational system within the framework of the Ministry of Education and Culture” (p. 67). Professor Mar’i seems to have supported this third alternative, observing that “both traditionally and legally the opportunity for such an autonomy exists” (Ibid.). He pointed out that “it seems only logical and legitimate” that autonomy “be offered to the Arab minority in Israel by means of informal agreement with the ministry or by legal action” (p. 68). However, he speculated that “the Israeli authorities may fear that granting autonomy in education will lead to a demand for political autonomy on the part of the Palestinian population in Israel” (p. 69).23 Demands for greater participation and “a genuine involvement” of Palestinian Arabs in determining pedagogic matters remained unattended by the State (Al-Haj, 1995, p. 69; Jabareen & Agbaria, 2014). These demands persisted, eventually making their way into the Future Vision document in 2006, as part of the “strategic planning” the Palestinians in Israel seek to engage. The innovative aspect of the Future Vision document is the grounding of the call for “self-administration” in notions of Indigeneity, thus tying the demand for autonomy to universally recognized rights enshrined in international and United Nations declarations and conventions. Within this broader context, civics education curricula, and their enactment in the classroom, have emerged as a particularly significant arena of activism and advocacy among Palestinians in Israel, particularly against the backdrop of the “‘Zionization’ of the curriculum for Arab schools” by the State (Abu-Saad, 2018, p. 202). Abu-Saad observes, “Civics studies are the part of the curriculum that most clearly expresses how the state defines the common good and national identity and determines the view of society and values of future generations” (p. 202). The “selective construction of the ‘common good,’” Abu-Saad concludes, “consigns indigenous Palestinians to the social, economic, and political margins of society” (p. 207). A petition was submitted in 2016 to the High Court of Justice to dismiss a “list” of civic concept definitions which Palestinian high school students needed to master toward their state-mandated civics examination. In tandem, a project for “alternative complementary materials” in civics education was launched by a coalition of Palestinian social groups and NGOs active in Israel. The coalition brought together the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel; the Forum of Arab Civics Teachers; The Association of Civil Rights in Israel, Dirasat: The Arab Center for Law and Policy; The Follow-Up Committee on Professor Sami Khalil Mar’i (1940–86), a former teacher and senior lecturer at Haifa University, was arrested by Israel’s security services for twenty-four hours on Tuesday, August 24, 1984, “for public criticism of Israeli education curriculum for Arabs” (Palestine Chronology, 1984, p. 238. See also, ‘Arrār, 2010).

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 Leçons de Ténèbres 111 Educational Affairs; and a group of Palestinian teachers, professionals, and academics. The coalition developed a range of alternative classroom resources that could be used by teachers instead of the ones mandated by the Israeli Ministry of Education.24 The alternative civics materials represent a collective effort. In a statement published with the online posted resources (dated October 10, 2016), political science professor As’ad Ghanem, the coalition’s coordinator, expressed the hope that this work would motivate teachers in the remaining subject-matters to initiate the writing of alternative materials, [because] the critique of curricula in history, Arabic language, geography, and sociology, and the remaining subject-matters will not offer a rational solution unless we initiated the writing of alternative materials and curricula to these that seek to domesticate our sons and educate them along a biased and subjective narrative.

In sum, the struggles of Palestinian Arabs in Israel over teacher education and its curricular contents reflect the predicament—political, social, economic, and cultural— of a minoritized and racialized community. The latter is actively excluded, as Abu-Saad (2018) points out, from the “common good” in an ethnically defined state, in which the constitutional bases of citizenship are being hollowed and emptied from their universal meanings through exclusivist legislation and discriminatory teacher education policies and practices.

Reflections/Leçons Teacher education and its discontents represent an ongoing arena of struggle over the role of the teacher among Palestinians. They reflect intensely lived experiences of educators, philosophers, practitioners, activists, academics, and politicians from the late nineteenth century onward. These experiences included engagements with progressive education, modernization-driven approaches, Marxist revolutionary commitments, Indigeneity, strategies of legal advocacy, and modalities of political and grassroots activism, to name but a few examples reviewed in this chapter. These cumulative, and dialectically positioned engagements, have not remained confined either to the formal seat of policy making or to courses and certification in teacher education/postsecondary institutions. Rather, they are part of wider struggles over the conditions of freedom that must prevail for teacher education to acquire a sense of purpose that ensures the coherence of its curricula, syllabi, and their enactment as viable horizons of possibility. Here, it is worth noting that the different shifts in orientations over teacher education in the past century should not be conceived of as “developmental” in relation to each other, which they are not, nor as “hierarchically” or The materials are accessible, in the Arabic language only, on the website of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel , by clicking on “Civics materials.” All citations and documents referred to are on this website. All citations are my translated renditions into English—AEM.

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qualitatively positioned in relation to each other, which they are not either. Rather, each of these broad orientations should be understood on its very own terms, in relation to the defining ideas, beliefs, and attitudes of the time, place, and space in which they emerged and the struggles they sought to engage and attend. In that sense, each of these situated orientations bears witness to the capacity of teacher educators (and teachers more generally) to transcend formally defined bureaucratic roles and embrace what they perceive as the call of the day in terms of its implications for their practice and their roles as teachers and educators. This ingeniousness of teachers and educators contrasts sharply with the narrow, colonizing, and patronizing policy frameworks imposed on Palestinian teachers, which deprive them of their capacities to articulate the conditions of freedom under which their practice makes sense and carries hope. On this point, Dip Kapoor (2011) argued that an apolitical lens on education in civil society, and the eventual emergence of NGOs “tends to limit the realm of ‘the political’ and ‘resistance’ to a modernist-politics of a globalizing civil society (equated with globalization from below)” (p. 131). An apolitical lens also erases the vitality, pertinence, and impacts of the alternative social and popular sources that are martialed at different points in time by distinct groups and movements to inform teacher education and its contents. Hence, a self-contained delimitation of teacher education and its contents, as if it stands in and for itself, disembodies teacher education from the social and political struggles from which it refracts its meanings and which fuel its dynamism, emergence, and engagements. A restrictive delimitation further empties teacher education from a sense of place and a sense of hope in the face of colonial adversities. This chapter allows a number of insights with regard to teacher education in the plurality of contexts in which Palestinians live. First, confining teacher education exclusively to a set of transferable professional skills and attitudes attested to by certification/qualifications, mandatory professional development certificates, and postsecondary degrees undermines the capacity of teacher education curricula and syllabi to contribute to the fostering of a sense of place grounded in the very conditions of struggle facing Palestinians. Such a confinement keeps teacher education and candidate teachers locked in a subordinate and dependency relationship, relying on knowledge supplied by providers who are only remotely connected to the contradictory dynamics that underpin the teaching profession in Palestinian society. Irremediably, this locks teachers in colonized and technicized lifeworlds—both personal and professional—as strangers in their own homes, communities, schools, and classrooms, within a “geopolitics of [educational] knowledge” (Mignolo, 2002) that consigns them to subalternity. Albeit not discussing teacher education, the pitfalls underpinning such a predicament are aptly captured by Janette Habashi (2005) in an article entitled “Creating indigenous discourse: History, power, and imperialism in academia, Palestinian case.” Habashi observes that any initiative to decolonize and Indigenize knowledge that “excludes the history of oppression and attempts to salvage remnants of cultural discourse on behalf of the indigenous” represents an unresolvable contradiction in terms. It is doomed to failure because it offers “little reflection on the complexity of oppression endured by the indigenous population” (p. 781). For Habashi, decolonizing cannot be conceived of as a “salvage” operation of a past, elusive as it is. It must rather represent a reckoning with experiences of colonization and oppression in ways that

 Leçons de Ténèbres 113 offer dialectical understandings of one’s own implication in it, in as much as one can see clearer into the horizons of possibility in one’s decolonizing and the decolonizing of one’s community. Resonating with Gayatri Spivak’s eponymous question, “Can the subaltern speak?” Habashi asks, “How one could decolonize research if the scholar is colonized,” if they are part of “a community that has frequently been subjugated and muted”? (p. 772). Here, one wonders whether those involved in teacher education programs and curricula in Palestinian society would be open—or perhaps politically capable—to embrace the historically and politically situated lived experiences of teachers, as a springboard for the articulation of decolonized and contextualized pedagogies of place and pedagogies of hope in Palestinian teacher education. Secondly, the struggles over teacher education among Palestinians are not just part of anti-colonial struggles against an outside colonizer. Rather, these struggles unfold simultaneously within Palestinian communities, among gender groups, social classes and between political and factions or movements upholding different ideological views. Relevant, too, are the territorial and political distinctions injected between Palestinians following the Nakba of 1948, between those Palestinians living in Israel and those living in the regions of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and within each region, between those who live within refugee camps (or were internally displaced by the 1948 war) and those deemed “local.” In relation to that, over the years, the intersectionalities along which the access of different groups to teacher education played out have shifted considerably. From a predominantly masculine field of activity, dominated primarily by members of established social classes (till the end of British colonial rule), teacher education emerged, in the aftermath of the Nakba, and more forcefully since then, into a field populated by emerging members of enfranchised women, social classes, and members of rural and refugee communities. For the enfranchised, their involvement in teacher education, and in teaching more generally, has offered a first entry point not just into a stable occupation, but also into positions that branch into political and community activism and visibility, with many Palestinian politicians, activists, and academics making their débuts as teachers. Against this backdrop, Ibrahim Makkawi (2017) notes that anti-colonial struggles should be understood both in relation to notions of military and political colonization, and simultaneously in relation to intra-social forms of colonialism and oppression that are interwoven with it. Failing that, any attempt at decolonizing “risks being just another academic cliché during an era of neoliberal economic dependency” (p. 491). This point is central for a fruitful decolonizing strategy of teacher education and its contents in Palestinian society. For instance, the vision documents released by Palestinian NGOs in Israel, or, quite differently, projects by educational networks and NGOs active in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, have so far subscribed to strategic visions of “education” emphasizing the “national,” and more recently “the Indigenous” as the main axes of political engagement and transformation. However, these documents have yet to equally systematically interrogate, as part of a fruitful teacher education vision, patterns of injustice and oppression that prevail within Palestinian society, in which women represent the absolute majority of teachers, and consider their implications for the fostering of emancipatory and socially just notions of education, schools, educational leadership, and teacher education.

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Thirdly, educational philosophy, pedagogic praxis, and the necessities of political strategy are tightly intertwined in the struggle for teacher education, feeding into each other dialectically. How could the multifaceted and embodied struggles reviewed in this chapter inform present-day teacher education curricula and their fruitful enactment? At this time, I reckon that this largely remains an open question, yet to be answered. Notwithstanding this, whatever the contemplated horizons of possibility, the particularities of the Palestinian context do offer a compelling opportunity to question the naturalized view that considers teacher education as situated in relation to the hegemonic status of the state/nation-state, or to those associated with the contingencies imposed by globalizing (labor) markets, or still, to both. Rather, the vicissitudes and adversities of Palestinian teacher education open up the possibility of alternative horizons of cultural imagination and political action—horizons that go beyond the conundrums of states versus markets, of private versus public—and which view teacher education, and its contents, as deeply grounded in wider landscapes of participation as a pre-condition for a self-determining education. If that is so, then the main tragedy of teacher education resides precisely in the enactment of policies and practices that disconnect and sanitize teacher education from these wider grassroots of participation, struggles, and aspirations.

References Abdo, N., & Masalha, N. (Eds.). (2019). An oral history of the Palestinian Nakba. New York: Zed Books. Abu-Iyad [Salah Khalaf], & Rouleau, E. (1981). My home, my land: A narrative of the Palestinian struggle (L.B. Koseoglu, Trans.). New York: Times Books. Abu-Saad, I. (2005). Retelling the history: The Indigenous Palestinian Bedouin in Israel. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 1(1), 25–47. Abu-Saad, I. (2008). Present absentees: The Arab school curriculum in Israel as a tool for de-educating Indigenous Palestinians. Holy Land Studies: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 7(1), 17–43. Abu-Saad, I. (2018). Teacher education policy and practice in Israel from the perspective of those outside the “common good.” In N. Hobbel & B.L. Bale (Eds.), Navigating the common good in teacher education policy: Critical and international perspectives (pp. 195–212). New York: Routledge. Abu-Saad, I., & Craemer, C. (2012). Socio-political upheaval and current conditions of the Naqab Bedouin Arabs. In A. Amara, I. Abu-Saad, & O. Yifatchel (Eds.), Indigenous (in)justice: Human rights law and Bedouin Arabs in the Naqab/Negev (pp. 18–66). Cambridge, MA: International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School. Abu-Sitta, S. (2015). Che Guevara in Gaza: Palestine becomes a global cause. MEMO Middle East Monitor. London: MEMO Publishers. Adalah—The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel. (2007). The Democratic Constitution. Shafa’amr, Israel: Adalah. Akesson, B. (2015). School as a place of violence and hope: Tensions of education for children and families in post-intifada Palestine. International Journal of Educational Development, 41, 192–99.

 Leçons de Ténèbres 115 Al-Haj, M. (1995). Education, empowerment, and control: The case of the Arabs in Israel. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Ali, N. (2018). Active and transformative Sumud among Palestinian activists in Israel. In A. Tartir & T. Seidel (Eds.), Palestine and rule of power (pp. 71–103). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. AlMadbouh, G. (2017). The (quasi-) political system in Palestine. In S. Gürbey, F.I. Hofmann, & G. Seyder (Eds.), Between state and non-state: Politics and society in Kurdistan-Iraq and Palestine (pp. 77–100). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Almawrid. (1996). Ta’alam ‘an Filastin [Learn About Palestine]. Ramallah, Palestine: Almawrid (in Arabic). Al-Mhissen, J. (2015). The journey of the General Union of Palestinian Teachers. Ramallah, Palestine: Adhwaa’ Company for Design (in Arabic). Al-Qura’n, M. (2001). The development and implementation of a sixth-grade geology unit collaborative through action research. Educational Action Research, 9(3), 395–411. Amara, M. (2011). The Higher Follow-Up Committee for the Arab citizens in Israel. In N.N. Rouhana & A. Sabbagh-Khoury (Eds.), The Palestinians in Israel: Readings in history, politics and society (pp. 90–99). Haifa, Israel: Mada al-Carmel Arab Center for Applied Social Research. Amara, A., Abu-Saad, I., & Yifatchel, O. (2012). Indigenous (in)justice: Human rights law and Bedouin Arabs in the Naqab/Negev. Cambridge, MA: International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School. Antonius, G. (1938). The Arab awakening: The story of the Arab national movement. London: Hamish Hamilton. ‘Arrār, K.H. (2010). Dr. Sami Khalil Mar’i (1940–1986): Human being, the vision, project, and cultural legacy—An analytical fieldwork. Nazareth, Israel: Dirasat, The Arab Center for Law and Policy. Accessible at https://www.fehrestcom.com (in Arabic). Awad, S. (2017). Civil society in Palestine. In G. Gürbey, S. Hofmann, & F.I. Seyder (Eds.), Between state and non-state: Politics and society in Kurdistan-Iraq and Palestine (pp. 159–74). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Boullata, K. (2009). Palestinian art, 1850–2005. London: Al-Saqi. Brown, N.J. (2003). Palestinian politics after the Oslo accords: Resuming Arab Palestine. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Champagne, D., & Abu-Saad, I. (Eds.). (2005). Indigenous and minority education: International perspectives on empowerment. Beer-Sheva, Israel: Negev Center for Regional Development, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Cleveland, W.L. (2015). The making of an Arab nationalist: Ottomanism and Arabism in the life and thought of Sati’ al-Husri. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Coursen-Neff, Z. (2004). Discrimination against Palestinian Arab children in the Israeli educational system. New York University Journal of International Law and Politics, 36, 101–62. Davis, R. (2003). Commemorating education: Recollections of the Arab College in Jerusalem, 1918–1948. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 23(1&2), 190–204. Educational Network. (n.d.). Cultivating Palestinian education: Profiles of educational development projects in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Al-Bireh, Palestine: Educational Network. Giroux, H.A. (1988). Teachers as intellectuals: Toward a critical pedagogy of learning. Granby, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey Publishers.

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Graham-Brown, S. (1984). Education, repression, liberation: Palestinians. London: World University Service. Greenberg, E. (2004). Educating Muslim girls in mandatory Palestine. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 36, 1–19. Habashi, J. (2005). Creating Indigenous discourse: History, power, and imperialism in academia, Palestinian case. Qualitative Inquiry, 11(5), 771–88. Hajj, S. (2017). The Arab College in Jerusalem 1918–1948: Influence of the curriculum on the cultural awakening. Journal of Nationalism, Memory & Language Politics, 11(1), 20–38. Henry, R.A. (2019). Global Palestine: International solidarity and the Cuban connection. Journal of Holy Land and Palestine Studies, 18 (2), 239–62. Hiltermann, J.R. (1991). Behind the Intifada: Labor and women’s movements in the occupied territories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Imperiale, M.G., Phipps, A., Al-Masri, N., & Fassetta, G. (2017). Pedagogies of hope and resistance: English language education in the context of the Gaza Strip, Palestine. In E.J. Erling (Ed.), English across the fracture lines (pp. 31–8). London: The British Council. Irizarry, J.G., & Raible, J. (2014). “A hidden part of me”: Latino/a students, silencing, and the epidermalization of inferiority. Faculty Publications: Department of Teaching, Learning and Teacher Education, 185. Retrieved from http:​//dig​italc​ommon​s.unl​.edu/​ teach​learn​facpu​b/185​. Jabareen, H., & Agbaria A. (2014). Autonomy for Arab education in Israel: Rights and possibilities. Giluy Da’at [Opinion], 5, 13–40 (in Hebrew). Jamal, A. (2007). Nationalizing states and the constitution of “hollow citizenship”: Israel and its Palestinian citizens. Ethnopolitics, 6(4), 471–93. Jamal, A. (2008). The political ethos of Palestinian citizens of Israel: Critical reading in the future vision documents. Israel Studies Forum, 23(2), 3–28. Kapoor, D. (2011). Adult learning in political (un-civil) society: Anti-colonial subaltern social movement (SSM) pedagogies of place. Studies in the Education of Adults, 43(2), 128–46. Khaldi, M., & Wahbeh, N. (2002). Teacher education in Palestine: Understanding teachers’ realities and development through action research. In R.G. Sultana (Ed.), Teacher education in the Euro-Mediterranean region (pp. 194–211). New York: Peter Lang. Khaled, L. (1973). Mon peuple vivra. Paris: Gallimard (in French). Khalili, O.M. (2010). Teacher professional development programs in Palestine: Changes beliefs and practices (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts Amherst. Kymlicka, W. (2008). The internationalization of minority rights. International Journal of Constitutional Law, 6(1), 1–32. Mada al-Carmel-Arab Center for Applied Social Research. (2007). The Haifa Declaration. Haifa, Israel: Mada al-Carmel. Makkawi, I. (2017). The rise and fall of academic community psychology in Palestine and the way forward. South African Journal of Psychology, 47(4), 482–92. Mar’i, S.K. (1978). Arab education in Israel. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Masalha, N. (2012). The Palestine Nakba: Decolonizing history, narrating the subaltern, reclaiming memory. New York: Zed Press. Mazawi, A.E. (1994). Teachers’ role patterns and the mediation of sociopolitical change: The case of Palestinian Arab school teachers. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 15(4), 497–514.

 Leçons de Ténèbres 117 Mazawi, A.E. (2000). The reconstruction of Palestinian education: Between history, policy politics and policy making. Journal of Education Policy, 15(3), 371–75. Mazawi, A.E. (2017). School textbooks and entanglements of the “colonial present” in Israel and Palestine. In C. Borg & M. Grech (Eds.), Pedagogy, politics and philosophy of peace (pp. 160–80). New York: Bloomsbury. Meizner, M. (2018). Solidarity donors and popular education in the West Bank. In A. Tartir & T. Seidel (Eds.), Palestine and rule of power (pp. 175–202). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Mignolo, W.D. (2002). The geopolitics of knowledge and the colonial difference. The South Atlantic Quarterly, 101(1), 57–96. Miller, Y. (1985). Government and society in rural Palestine, 1920–1948. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press. Moussa, S. (1972). Some remarks on the experience of the General Union of Palestinian Teachers. Shou’oun Filastiniya [Palestinian Affairs], 16, 150–62 (in Arabic). Nakhleh, K. (1991). Indigenous organizations in Palestine: Towards a purposeful societal development. Jerusalem: Arab Thought Forum. Nakhleh, K. (2011). Yawm al-Arad (Land Day). In N.N. Rouhana & A. Sabbagh-Khoury (Eds.), The Palestinians in Israel: Readings in history, politics and society (pp. 83–89). Haifa, Israel: Mada al-Carmel-Arab Center for Applied Social Research. National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities in Israel. (2006). The Future vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel. Nazareth, Israel: National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities in Israel. Nijm, M.Y. (Ed.). (2007). Dar al-mu’alimin: al-kulliya al-‘arabiya fi bayt al-makdes [The Arab teachers’ College in Jerusalem]. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Sader (in Arabic). Palestine Chronology. (1984). March 1 to May 15, 1984. Journal of Palestine Studies, 13(4), pp. 222–44. Qaimari, B. (2008). Exploring teachers’ professional identity in the context of the current political conflict in Palestine (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Manchester, UK: University of Manchester. Qaimari, B. (2016). Exploring teachers’ professional identity in the context of war zone: A case study from Palestine. American Journal of Educational Research, 4(2A), 15–24. Ricks, T.M. (2008). Khalil Totah: The unknown years. Jerusalem Quarterly, 34, 51–77. Rotem, M., & Neve, G. (2017). Bedouin sumud and the struggle for education. Journal of Palestine Studies, XLVI(4), 7–27. Sa’di, A.H. (2014). Through surveillance: The genesis of Israeli policies of population management, surveillance and political control towards the Palestinian minority. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Sa’di, A.H., & Abu-Lughod, L. (2007). Nakba: Palestine, 1948, and the claims of memory. New York: Columbia University Press. Sayigh, R. (1979). Palestinians: From peasants to revolutionaries. London: Zed Press. Scott, J.C. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Scott, J.C. (1998). Seeing like a state: How certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Shinn, C. (2012). Teacher education reform in Palestine: Policy challenges amid donor expectations. Comparative Education Review, 56(4), 608–33. Sultana, R.G. (2006). Education in conflict situations: Palestinian children and distance education in Hebron. Mediterranean Journal of Educational Studies, 11(1), 49–81.

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Tardif, M. (2014). Liberté et reconnaissance au cœur de l’enseignement. Relations, 774, 22–23 (in French). Retrieved from https://www.erudit.org/f r/rev​ues/r​el/20​14-n7​74re​l0150​7/724​57ac/​. Tawil, S. (1998). Rapport final de la réunion, Genève, 15–16 mai 1997. In S. Tawil (Ed.), La destruction et la reconstruction de l’éducation dans les sociétés perturbées (pp. 7–17) (in French). Retrieved from https://unesdoc.unesco.org. Tibawi, A.L. (1956). Arab education in Mandatory Palestine: A study of three decades of British administration. London: Luzac & Company. Tibawi, A.L. (1979). Islamic education: Its traditions and modernization into the Arab national systems. London: Luzac & Company. Totah, K. (1932). Education in Palestine. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 164, 155–66. Tsehaye, R.S. (2015). Les stratégies scolaires face aux enjeux normatifs internationaux. Revue Tiers Monde, 223, 183–204 (in French). van Teeffelen, T., & Biggs, V. (2011). Sumud: Soul of the Palestinian people, reflections and experiences. Bethlehem, Palestine: Arab Educational Institute. Veronese, G., Pepe, A., Dagdukee, J., & Yaghi, S. (2018). Teaching in conflict settings: Dimensions of subjective wellbeing in Arab teachers living in Israel and Palestine. International Journal of Educational Development, 61, 16–26. Wahbeh, N. (with a team of teacher-researchers) (2011). Educational reform and meaning making in Palestinian schools: An ethnographic study of six public schools. Research paper co-funded with UNICEF. Ramallah, Palestine: Qattan Center for Educational Research and Development. Wahbeh, N. (with a team of teacher-researchers) (2014). Meaning making in Palestinian schools: An ethnographic study in six government schools. In Teaching in the Palestinian school: Empirical studies on the condition of education in West Bank and Gaza Strip schools (pp. 5–131). Ramallah, Palestine: Qattan Center for Educational Research and Development (in Arabic). Wahbeh, N., & Kishek, W. (2006). Analysis of the pedagogic discourse & patterns of interaction in Palestinian schools. Ramallah, Palestine: The Qattan Center for Educational Research and Development (in Arabic). Waxman, D., & Peleg, I. (2008). Neither ethnocracy nor bi-nationalism: In search of the middle ground. Israel Studies Forum, 23(2), 55–73. Yiftachel, O. (2006). Ethnocracy: Land and politics in Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Zureik, E. (2016). Israel’s colonial project in Palestine: Brutal pursuit. New York: Routledge.

7

Decolonizing the Concept of Pedagogy of Discomfort in Classrooms, Curriculum, and Syllabi Hartej Gill and Meena Uppal

This research emerges from the curricular context rooted in the non-Eurocentric syllabi that was developed from the epistemological and ontological locations of the authors of this chapter (as was the norm for their syllabi). One course was taught in a Canadian high school by Meena, and the other in higher education by Hartej, in which Meena was a master’s student. The tensions and chaos that were evoked in both contexts (as highlighted in our narratives) demanded further reflection. Through personal narratives and pedagogical experiences, this chapter attempts to share our personal narratives and pedagogical experiences through an analysis and critique of pedagogy of discomfort from an anti-colonial framework. Meena’s course is described in detail in her narrative. The course taught by Hartej introduced a newly developed topic in the field of Educational Administration and Leadership, entitled School-Community Relations: A Co-created Advocacy Approach. The course was developed from anti-colonial, decolonizing and epistemological justice perspectives. The syllabus reflected a non-Eurocentric curriculum. It included readings from racialized, Indigenous, anti-colonial, and social justice scholars such as, among others, Linda Tuhiwai Smith, Patricia Monture-Angus, Sherene Razack, Himani Bannerji, Chandra Talpade-Mohanty, Michelle Fine, George Sefa Dei, Gloria Anzaldua, Peggy McIntosh, Jean Swanson, Carol Christensen, and Kevin Kumashiro. The curriculum also disrupted traditional hegemonic epistemic norms by including untraditional “readings” from the Canadian context such as decolonizing art pieces by Shani Mootoo and Brian Jungen; poetry from Dionne Briand and Fred Wah; and chapters from novels such as The Hanging of Angelique by Afua Cooper (2006) and Once upon an Elephant: A Down to Earth Tale of Ganesh and What Happens When Worlds Collide by Ashok Mathur (1999); and many others. Additionally, the syllabus included many social justice and Indigenous-focused films such as The Dispossessed, The Sterilization of Leilani Muir, and also included guest speakers Adrienne Montani, Dr. Martha Dow, Dr. Vincent White, Dr. Yvonne Brown, and Dr. Jo-ann Archibald. Although many educational policies and theories speak about meeting the individual needs of students, making curriculum relevant, and co-constructing

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knowledge, the two courses we taught were predesigned several months in advance of meeting the course participants due to institutional requirements. Each syllabus had sections on course description, course objectives, schedule of required readings and activities, expectations, assignments, assessment criteria, and so on. Hartej’s syllabus began with Ji Ayan Nu (a welcome in Punjabi) and an acknowledgment of the traditional, unceded, and ancestral territory of the Musqueam peoples on whose lands the course took place. The syllabus ended with a listing of relevant academic and equity policies, including an invitation to participants to negotiate alternative assignments to meet their individual needs. In all aspects pertaining to her syllabus, Hartej attempted to be as epistemologically representative as possible of the potential students who could be enrolled in the course as well as of the local communities that the course could potentially impact. Despite these efforts, about halfway through the course, one white male participant asked what the course had to do with schoolcommunity relations. The question posed by this participant, as well as the participant in Meena’s narrative later, is not surprising given that the two-course syllabi for both Hartej’s and Meena’s courses represented non-Eurocentric curricula, which especially at the time that these courses were taught were quite unfamiliar to the students and the institutions in question. The bodies of the instructors were similarly unfamiliar to many students (due to institutional absences) other than in the internalized ignorance of many of the participants. In fact, in both our narratives shared later, the course participants continued to look for the instructor even as the instructor stood before them. Our bodies were part of the curriculum, in fact our bodies were the curriculum, even before being recognized as instructors, despite the fact that there is no place for our identities or genealogical locations to appear in the institutional syllabi. Our point of departure is that the body of an educator is curriculum, and this is absolutely crucial to how the institutional syllabus is implemented as the “lived curriculum” (Aoki, 1993), as well as how the “hidden curriculum” (Giroux & Purpel, 1983) of white supremacy enters the curriculum and marks the body of the educator through violent epistemology, violent hegemony, and violent history. Despite the lack of choice in the educator’s body being the curriculum, the concept of reclaiming oneself as a racialized educator from a marginalized social and institutional location is a powerful form of agency and resistance. It allows the educator to define their genealogical location and how it will become part of the classroom rather than allowing themselves to be colonized by students’ imposition of their identity as part of that curriculum. This kind of reclaiming in a Eurocentric system that silences one’s marginalized identity can be empowering for the racialized educator while facilitating enriched student involvement by creating an open environment where reciprocal learning can take place. When an educator can show his/her/their resistance through the reclaiming and validation of the lived experiences of oppression and marginalization, the students too feel like they can express their chall​enges​/valu​es/st​ruggl​es/ne​gotia​tions​. This fosters a curriculum in which the students and educators have the potential to inhabit the nonhegemonic curriculum. In doing so, they both co-create generative, espistemologically just, reciprocal learning spaces. Often this kind of space of learning is present even in its perceived absence.

 Decolonizing the Concept of Pedagogy of Discomfort in Classrooms 121 Notwithstanding, such a process is not without its own challenges, particularly in terms of the discomfort involved in the space of the classroom and the extent to which such discomfort informs the pedagogy of opening up toward the new modalities of inhabitation. Some of these curricular and epistemological reflections that arose from the teaching of our respective courses are discussed in the sections that follow as a way of decolonizing the concept of pedagogy of discomfort and offering a decolonizing approach, which begins from a place of activism and epistemological justice. We begin with one of our personal narratives as educators, and two other narratives are purposefully integrated throughout the chapter as a way of staying true to decolonizing work and our commitment to disrupt traditional Eurocentrism in course syllabi, curriculum, pedagogy, theory, and research. In an attempt at reclaiming marginalized epistemologies and ontologies, we share our bodies and the narratives of those bodies in order to resist Eurocentric understandings that often devalue narratives as descriptions, wisdom, or ethnic knowledge and relegate them to spaces of the data alone. Our writing acknowledges the importance of the narratives of marginalized voices as theoretical academic knowledge; this chapter emerged and is rooted specifically in the theoretical understandings of our narratives. This approach may unavoidably cause discomfort and present gaps for those accustomed to mainstream Eurocentric papers in academia; however, for us decolonization is not a tokenistic choice which we compartmentalize to specific settings in our lives, it is our embodied way of being in all that we do and in this chapter it represents an enactment of our epistemological agency.

Hartej’s Narrative I had started this class as I did all others that I teach—by acknowledging the traditional, unceded, and ancestral territory of the Musqueam peoples on which the University of British Columbia (UBC) is located and sharing my Punjabisettler genealogical location. Coming from a Punjabi heritage of freedom fighters, I also acknowledged my elders and ancestors for their struggles with racism, and colonialism in India and in Canada. This was followed by introductions and having the students co-create community responsibilities toward sharing a safe space that would allow all voices to have a chance to speak and be heard (a responsibility that everyone, including the instructor, is asked to take on by monitoring themselves and each other). Throughout the term, I reiterated the need to understand and “become fluent in each other histories” (Alexander as cited in Mohanty, 2003, p.  125) in order to better understand each other and the inequities that continue to exist in the present. And finally, having witnessed students’ White guilt and shame in other teaching experiences, I wanted to assure everyone that engaging these histories was not intended to make anyone in the class feel guilty or ashamed of things that have taken place in the past—this was not about blaming them or their ancestors. Rather, this was about recognizing that we have collectively inherited horrible atrocities of the past; understanding their continuing impact on the present; and about taking on the responsibility to

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ensure that those injustices of the past are not perpetuated and repeated again—at the very least not in our classrooms. It was about advocating against the myth of meritocracy and about raising awareness about what we can do collectively, as well as personally, pedagogically (as educators) and politically to shift and transform schools and society toward greater equity for all. On that day, as a form of check-in for the mid-term evaluations, I had asked participants to share their thoughts about the course. I purposefully left the format of the evaluation open in order to not restrict the participants’ responses as the institutional course-end evaluations often do. When I came home that evening, I read through all of the evaluations. There were students who were enjoying the “messy” discussions that were taking place in the class; others who wanted to see greater depth about specific areas of the curriculum and strategies for leaders in schools working with diverse communities, then there was the last response—which said: “It is troubling that in a class about social justice leadership and community engagement where the instructor has emphasized the need to hear all voices, one voice has been silenced—the “White male voice”.” My heart sank as I said “here it is.” I knew the class would unsettle someone again. I re-read the note over and over—but the message didn’t change. I went through the faces of the participants in my head trying to figure out who could have written something so disrespectful, something so contrary to what I had attempted to do in the class, something so untrue, something so Eurocentric. . . . Then, I stopped—this wasn’t, as I already knew, about me. Someone White in the class was feeling silenced—perhaps for the first time in their life. This class was unique to many other university classes that I had taught. It was the first class that I had ever taught with five South Asian students, one student of Aboriginal heritage, two students who identified themselves as Chinese and one student who self-identified as a “working class queer mut.” It was one of the few classes in my teaching experience where half the students in the class were racialized students or nondominant “white” students (of course their identities were much more complex than this). Furthermore, many of them were astutely aware of social and institutional inequities and often supported me in challenging the status quo, the Eurocentric ideas of some of participants in the class, and the hegemony of the institution and society—for the first time, I felt that I had a significant group of allies in the class. As a result, the classroom discussions were even messier than in some of my other classes and the experience was almost like an experiential space of decolonization and activism. Discussions were often taken into the corridors during break or outside after class or during breakout small group work. On one occasion a concerned senior colleague who had overheard an early morning conversation about “the tensions in the class” approached me to check-in to see if everything was going well in the classroom and if I needed help. The “tensions” in this class were the same “tensions” that I had experienced in all the classes that I teach. The questionings of “why we can’t just forget the past and get on with it”; the reiterations about how we live in a multicultural country “and everyone can do anything or have anything they want”; the clarifications about how “I too have experienced marginalization when travelling in the East or living in Richmond (a predominately Asian city in the lower mainland of Vancouver), or

 Decolonizing the Concept of Pedagogy of Discomfort in Classrooms 123 the most sensitive issue about shame “I shouldn’t have to feel guilty, I had nothing to do with this.” These so-called tensions reflect ignorance—internalized ignorance for the most part, as a result of being exposed to years and years of Eurocentric education and socialization (as students and for many of the participants now as teachers and educational leaders). These tensions are also significant pedagogical moments—these are moments that I cherish for their capacity to push thinking; to shift peoples’ consciousness and learn through having to participate in the messiness of the moment unprepared for what will and can emerge. At the same time, they are the most difficult teaching/learning moments of my classrooms— my colour, gender, histories, standpoints, epistemologies, refusal to stay neutral about inequities and especially about colonialism and White privilege cause a great deal of “tension” particularly for students who have never experienced social and institutional marginalization and who have never been exposed to syllabi focusing on the non-Eurocentric curriculum—including non-Eurocentric pedagogy and the non-Eurocentric bodies of their instructors. This narrative is not meant to essentialize White educators/professors or students, rather it attempts to highlight the challenges involved when one does not have a choice to not bring themselves into the curriculum and as such when one is forced to reclaim and perform one’s identities in order to not be violently colonized by students’ imposition of one’s identity as a victim or as someone without colour in a context without history. I could have thrown out that evaluation that day—the one that is now etched in my mind as are all the other similar accusations from former students—no one would have known, no one would have asked, no one would have cared. That would have been the easiest thing to do. Instead, I took it into class, took a deep breath and shared the note and how it made me feel reading it. I opened up the discussion after sharing the agenda for the day. Despite the silence and silencings in that room, we never got through the agenda. And I cried in front of my students yet again.

Much of the work on the pedagogy of discomfort—including that of Boler (1999), Boler and Zembylas (2003), Brooks (2011), Leibowitz, Bozalek, Rohleder, Carolissen, and Swartz (2010)—focuses on either bringing emotion and discomfort into the classroom or attending to emotion in the classroom. We would like to begin our discussion by talking not about emotion but about oppression and about violence, especially the hegemonic oppression and violence imposed on marginalized bodies of both students and educators, when we talk about emotion and discomfort rather than genocide, dispossession, and legacies of colonialism. Equally problematic and minimizing is pedagogy of discomfort’s (Boler & Zembylas, 2003) notions of inviting emotion and discomfort into the classroom rather than recognizing that this lived reality already exists in the educational context among the bodies who experience the oppression and violence on a daily basis, personally, socially, epistemologically, institutionally, and systemically. According to Boler and Zembylas (2003), “A pedagogy of discomfort is an educational approach to understanding the production of norms and differences.” This work extends many of Boler’s (1999) previous ideas about pedagogy of discomfort

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by clarifying that the discomfort of the educator is equally important alongside the discomfort of the student and by clarifying that “one should not make the mistake of assuming that a pedagogy of discomfort seeks only to destabilize members of the dominant group.” Boler and Zembylas further elaborate: A pedagogy of discomfort invites not only members of the dominant cultures but also members of marginalized cultures to re-examine the hegemonic values inevitably internalized in the process of being exposed to curriculum and media that serve the interests of the ruling class. No one escapes hegemony. (2003, p. 111)

Although there are clearly individuals who escape hegemony in different ways and benefit extensively from it, we would like to begin our analysis by focusing on the point that, as Boler and Zembylas (2003) point out, no one escapes “internalizing dominant cultural values even though these values take different forms in different individuals” (p. 115). We would argue that many people, especially those from marginalized locations with profound and violent experiences of oppression and exclusion, do resist internalizing dominant cultural values and further engage in examining these values while experiencing hegemonic oppression on a regular basis. In this manner to assume that everyone must be invited to “re-examine the hegemonic values” in the same manner is to violently essentialize the experiences of those from marginalized communities with those of the dominant society—which includes many who have the privilege of having to be invited to examine/reexamine hegemonic values. Additionally, pedagogy of discomfort is described as a way of “inviting students to leave the familiar shores of learned beliefs and habits, and swim further out into the ‘foreign’ and risky depths of the sea of ethical and moral differences” (Boler, 1999, p. 181). The notion of “leaving the familiar shores . . . and swimming further out into the foreign and risky depths” (albeit it problematic in itself given its echoes of Orientalism) implies that the difference is simply about ethical and moral differences rather than also about epistemic, systemic and “colonial difference[s]” (Mignolo, 2007). Educators, students, the community and their experiences, and (often) silenced histories as a whole must be examined and recognized as part of the social justice curriculum and the pedagogical encounter, especially given the different power differential between students from socially and institutionally marginalized locations and those from dominant locations working with (most often) educators from dominant locations informed by dominant ideologies. How is comfort/discomfort experienced differently given the inequities and symmetries present in the classroom and curricular relationships? Will the experiences of all have the potential to be validated and challenged equitably? Furthermore, to stop at a simple re-examination of the internalized dominant cultural values without an analysis of how individuals (from both marginalized and dominant locations) are implicated in enacting the dominant cultural values or experiencing the impact of the enactment of these values as part of the coloniality (Mignolo, 2007) of the present further keeps much of the work of pedagogy of discomfort in the comforts of a Eurocentric framework (e.g., in the ahistoric present). Often oppression is decontextualized “out there,” or in terms of progress in the present,

 Decolonizing the Concept of Pedagogy of Discomfort in Classrooms 125 or in terms of “passive empathy” (Boler, 1999). The role and genealogical locations of students and the educator in the reproduction of oppression or as objects of oppression are often left unaddressed as if they were irrelevant to the pedagogical processes. Further by erasing colonial relations of power and by talking simply about “power” or “culture” (as much of this work and many classrooms continue to do), we would argue that it erases violent colonial histories and re-impose colonial violence on the colonized/formerly colonized/postcolonial body. Boler and Zembylas highlight that conversations about discomfort are invited into a classroom. This assumes, however, that the classroom is an otherwise neutral, tension-free, safe, and comfortable place for students and for the educator. In this line of thought, the assumption is often that the educator has no color, class, gender, and so on beyond the “norm.” We would argue that (at least in our experience) most social justice reading textbooks also make this assumption where the genealogical location and identity of the educator (as well as the students) is completely left out of the conversation on issues of oppression and anti-oppression education. What might a pedagogy of discomfort look like for a racialized educator, for example? Would it assume that one’s color or racialization would need to be “invited” into the educational context? Or would it recognize that one’s color and genealogy is already a part of the curricular context and the curriculum the moment that the racialized educator enters the room. How then does discomfort mark the experience of this educator differently than those of an educator who is able to “pass” (if he/she/they so desire) or of someone from the dominant settler location? What kind of comforts/discomforts might be part of that experience?

Meena’s Narrative Sixteen Years Ago . . . As a student teacher on my practicum I was fully prepared. I had very carefully and thoughtfully constructed my course syllabus with an overarching question in mind, “Who we are today because of yesterday.” Each lesson plan was designed to engage students in understanding the injustices of the past. This shared Canadian history lesson would aim to help students discover and reflect on how contemporary society has been impacted. I was hoping students would be open to discussing Indigeneity, race, class, gender, able-bodiness and non-binary sexual identity. I had creatively organized each lesson to have experiential learning and had made a conscious effort to create spaces for students to “appear” within the curriculum. I was very confident and excited to implement my unit on Social Justice Issues. As I entered the classroom on my very first day, I came to realize that I was teaching the top ten percent of the female social studies student population. The concept of this Women’s Studies 11 class was intriguing and I was looking forward to seeing how my lessons would “work” in comparison to my regular social studies 11 classes. The bell rang and students began entering the classroom. As the desks filled up, I noticed the predominantly White faces staring curiously up at me. Many of the girls

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looked similar in age to myself—I was so grateful that I was wearing a business suit. I needed to create a gap between myself and my students. Ignoring the butterflies, I presented myself in an authoritative and knowledgeable way. My teacher voice showed power but also an openness. The purpose of that day’s lesson was to create an open, safe, environment which would facilitate future lessons. I began by introducing the syllabus and giving a brief description of some of the topics that would be integrated in the unit plan: The Colonial History of Residential Schools, Chinese Head Tax, Japanese Internment, Poverty in BC, Homophobia, Glass Ceiling, and the Komagata Maru. A student asked what “a Komagata Maru was.” I explained that it was a ship carrying passengers from India that was not allowed to enter Canada even though it met the Canadian government’s immigration requirements of the time (despite the fact that Canada was/is occupied Indigenous territory). I went on to explain to the class that we would be studying our shared history. I asked the class, “Why do you think it is important to study the history of Canada?” I was hoping students would acknowledge that studying the past allows us to understand who we are today and how it influences our future. Instead I had a student put up her hand with a surprising response, “You want us to study the history so we can see how ‘we’ were bad to ‘your’ people in the past. You want us to see how you are the victim.” It was in that moment that I came to the realization that I was not a teacher, rather I was a “Brown” teacher. The students saw my color and then my role. I was preoccupied with all the things a successful student-teacher in the teacher education program should be doing: dressing the part, creating the lessons with a purpose, creating a safe classroom environment and most importantly allowing spaces for the students to appear in the classroom and curriculum. In this process I did not think about how I was being perceived. My notion of a teacher was not holistic. My experiences as a student defined my perceived role of what a teacher was: a neutral White person. Most of my professors at UBC were part of this homogenous group as well. I too thought I could be this person. I naively believed my color was not relevant to my role. This one response impacted my pedagogy and teaching profoundly. It made me aware that I do not have the luxury of leaving my ethnicity at the door. I am forced to bring my whole self into the classroom at all times.

As is evident in the context of this narrative, discomfort is always already present. Pedagogy of discomfort (Boler & Zembylas, 2003) was envisioned as the space for discomfort to appear within the social justice curriculum rather than to address its invisibility in the mainstream curriculum. Many of us face educational exclusion through curriculum silences or complete omissions; through dismissals when sharing non-Eurocentric civilized ideas; through silences of violent acts of colonialism, racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, and many other acts of oppression; and further when we are silenced by the silencings of colonialist institutionalized ignorance. To not forefront these ideas and the importance of the inclusion of one’s genealogical location in a pedagogy of discomfort and to not recognize how hegemony impacts individuals (including educators and students) differently is

 Decolonizing the Concept of Pedagogy of Discomfort in Classrooms 127 to minimize the experiences of the oppression and colonization of many. More importantly, to not recognize the colonial experience of Indigenous and Aboriginal peoples as distinct from the oppression experiences of other marginalized settlers in Canada in the context of genocide, land removals, forced assimilation, “breeding out,” and legislation which “essentially legalises the Aboriginal out of existence” (King, 2003, p. 132) is a convenient colonial oversight which has been part of a long and violent process of rendering the Aboriginal “invisible” and of the continuing participation in the colonial project.

Meena’s Second Narrative Finally, at the Masters level I was privileged to have a professor that reflected my identity. I was in awe. However, it was not just her identity that motivated me to hold her in such high esteem; rather it was her way. She taught with such passion and integrity. She was open yet the class knew where she stood. Her approach to all education started from a place of activism. Our shared passion for social justice enabled me to challenge myself and others in a way I never thought possible. Dialogue in class was intense and very uncomfortable at times for many. However, for me it was one of the most meaningful educational experiences. This professor brought herself into every curricular conversation and encouraged the students to do the same—and in doing so learn from each other. This particular class we were talking about Whiteness; a topic that had been covered before in my other classes through articles, questions—something “out there about the ‘Other.’” Today however the discussion was about us—all of us. In my experience, when the educator does not appear in the social justice curriculum it renders the dialogue that takes place tokenistic. The emphasis is placed on discussing readings, understanding concepts and addressing issues in an abstract objective manner. Often the main questions that are asked include: “What was the main argument of the article?” “What social justice issues were highlighted?” “How do these issues relate to theory?” It becomes about “the other.” But there is also great danger in bringing oneself into the curriculum or rather not having the choice but to be brought into the curriculum. As a result, my esteemed professor was being attacked personally. She did not have the privilege of speaking of or to Whiteness. A White male student in the class was challenging her by assuming that she was “blaming” White males and trying to present herself as the victim. The issues presented in this class were familiar and similar to those that were brought up in my other classes taught by White male and female professors from privileged locations. The approach, interrogations and accusations were different, however. At this point I realized that it was her identity and colour that was driving this student’s comments. I was very upset by the dynamics and the silences that were taking place in the class. From a place of activism, I needed to let her know that I was her ally (not just her student). I knew she was capable of handling the situation but I felt it was necessary to give her power in a very dominant patriarchal and Eurocentric environment. I was unsure of whether the other White students shared

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this student’s sentiments. In that moment it became a racialized debate: not through words but silences. This story shows how surprisingly resistance against the silences and activism for/with my professor became more urgent for me (and for several other students in the class) than how I might feel or how I might be perceived. This class was one of the most profound classes I have had at the university level. Working through the messiness of oppression relationally, we were able to bring ourselves as a class in understanding how our lives are impacted by marginalization and exclusion and where our priorities must exist intersectionally as Indigenous peoples, settlers, and settlers from marginalized locations. Unfortunately, a class that was one of the most profound for me was a class of great discomfort and an example of “bad teaching” for some.

Reflections Classrooms that foster messy engagements can often be perceived as tense, chaotic, disorganized, racist, and so on. Students are perceived to be disrespectful, and teacher authority and capabilities are often questioned. Building on our respective stories, we argue that working toward a non-hegemonic environment is critical for transformative social justice education and must be supported institutionally. This means rethinking what a syllabus stands for, and how and what it conveys through its structure, outline, inclusions, and omissions. Our interrogation of the syllabus does not go without its own challenges, however. In high school social justice courses, for example, complaints from parents, administrators, colleagues, students about “good teaching” are also very common, constraining how teachers move through and negotiate their syllabi. Additionally, teacher evaluations (at schools, school district levels and in universities), and perceptions of teacher capabilities, often run the risk of being compromised. The contradicting role of an effective social justice and decolonizing educator and a traditional “good teacher” can cause personal struggles and challenges for educators in terms of how they come to engage the curriculum, its organization of the syllabus, and its enactment in the classroom. According to the British Columbia Ministry of Education (2008), “good teaching” is about safe, caring, and orderly classrooms. In schools and school districts, this is often interpreted to reflect teaching which is applauded for its neutrality and surveilled for its compliance with and accountability to predetermined Integrated Resources Packages (IRPs). Similarly, in our experiences, we recognize that, often, as part of “good teaching,” the difficult questions about Indigeneity, racism, sexism, classism, heteronormativity, ableism, and other forms of systemic and institutional oppressions are either not addressed or addressed in “safe” tokenistic and colonizing ways which often further perpetuate oppression and maintain the status quo. In the context of our narratives, our critique of the pedagogy of discomfort, and in contrast to the B.C. Ministry of Education documents, we would argue that discomfort—in which established notions of the “good classroom,” the “good teacher,”

 Decolonizing the Concept of Pedagogy of Discomfort in Classrooms 129 and “good teaching” are disrupted—is actually a place and space of great comfort and resistance for many. This is particularly so for educators originating from nondominant, marginalized, and racialized locations in society. In that sense, discomfort may be a place and space for school communities where the silencings and oppressive absences so prevalent in social relations are unearthed, not by the marginalized bodies of students being forced to teach the entire class, and often even the instructor, but hopefully by the educator and the students in the classroom coming out to this work together experientially, contextually, and relationally, possibly in “unlikely coalitions” (Davis, 1999 as cited in Mohanty, 2003, p. 125), generating a greater awareness and validation of prevalent oppressive relations. Within this context, both educators and students act as subjects who participate consciously in unpacking, exposing, and engaging social inequities. More importantly, by exposing dominant locations and oppressive relations, they learn to listen, reflect, and acknowledge their respective privileges, internalized ignorance, and the responsibilities associated with the enacting of a pedagogy of justice in the classroom, and in turn beyond. The burden for such an enactment should not rest exclusively on educators from marginalized and racialized locations. Rather, educators from privileged locations must claim/recognize and articulate their places of power; in particular how that power is implicated in the marginalization of others. In this regard, we would argue that educational curriculum and pedagogy must begin from a place of co-created social, political, and historical activism, and lead to the articulation of what we refer to as an “epistemology of justice.” A decontextualized pedagogical approach not only compartmentalizes issues of social justice that should be addressed in all pedagogical encounters but also allows participants to absolve themselves and remain consciously and unconsciously entrenched in the reproduction of oppression (particularly when this oppression happens as part of the pedagogical context itself). Syllabi that simply provide activities and invite discussions of readings without offering experiential classroom spaces through which educators and students can challenge inequities and oppression cannot be claimed as ethical, respectful, or just. In fact, we argue that such prescriptive and normalizing syllabi and course designs need to be redefined and decolonized in terms of what “good teaching” stands for in the broader order of things. We acknowledge that activism and decolonization of the institutional syllabi, classroom curriculum, pedagogy, and the aims of education is a complex process. As a starting point, it requires the decolonization of the classroom space. At the most basic level, this may be done by making space for marginalized bodies to enter the classroom, especially in teacher education programs and in higher education more generally. A pedagogy of discomfort (Boler & Zembylas, 2003) assumes that these bodies are already part of the educational space, but—as our narratives suggests—this is not necessarily a given since Canadian universities remain predominantly white and male (Dua & Banji, 2012, as cited in Henry, 2016). Marginalized and racialized bodies of educators and students, once in the institution, actually require a platform to voice their knowledge, experiences, histories, and be heard—an aspect of their work which is often denied or narrowed down to tokenistic reading items in the syllabus. In that sense, course syllabi must take as their anchor the importance of fostering reciprocal,

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generative, and experiential, messy, decolonizing learning spaces that challenge Eurocentric notions of the “ideal” classroom environment or “good teaching.” In conclusion, a decolonizing pedagogy demands changing the requirements of institutionally warranted syllabi to include oppressive histories and epistemologies in the curriculum and the creation of an experiential engagement with oppression, marginalization, privilege, and power in order to collectively envision a decolonizing pedagogy of activism. In this manner, we argue, that the institutional syllabi, one that represents the official institutional requirements of the expectations of a syllabus, offer a starting space of decolonization and activism (as the authors themselves envisioned for their own syllabi). This formal institutional space would then have the potential to extend the decolonization and activism into curricular design that could actively destabilize normalized inequitable practices within the classroom and beyond. In that sense, we argue that a pedagogy of discomfort offers great potential to learn and teach about many taken-for-granted hegemonic norms and practices and their processes of internalization. However, by essentializing all experiences in the classroom as equally uncomfortable without examining the asymmetrical power relations of the context as a whole; by not recognizing the discomfort and oppression that is always already present in all education and social spaces (due in part to null objectified bodies marked by histories of oppression); and further by not recognizing that places of discomfort may be places of great comfort for those suffering/healing from colonial epistemological and ontological wounds, this pedagogical approach actually re-inscribes violence and injustice on marginalized bodies by dismissing, minimizing, or objectifying their experiences, ontologies, and epistemologies of oppression, violence, and colonization. Insisting on a “safe space” which precludes discomfort of any kind actually re-inscribes, within curricula and syllabi, prevalent violence, and colonial injustices imposed on marginalized bodies, especially those of Indigenous peoples. A decolonizing pedagogy on the other hand begins from a place of decolonization and activism. It recognizes and honors the relational genealogies and colonial histories that are part of pedagogical spaces of coloniality. It helps disrupt the Eurocentrism and the discomforts of a pedagogy of discomfort. Recognizing discomfort as representing a decolonizing pedagogic value renders visible, and disrupts, oppressive norms enacted within school and higher education curricula and syllabi. Re-cognizing— as in re-claiming—the pedagogic value of discomfort offers a genuine, co-created, decolonizing space for a genuine understanding of equity and epistemic justice in a Eurocentric system that continues to value neocolonial narratives of progress over narratives of colonization.

References Aoki, T. T. (1993). Legitimating lived curriculum: Toward a curricular landscape of multiplicity. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision, 8(30), 255–68. Boler, M. (1999). Feeling power: Emotions in education. New York: Routledge.

 Decolonizing the Concept of Pedagogy of Discomfort in Classrooms 131 Boler, M., & Zembylas, M. (2003). Discomforting truths: The emotional terrain of understanding difference. In P. Pericles Trifonas (Ed.), Pedagogies of difference: Rethinking education for social change (pp. 110–36). New York: Routledge. British Columbia, Ministry of Education. (2008). Safe, caring, and orderly schools: A guide. Retrieved from https://www2.gov.bc.ca. Brooks, J.G. (2011). Bearing the weight: Discomfort as a necessary condition for “less violent” and more equitable dialogic learning. Educational Foundations, (Winter– Spring), 43–62. Giroux, H., & Purpel, D.E. (1983). Hidden curriculum and moral education: Deception of discovery. Berkeley, CA: McCutchan Pub Corp. Henry, A. (2016, February 16). Canadian campuses suffer from a lack of racial inclusion: Universities often ignore a varied and rich Black intellectual tradition. University Affairs/ Affaires Universitaires. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.uni​versi​tyaff​airs.​ca/op​inion​/inm​y-opi​nion/​canad​ian-c​ampus​es-su​ffer-​from-​a-lac​k-of-​racia​l-inc​lusio​n/. King, T. (2003). The truth about stories: A native narrative. Toronto, ON: House of Anansi Press. Leibowitz, B., Bozalek, V., Rohleder, P., Carolissen, R., & Swartz, L. (2010). “Ah, but the whiteys love to talk about themselves”: Discomfort as a pedagogy for change. Race Ethnicity and Education, 13(1), 83–100. Mignolo, W. (2007). Coloniality of power and decolonial thinking. Cultural Studies 21(2–3), 155–67. Mohanty C.T. (2003). Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practising solidarity. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

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Centering Indigenous and Decolonizing Pedagogy The Complexities, Tension, and Possibilities of Doing Spirit Work in Teacher Education Bathseba Opini and Erica Neeganagwedgin

Introduction The fastest-growing population groups in Canada are Indigenous peoples,1 up 20.1 percent between 2006 and 2011, with Indigenous children accounting for 5.2 percent of the country’s total school population (Statistics Canada, 2011). In addition, the makeup of Canada’s population has changed significantly owing to immigration. The result for the education and schooling, especially in the K-12 levels, is that across the country the presence of a diverse student body has become a reality. If schools are to meet the learning needs of these students, teachers and teacher education faculties must rethink their practices (Villegas & Lucas, 2002). This rethinking requires examining beliefs about what constitutes education and knowledge and looking beyond simply adding a course or two on Indigeneity, social justice, diversity, and equity into the curriculum while leaving the bulk of a Eurocentric curriculum intact (Battiste, 1998; Thaman, 2003). Like Villegas and Lucas (2002), we argue that course additions are an improvement, but they do not go far enough in preparing teacher candidates to address the structures that have historically marginalized Indigenous peoples and racialized students within the education system. Failure to examine systemic inequities renders educators complacent with regard to the status quo, which enables relations of domination to be reproduced, resulting in continued marginalization, segregation, and delegitimization of other knowledges (Block, 2014). Consequently, Block (2014) calls for “purposeful teaching” (p. 61), which means engaging in pedagogy that disrupts and critically The terms “Indigenous” and “Aboriginal” are used interchangeably to reference First Nations, Métis and Inuit. However, the term Aboriginal appears here primarily when referencing quotes from works of other scholars. We also fully understand that Indigenous peoples within Canada have diverse languages, cultures, and nations.

1

 Centering Indigenous and Decolonizing Pedagogy 133 examines the taken-for-granted neoliberal discourse on diversity and inclusion that informs the prevailing education system. Purposeful teaching entails moving from what Shor (1996) referred to as “patch-work” pedagogy to infusing Indigenous content and multiple ways of knowing throughout all courses in a program of study. In this chapter we argue that concrete action should be taken now to rethink education, decolonize curriculum, syllabi and pedagogy, embrace inclusive teaching practices, and commit to equity and social justice education. Delay on such initiatives is no longer an acceptable option. After team teaching teacher candidates enrolled in a foundations course at one Canadian university on decolonizing curriculum and pedagogy, we reflect on our thoughts about the tensions and dilemmas these teacher candidates grapple with while preparing to work in multifaceted classrooms. Specifically, we consider the uncertainties teacher candidates have about what is meant by decolonizing curriculum and pedagogy and centering Indigenous worldviews and other ways of knowing in their syllabi and curriculum.

Who Are We? We are educators with global Indigenous ancestral roots who now live on Indigenous Lands in Canada. We care deeply about teaching and believe learning should be transformative. For this reason, engaging with and understanding teacher education represents for us a priority. We are inspired by the African maxim Mtu ni watu, translated as a person is people, meaning a person lives because of others. The challenge, as we see it, is that some people and their knowledges and ways of being have been construed as superior to others. Accordingly, we also subscribe to the belief that the oppressive structures within the education system must be dismantled. Transformation in this endeavor does not happen without difficulty, often taking the form of resistance. Nonetheless, the latter should not prevent our pursuit for change. We believe that the commitment to transform the education system can begin with us as instructors and the teacher candidates we work with in our institutions. Our collaborative work goes back to our graduate school years. We have collaborated in conference presentations as well as research projects. We have also shared ideas to enrich our teaching practices on a yearly basis for the past ten years. We teach teacher candidates in our respective institutions and after numerous conversations we decided to team teach the topic “decolonizing pedagogy” that many students view to be a “pedagogy of discomfort” (Boler, 1999). Accordingly, for the past four years we have collaborated in planning and teaching this topic. During this time, we have continued to reflect on students’ responses to the course material, readings, and discussions, as well as the challenges they face in conceptualizing how the learnings could be translated into practice. We have observed that many teacher candidates have limited exposure to the racist historical and ongoing systemic oppression of Indigenous peoples in Canada. In many instances, students reveal that if at all they were taught about Indigenous peoples, they were presented with a “feel-good” history. For example, many teacher candidates admit

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that it is only now that they are learning about Canada’s residential school system, the sixties scoop, the millennium scoop—subjects that were either rarely mentioned or only glossed over in their schooling or never taught. This new awareness on the part of teacher candidates marked the beginning of a series of informative, though difficult, conversations about the role power and racism continues to play in minimizing the educational opportunities and experiences of Indigenous and racialized peoples.

The Education Foundations Course In Canada, most teacher education programs require teacher candidates to take an education foundations course to qualify for certification. The foundations course, that is the focus of this chapter, is a compulsory three-credit course in the bachelor of education program at a Canadian university that aims to help develop, in educators, a deep understanding of the nature of education and schooling; of past, present, and future educational issues and practices; and equip future teachers with the requisite theoretical and practical knowledge to interrogate and reflect on the relations between schools and society, government policy and other competing interests in education. As part of a larger project aimed at promoting equity, diversity, and social justice in education, we have team taught a theme on decolonizing pedagogy, committing ourselves to studying and teaching the history and practice of “silencing” other knowledges as well as understanding our role in it. The initial framings, topics, and readings in these foundations of education course drew more on Eurocentric authors, theories, and perspectives with fewer readings based on the works of Indigenous and racialized theorists. The topic of decolonizing pedagogy was not in the original syllabus. We added these discussions into our syllabus planning and teaching because we noticed gaps in the teacher candidates’ understandings of the history of education and more so colonial education in Canada. In addition, an analysis of educational policy is a crucial theme in this course. In our discussions and reflections on the syllabus, we thought that since educational policies are used to guide actions, dictate the “how” of curriculum implementation, financing and resource distribution and even hiring and retention of educators (see Pal, 2006), introducing the topic of decolonizing curriculum and pedagogy would allow us and the teacher candidates to unearth the silencing of racism and colonialism in educational policies. It would allow us to consider ways language and power play out in these policies and the values and ideologies transmitted through the policies and the implications for practice. Likewise, an examination of the goals of education and the functions of schools is key to the course but readings feature works of European scholars, (Labaree, 1997; Mitchell, 2003; Osborne, 2008; Westheimer & Kahne, 2004), which give one-sided colonial informed goals of education such as democracy and citizenship (Osborne, 2008). Yet, education has different meanings for different people and universalizing the idea that education is the same for everyone is problematic. For example, for many Indigenous people relationships with the lands are key to learning. The purpose of Indigenous education is to provide a well-rounded way of looking at the world and living in the world; the end goal is a wholistic way of understanding the world. This is very different from the

 Centering Indigenous and Decolonizing Pedagogy 135 capitalist-driven competitive, individualistic, and materialistic goals of colonial education (Little Bear, 2009). The continued imposition of Eurocentric notions of schooling and education on Indigenous people has serious implications for Indigenous learners and is one of the many ways in which colonial discourses continue to function in schools today (Sabzalian, 2019, p. xviii). We problematize Western linear ways of looking at the purpose of education and schooling and introduce teacher candidates to readings that focus on the role of education in Indigenous communities. We draw on Indigenous epistemologies and pedagogy to inform our classroom teaching, content, and style. We include the works of various scholars (see Battiste & Henderson, 2012; Little Bear, 2009; Shreve, 2015; Simpson, 2004; Dion, 2009) to provide a more wholistic and meaningful understanding of what education and schooling that takes into account Indigenous knowledges should look like. We view all of these efforts as important steps toward fulfilling St. Denis’s (2010) recommendations to: (i) honor and respect the unique nature, value and contributions of Indigenous knowledge; (ii) provide all teachers . . . an understanding of Indigenous knowledge, culture and issues, along with an anti-racist education and critical perspective on the history of colonization; and (iii) include Indigenous content in all subjects, drawing on local resources, especially Elders, whenever possible, while at the same time acknowledging the importance of Indigenous education that occurs outside the school setting (p. 9). This requires conscious efforts to work toward exposing the naturalization and normalization of whiteness (St. Denis, 2007), not only within the academy but also within the K-12 education system and the society as a whole.

Literature on Decolonizing Pedagogy The legacy and ongoing impact of colonization in Canada as well as around the globe and their educational implications have been well documented by several scholars (e.g., Battiste, 1998; Dei, 2000, 2012; Donald, 2009, 2011; Marker, 2006; Simpson, 2004, 2014; Neeganagwedgin, 2013; Pete, Schneider, & O’Reilly, 2013; Smith, 1999; St. Denis, 2010; Wane, 2006; wa Thiong’o, 1986), prompting us to rethink and re-evaluate a Eurocentric education that continues to be normalized and valorized in everyday curriculum and syllabus. In the context of this work, we define colonialism by drawing on the work of Indigenous scholars Wesley Esquimaux and Smoleski (2004, p. 6) who see colonialism as historical and ongoing. The authors argue that colonialism has many elements including physical, economic, cultural, social, and psychological. Ali Abdi (2012) noted that colonialism is educational, cultural, mental, and physical domination. Waziyatawin and YellowBird (2012) added that “colonialism is detrimental . . . because their power comes at the expense of Indigenous lands, resources lives and self-determination” and that “most of our contemporary daily struggles are also a direct consequence of colonization (pp. 2–3). Within the Canadian education system (and other areas of society), colonization was structured in a way that denied space for Indigenous ways of knowing, thus privileging, mainstream knowledges and delegitimizing other peoples’ knowledges, languages, and cultures (Battiste, 1998). In Canada, historically, denying Indigenous

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peoples the right to an education was part of the federal government policy directed at dehumanizing the learners by eliminating Indigenous ways of knowing and being while instilling a Euro-Canadian identity (Castellano, Archibald, & Degagne, 2008). The result was loss of self-identity, language, spirituality, culture, and worldviews. Leanne Betasamosake Simpson explained that colonial/Eurocentric education aimed to forcibly assimilate First Nations peoples (2014, p. 6). These sentiments were echoed by Abdi (2012), who argued that colonialism in its psychological, educational, cultural, technological, economic, and political dimensions remains intact today and continues to affect the lives of people. What colonization does best is play with people’s psyche and make them doubt their humanness, abilities, and significance. Battiste (1998) emphasized that cognitive imperialism, one of the most powerful mechanisms of colonization, is used to discredit other knowledges and validate Eurocentric ways of knowing as the norm. Cognitive imperialism props up the belief that European concepts, ways of being, and worldviews are not only fundamentally different but also better—more scientific, reasoned, and rational—than those of the “other” and are, therefore, universal and easily transferred (Ireland, 2009). Colonial education constantly measures Indigenous ways of knowing against a set of Eurocentric principles that enforce the assimilation of a colonial agenda (Simpson, 2014). Forced assimilation makes it difficult for Indigenous learners to relate education to their cultures and lived experiences, thus rendering them powerless (Battiste, 1998). This is why Dei (2012) argues that educational curricula and pedagogies have largely been organized and inscribed through Eurocentric paradigms that limit possibilities for other ways of knowing (see also, wa Thiong’o, 1986). Decolonizing knowledge and pedagogy is about challenging the colonial curriculum, resisting the colonizing tendency of erasing Indigenous peoples, and centering Indigenous ways of knowing in our institutional practices (Battiste & Henderson, 2012; Pete et al., 2013). It involves breaking with the ways in which the Indigenous human condition is defined and shaped by dominant Euro-American cultures and asserting/cultivating an understanding of the Indigenous social reality informed by local experiences and practices (Dei, 2000). Thus, decolonizing pedagogy is about resisting the cultural genocide that Indigenous people have been subjected to for centuries and enriching Indigenous people’s dignity (Battiste, 1998; Sherwood, 2009; Wane, 2006). McGregor (2012) describes the process of decolonizing pedagogy, teaching, and learning as one that both acknowledges and deconstructs structures of power associated with colonization in an effort to create space for, and give legitimacy to, Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing. The author adds that a critical “feature of decolonizing pedagogies is the link between the knowledge being encountered and questions of student and teacher identity, critical ethical action and concerns for self-determination, equity and human rights in the past, present, and for the future” (McGregor, 2012, p. 13). The process of decolonizing knowledge and schools requires proactive efforts to address all forms of oppression and challenge the status quo. As McGregor (2012) notes, decolonization cannot be attained through a simple integration of Indigenous content, but through examining the power relationships that determine questions (and answers) regarding school structures, policy and decision-making, curriculum and pedagogy,

 Centering Indigenous and Decolonizing Pedagogy 137 teacher-student-community relationships, and access to and assessment of student success (p. 13). Munroe, Borden, Orr, Toney, and Meader (2013) added that “moving forward requires extensive transformation of education where learning is rooted in Indigenous Knowledges rather than treating these knowledges as an ‘add on’” (p. 320). An important starting point for this decolonization project involves examining the self, engaging with our biases, interrogating racist beliefs and prejudices within ourselves and the broader systems, working toward transforming our practices, and considering students’ wholistic ways of being, including the cultural knowledges and lived experience they bring to class, as well as the spiritual, emotional, physical, and intellectual aspects of their development (Battiste & MacLean, 2005; Archibald, 2008). We thus urge the teacher candidates we work with to start thinking wholistically about education, including children’s intellectual, spiritual, physical, and emotional development (Marchant, 2009, p. 60). This process required us to make some paradigm shifts so as to shake the narrow framings of education presented in the syllabus that silence Indigenous knowledges and have little regard for Indigenous students’ diverse learning styles and needs (Battiste, 2002; Simmons & Dei, 2012). It also prompted us to ask ourselves, how could we as educators center Indigenous epistemologies and pedagogies in course planning and delivery? How do we acknowledge and value the role of Indigenous people and communities in education in a meaningful manner through syllabus planning and course delivery? What role could future teachers play in redressing these gaps as they consider their own teaching plans?

Reflective Practice as an Approach Our own experiences serve as our primary source of data. Personal experiences reflect the flow of thoughts and meanings that people bring to their immediate situations (Clandinin & Connelly, 1994). Miller (2005) explained that the use of personal experience challenges “the hegemonic belief that objectivity, neutrality, and distance are essential components of legitimate research” and, as such, troubles the “dominant ideas about research and knowledge production” (p. 183), which are generally taken for granted. Fook (1999) observed that, in research, “not only is personal experience legitimate as a source of research focus, but personal experience itself becomes a legitimate focus. Since the self is the lens through which we see and understand the world, then it is crucial that the lens itself be included reflexively in any understanding of our world” (p. 17). Lincoln and Guba (1985) argued that some knowledge is tacit and does not necessarily need to be articulated explicitly in a language form, but it needs to be experienced to be understood (as cited in Fook, 1999, p. 17). We assert that this is also true of personal experiences as sources of data. We support Miller’s view and see our “experiences as legitimate sites for research” that helped us develop a critical understanding of our teaching experiences which we share in this chapter. The discussions in this chapter are therefore grounded in our experiences and in our stories as instructors who teach a foundations course in one teacher education program in Western Canada. Reflection entails looking back and thinking critically. Larrivee (2000) noted that critical reflection is about an in-depth examination of personal

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values, beliefs, and assumptions. It entails “examining personal and professional belief systems, as well as the deliberate consideration of the ethical implications and impact of practices” (p. 294). Planning and co-teaching based on a decolonized pedagogy meant considering how relations of power play out in knowledge production and dissemination. It was easier for us given our long history of working together and our understanding of the impact of colonialism in its varying forms. We are critically conscious and aware of its ongoing and ever-present legacy and implications. With this in mind, we consciously examined our practices and the assumptions we brought into our planning and teaching. We negotiated and easily agreed on what Indigenous scholars we could draw on as noted in the literature section. We also recognized that not all teacher candidates would have the awareness and experiences we have when discussing this topic. Therefore, we approached our team teaching with heart and with a commitment to be co-learners with the teacher candidates. After co-teaching the topic on decolonizing pedagogy, we had a conversation and reflected on how the lesson went and some of the reactions from the students in the teaching and learning process. The teacher candidates in the course had gone through a Eurocentric curriculum that is not neutral. Challenging the assumptions and beliefs that they hold about education is not easy and straightforward. Rather, as Pillow (2003) observed, it requires that we find ways of prompting the students to examine their beliefs, assumptions, and practices in a nonthreatening manner and of inviting others to participate in such reflections in nonconfrontational ways. We use our reflective experiences and stories of working with teacher candidates in the course described above to help create an understanding of the teacher candidates’ struggles with the idea of decolonization both theoretically and in practice, and as a basis for analyzing ways in which engaging with Indigenous knowledges as central knowledge can be strengthened in the K-12 system. We felt that taking a personal self-reflective research approach, shared through our story, would help us to connect with our own responsibility as educators, and the ways in which we could foster critical thinking among ourselves and the students. This approach could lead to structural changes within the education system as we teach, and learn from, students. As Hall and Wilkes (2015) reminded us, stories are the original teaching tools which were used by Indigenous societies, and that based on these strong cultural understandings of the centrality of stories for Indigenous people, researchers have sought to incorporate these understandings into a Western research framework (p. 115). Reflection is an inherent part of Indigenous ways of being and doing (Blair & Collins-Gearing, 2017). Following our shared experiences, we make the case for well-rounded training across all subject areas and courses in teacher education programs to help teacher candidates understand the importance of decolonizing pedagogy.

Engagements with Decolonizing Pedagogy Neither the call to decolonize pedagogy nor concerns that teachers are ill prepared to adopt multiple perspectives in the classroom is a recent development. Provinces and territories across Canada have taken steps to address both concerns in their curricular

 Centering Indigenous and Decolonizing Pedagogy 139 revisions, designs, implementations, and professional development initiatives. In British Columbia (B.C.), education policy mandates integration of Indigenous perspectives across all levels of the curriculum (British Columbia Government, 2016). Moreover, the 2008 B.C. Ministry of Education diversity framework emphasizes that the government of British Columbia is firmly committed to recognizing and honoring the diversity of all British Columbians. It is further indicated that the purpose of the framework is to “assist the school system in its ongoing efforts to create and maintain learning and working environments that are responsive to the diverse social and cultural needs of the communities it serves” (p. 6). The above initiatives appear promising. However, what ought to be considered is how well teachers are prepared to translate these policies into practice. Ahmed (2006) cautions against the practice of governments and institutions drafting policies and adopting the language of equity in order to appear progressive, if not to “appease” critics of whiteness and Eurocentric education, while in practice impeding efforts to bring about real change (see also, Ahmed, 2004). Current and future educators should acknowledge that white power and privilege are reproduced while maintaining a veneer of neutrality, equality, and compassion. Writing Indigenous education policies as well as equity and diversity policies but barely putting them into practice maintains dominant structures and allows those in power to feel good about themselves (Ahmed, 2006) while further marginalizing Indigenous and racialized youth. There is a need for connection between policy and practice when it comes to Indigenous education. Castagno (2014) reminds us that while policy makers, districts, schools, educational leaders, and teachers rush to embrace all manner of progressive solutions to these challenges, what is lost in much of this frantic activism “is a clear understanding of the way race, power and whiteness form the foundation of our educational system and indeed, our society” (p. 2). For this reason, many questions remain unresolved. How do we move beyond “feel-good” policies to substantively address existing institutional oppression and improve the schooling experiences of Indigenous learners? How can the K-12 system do better in educating children, now and in the future? What role does curriculum and syllabus design play in this process? Teachers’ knowledge and experience, and willingness to learn and take risks, in addition to support from administration, teachers and school districts, are key, we believe, to resolving these questions. In team teaching the theme of decolonizing pedagogy, we have sought to understand how including this topic and related readings into the syllabus and discussing it in depth in our class has contributed to teacher candidates’ conceptualization of education decolonization initiatives and how they plan to translate it into classroom instruction. Conceptualizing decolonization is important as this can have a bearing on these students’ future professional development as well as inform their practices. The topic of decolonizing pedagogy questions who they are and why they wish to teach and what they will teach, when, where, and how. It examines the history of education in Canada, interrogates the purpose of education, grasps the complexities inherent in training teachers and becoming a teacher, and critically examines the question of diversity in Canada. This provides students with some knowledge about whose story is told in education; how it is told; whose story is not being told and why; and what

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systems, structures, policies, and practices have shaped, and continue to shape, the current education system. As instructors we often reflect on the following questions: What beliefs do teacher candidates hold about knowledge, teaching and learning? Whose knowledge, beliefs, and values do they view as valid, whose are invalid and why? How might the teacher candidates reassess and challenge their beliefs and practices as they relate to knowledge, teaching, and learning? How might we, as instructors, design meaningful curriculum and syllabus in addition to creating safe classroom environments where discussions about Indigenous knowledges could happen? How do we get teacher candidates to start rethinking, recognizing, and acknowledging multiple ways of knowing, seeing, and doing? Phillips and Whatman (2007) recommend centering Indigenous worldviews and knowledges not as a “study about” Indigenous peoples but rather as an interrogation of colonial knowledges that continue to marginalize Indigenous knowledges. The authors further recommend considering ways teachers can move from conceptualizing Indigenous knowledges as a “disadvantage” to embedding them within the curriculum (Phillips & Whatman, 2007). In this spirit, and to help us make sense of how teacher candidates interpret the practice of decolonizing pedagogy, we came up with a set of questions we use in guiding our in-class discussions and helping teacher candidates examine their core beliefs and hopefully begin to think about decolonizing pedagogy. Before the class, we ask the students to read St. Denis’s Silencing Aboriginal curricular content and perspectives through multiculturalism: There are other children here (2011), McGregor’s “Decolonizing Pedagogies Teacher Reference Booklet” (2012) and Dei’s (2006) chapter entitled “We Cannot be ColourBlind: Race, Anti-racism and the Subversion of Dominant Thinking,” with a view to acquiring some theoretical background on the topic. At various points, we ask the students to reflect on their understanding of colonialism and decolonization, the various ways colonialism manifests itself within the education system, how educators/teachers serve as agents of colonization, how teachers might initiate the process of decolonization, and why it is important for educators to decolonize their pedagogical thoughts and practices. As with Phillips and Whatman (2007), when we ask students to examine the above questions, our goal is not to get perfect responses from the students but to get them to start thinking about how they might go about disrupting the status quo and centering Indigenous knowledges (Pete et al., 2013) in their curriculum and syllabus design and eventual lesson delivery. We believe this approach can inspire teacher candidates to critically engage with Indigenous systems and worldviews. Initiating this conversation is oftentimes fraught with tension, but over time, the teacher candidates come to appreciate that the discomfort they experience paves way for learning and relearning to occur. The discomfort experienced places students in a frame of mind to discuss matters such as cognitive imperialism (Abdi, 2012; Battiste, 1998; Battiste, Bell, & Findlay, 2002; Simpson, 2014) and systemic and institutional racism (Dei, 1996, 2000; Pete et al., 2013), and how they play out within and outside the education system. We then impress upon the students that, as interdependent beings, they are obliged to view themselves in relation to one another, not merely in terms of a privileged-oppressed dichotomy, but rather in a way that allows them to reconstruct themselves reflexively on the basis of this relatedness (Phillips & Whatman, 2007, p. 6). Further, as future teachers, they need to examine how they are

 Centering Indigenous and Decolonizing Pedagogy 141 implicated in the prevailing privilege and oppression in the education system and ways to disrupt them. We also ask them to think about how and why Indigenous knowledges are ignored and marginalized, within the curriculum/in education, and broader societal systems as well as “how pressures to conform in the profession often discourage more responsive teaching practices” (Pete et al., 2013, pp. 106–07). This is not easy; there is difficulty in many people from the dominant group accepting views different from those they have internalized. Pete et al. (2013) noted that when whiteness is exposed, challenged, or deconstructed, resistance is more than likely. Castagno (2014) asserts that talking and writing about whiteness is inherently difficult, yet in one way or the other, we are all implicated in it. Tensions, moreover, invariably arise when we ask the teacher candidates to engage with systemic and institutional colonialism, racism, and discrimination. It takes time for the students to begin the process of reconceptualizing white privilege and of how it informs their roles as future educators. Some students are uncertain as to how to address and redress past and present wrongs through curriculum and/or policy arguing for the need to forget the past and move on. This could be due to the fact that, and as Little Bear (2009) wrote, many school curricula barely mention Indigenous peoples, and when they do, it is usually offered in fragmented and partial ways, often omitting Indigenous peoples or minimizing them. Due to the way in which the curriculum is structured and presented, few teachers challenge students to critically think about privilege and marginalization of other knowledges. Even so, Pete et al. (2013) opine that this is no excuse for inaction. Removing barriers to a wholistic and equitable education requires that educators, like us and the teacher candidates we work with, take personal responsibility and critically look at the curriculum, syllabus, and our teaching, and consider the diverse ways students learn and make meaning of the acquired knowledge (Pete et al., 2013). It would also require that teacher education programs and even practica be tailored to enable students to acquire in-depth understanding of Indigenous cultures and knowledges and of the obstacles to achieving equity in the education system. In what follows, we share some thoughts about how we view teacher candidates’ engagement with the notion of decolonizing pedagogy.

Teacher Candidates’ Engagement with Decolonization and Subsequent Tensions Understanding and Acknowledging Colonialism and its Costs To begin this conversation, we encourage students to think about colonialism, its various meanings, and its implications for knowledge production and dissemination. The teacher candidates acknowledge colonialism to be a system as well as an ideology that imposes ownership over ideas, peoples, and places. In the Canadian case, systematic efforts were made to eradicate Indigenous languages, cultures, and identities; to marginalize Indigenous peoples socially, politically, and economically; and to displace them from their lands (Alfred, 2009; Dei, 2008). Through assigned readings, in-class discussions and activities, teacher candidates come to realize that

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colonial subjugation, and the alienation and displacement accompanying it, contribute to disempowering Indigenous peoples and creating “us” versus “them” binaries. We often witness among teacher candidates tension stemming from the realization that colonialism exists today and manifests itself in varied and subtle ways. Some teacher candidates come to feel overwhelmed by a colonial project that is systemic and globalized and linked to powerful forces, including capitalism, which cannot be resisted single handedly. Yet, it is important that teachers understand that they are on the frontline working directly with students and are implicated in these systems. How they interpret the curriculum and frame their syllabus in a manner that acknowledges this reality is important. All these systems of oppression (colonialism, dominance, and whiteness) are interconnected, but many teacher candidates are often oblivious of this reality. Tatum (1992) elaborated on white obliviousness, noting that talking oppression normally “generates powerful emotional responses in students that range from guilt and shame to anger and despair” (pp. 1–2). We suggest to the teacher candidates that a key beginning is to acknowledge the different ways colonialism and white dominance is maintained and reinforced in the education system. The school system continues to regulate students using colonial Eurocentric knowledges. Purposeful teaching and learning that troubles such established normativity should focus on critical praxis and take into account place and context (Block, 2014; Giroux, 1997). Barnhardt (1997) emphasized that any teacher, and particularly those working in cross-cultural settings, ought to adapt their pedagogical practices to the context of the learners, school, and community in which they are working. In our team teaching we remind teacher candidates that teachers committed to enacting critical praxis pay attention to the social, cultural, cognitive, economic, and political context of teaching and learning (Kincheloe, 2004). Such teachers start by asking themselves what they are teaching, how they are teaching, whom they are teaching, how the students are learning/not learning (Giroux, 1997), and ways of transforming marginal and oppressive learning relations and experiences. Whose agenda and interests are reinforced in this knowledge and why? How are learners assessed and evaluated? Who is considered the good student and who is not? Whose social realities are minimized in the existing knowledge and why? (Giroux, 1997). Trying to answer these questions opens important discussions. Teachers should not stop there, nor should they assume that they have addressed the prevailing dominance in their teaching (Barnhardt, 1997). Doing so will be oversimplifying the complex systemic challenges that prevail. Thus, one cannot address decolonization once and say it is done. Rather, it is an ongoing lifelong journey that requires commitment (St. Clair & Kishimoto, 2010).

Colonialism and the Education System During the course of examining colonialism and its manifestations within the education system, through class readings, discussions, and assignments, teacher candidates come to realize that education functions as a vehicle for dominant/imperialist ideologies. In other words, it is the means by which colonial peoples are indoctrinated with

 Centering Indigenous and Decolonizing Pedagogy 143 mainstream values, attitudes, assumptions, and norms. Much of what is taught in education systems is consistent with, and is intended to underwrite, dominant beliefs (Abdi, 2012; Little Bear, 2009). Large (2004) notes that in education, institutional racism is a reality that operates to insidiously silences Indigenous students through actions such as “history, which is written and taught in a way that reflects the beliefs and perceived truths of those who run the schools, with the result that Aboriginal peoples are . . . objectified in our education system” (p. 16). Owing to their training, teachers propagate this view of the “other.” Invariably, they reproduce the very narratives, methodologies, and approaches that have for so long promoted oppression and marginalization (Chicoine, 2004; Kennedy, 1991). Many use mainstream canonical texts and teaching methods and practices that promote assimilation in schools. Some teachers view classrooms as their own colonies, a practice that creates among students the perception of the “know it all” teacher. Other teachers fail to acknowledge different types of knowledges, forcing students to conform to a single Eurocentric standard. Such practices have the effect of reproducing colonialism in the classroom. For teacher candidates in this course, a major challenge lies in trying to unlearn what they have been taught and what they are accustomed to. An important point for teachers to keep in mind is that, because of systemic discrimination, Indigenous students do not see themselves reflected in the curriculum of most schools; the same is true for their history, traditions, customs, languages, philosophies, beliefs, and ways of being in the world (Little Bear, 2009). As a consequence, and as Little Bear (2009) noted, many Indigenous students become foreigners in their own schools. They are “unable to recognize themselves in the reflections and shadows of the world” (p. 20) in which they find themselves. Nonetheless, while some teachers respond angrily when asked to confront Canada’s historical and ongoing complicity in racism and colonization (Kanu, 2005, as cited in Little Bear, 2009, p. 16), this is no excuse for refusing to do so.

Teachers as Colonizers and the Process of Decolonization For a long time, nowhere in the curriculum were to be found Indigenous belief systems or perspectives. Rather, the focus was entirely on a Eurocentric hierarchal ranking of knowledges. Those in positions of power feed into the prevailing institutional oppression and continue to determine what knowledges ought to be taught. This in turn informs the way teachers structure the learning process. Consequently, even the “best-intentioned” teachers may unwittingly promote colonialism in the classroom by implementing a curriculum replete with silences, negations, and biases that reproduce imperialism. That way, teachers disseminate the colonial narrative. Some might argue that it is impossible to eliminate bias completely. Recognizing that we have biases, however, is a crucial first step in sensitizing ourselves and others and our pedagogy. Although teacher candidates recognize the challenges, they also seem to fall back on the notion that, yes, it should not be like that, but that is how it has been for a long time, so what can we do? There is also reluctance on their part to defy the status quo. When completing a practicum, for example, the teacher candidates are unlikely to question the authority of the master teacher(s) mentoring them for

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fear of receiving a poor evaluation. For many teacher candidates, it is a matter of survival; they have to conform to pass the practicum. Moreover, when they go out as new teachers after graduation, they are trying to figure out the system and fit in. Many often feel overwhelmed with the commitment to advocate for transformation. As noted earlier, while cognizant of the colonial project plaguing the education system, teacher candidates are also aware there is no simple formula for change. They also face the risk censorship from colleagues and superiors by criticizing the system that employs them or fail to advocate for changes they know to be essential to achieving equity in the education system. All these point to the need for teachers to grasp the inequities inherent in the education system. We believe the first step toward this end lies in comprehending the historical dimensions of Indigenous and settler relations and recognizing how they continue to marginalize Indigenous students. The second step, as Ireland (2009) observed, involves reflecting critically on the role that teachers play as agents of colonization and this may take different forms. For example, as we did with our syllabus, for the teacher candidates it could be something that begins with examining what they select to be part of their unit and lesson plans when mapping out their teaching each year, term/semester, month, week, or day. This could include reflecting on what it is like to have one’s voice privileged or marginalized in the classroom; to be taught in ways that support or undermine one’s most basic values, attitudes, assumptions, and norms; to hear teachers and school staff speak or not speak your language; to have your language taught or not taught in school; to have staff validate or invalidate who you are; and, most importantly, to feel comfortable and safe or feel uncomfortable and insecure in your learning environment (p. 26). We hope this approach will encourage teacher candidates to begin to think about their own decolonization and come to recognize that colonization is not only a problem for Indigenous peoples or others racialized in Canada but also a problem for everyone (Cannon, 2013). Following class discussions, teacher candidates sometimes tend to believe that the conversations about colonialism within the school system strike parents as far too idealistic and impractical. We continually encourage these future teachers to keep pursuing transformation by re-examining what and how they teach. This may prove challenging as colonialism is endemic throughout the school system and teachers cannot control what transpires in the broader society. Despite these obstacles and complexities, decolonizing our pedagogies and education is imperative, for the alternative is a dysfunctional educational system.

Conclusions and Recommendations The complexities inherent in decolonizing education as well as resistance to it should not discourage educators from doing their part to ensure education is meaningful for Indigenous students and students from other racialized and oppressed groups. We envision a future where all students feel grounded in their seeing themselves in the curriculum, in equal access to resources, and in the pedagogies and practices of teachers. Shreve (2015) reminds us that “the United Nations Declaration on the Rights

 Centering Indigenous and Decolonizing Pedagogy 145 of Indigenous Peoples not only recognizes the importance of culture and language in education, but it also acknowledges Indigenous ways of knowing.” Hare (2011) also reminds us that “the responsibility rests with all of us to create space for Indigenous knowledge in learning settings . . . [and that] we must all open our minds as well as our hearts to the different ways knowledge is constructed, shared and valued if education is to benefit all students” (p. 104). We laud various initiatives put in place to address gaps in Indigenous education, including the Canadian Deans of Education Accord commitments and agreement to promote a socially just society for Indigenous peoples; university initiatives and commitments to close education gaps and address underrepresentation of Indigenous students in higher education such as the Indigenous Education Program at the University of British Columbia, the Indigenous Education Teacher Education Program at Lakehead University, University of Winnipeg Community-based Aboriginal Teacher Education program; and the Ministries of Education and school board initiatives to include Indigenous perspectives across the curriculum. However, there is much work to be done starting from the classroom to wider school district and societal considerations. As educators and parents, we believe that it is everyone’s responsibility to ensure this happens. We encourage everyone to reflect on their individual responsibility to ensure the dominant Eurocentric narrative driving education gives way to what Toulouse (2014) called a “truthful narrative.” As such, we offer some recommendations and insights that we believe are useful for decolonizing pedagogy leading to transformative education. These recommendations should not be taken as a panacea for the complexities at hand, but should serve to foster conversations and meaningful actions. Starting from curriculum design and planning for teaching, in K-12, for instance, educators and schools should do the following: 1. Commit to draw from multiple authors, sources, and perspectives to enrich their planning. Research and include the untold stories and perspectives that are often neglected. 2. Learn about the students that come into their classrooms and local Indigenous communities. Use these learnings, knowledges, and experiences to shape their planning and subsequent teaching. 3. Strengthen school community relations by making greater efforts to engage and relate meaningfully and respectfully with Indigenous communities to establish trust and rapport, and to encourage, mentor, and support students from these communities. 4. Make a commitment to become good listeners; not being quick to judge (see Neeganagwedgin, 2013). 5. Understand that the process of decolonization is a lifelong journey, which requires commitment. 6. Acknowledge that, in their privileged positions as educators, they can also become agents of colonization and oppression even when well intentioned. 7. Plan their teaching with an emphasis on moving from teaching about Indigenous and other marginalized cultures to teaching through the culture as a foundation for learning (see Marchant 2009, p. 60–61).

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Beyond curriculum and syllabus design, there has to be a clear commitment to removing employment barriers experienced by Indigenous teacher candidates once they graduate from teacher education programs. We also see reconciliation as requiring strong commitment. It is important to live up to the Calls to Action in Canada’s Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015). Call to Action #13 emphasizes that language and culture are critical. This means that there must be a corresponding responsibility, and an obligation, to fund instruction of Indigenous language and culture without barriers. Indigenous children should not be seen as mere numbers, and their languages should not be cast aside as heritage languages with funding uncertainties from one year to the next, or with no funding at all. We should call on school officials, principals, policy makers, and teachers to honor Indigenous languages and to implement a policy which provides Indigenous students with access to their Indigenous ancestral languages. To conclude, it is everyone’s responsibility to recognize, acknowledge, and address the biases and the systemic oppression of Indigenous people within the education system. Canada cannot pride itself on having one of the greatest education systems in the world while Indigenous children continue to be marginalized within the education system. Educators need to critically reflect on the ways in which they are implicated in this marginalization.

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Part Three

Intersectionalities in Context

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Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi Critical Reflections from the College of Education at Qatar University Esraa Al-Muftah and Hadeel AlKhateeb

Introduction Scholars studying international accreditation practices traditionally assess the successes and failures of such programs (e.g., Collins, 2015; Altbach & Knight, 2007). Still, others investigate the reasons behind the spread of educational accreditation practice pointing to issues of legitimacy and quality control needs within the region (e.g., Badry & Willoughby, 2016; Morgan, 2017). With regard to the Arab region, a search in an Arabic database such as e-Marefa for Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states and higher education returns with studies similar to those described here. Such studies examine higher education issues in the GCC states in attempt to explore and/or maximize the benefits of educational quality assurance in the region (e.g., Al-Qubaisi, 2000; Al-Samara, 2012; Al-Sketabi & Al-Zabun, 2014). Mazawi (2005) makes a similar observation: there is a “discussion [of] questions of efficiency, accountability, and systemic growth, neglecting the impact of broader power configurations on statehigher education relations (external governance) and on the internal formal and informal decision-making structures within which higher education institutions operate (internal governance)” (p. 134). In addition, such research often focuses on the state-level case studies and neglects the “broader geopolitical dynamics associated either with Western dominance and hegemony or with inter-Arab conflicts and competition” (Mazawi, 2005, p. 134). In an attempt to address this concern, we ask in this chapter: How is the race for accreditation and international recognition enacting regimes of coloniality in the context of the College of Education at Qatar University (QU)? How are policy changes introduced by international accreditation processes, especially the process of standardizing courses and syllabi, experienced by academics such as ourselves? And how might we as researchers stuck in our organizations’ race of accreditation respond to, negotiate, and challenge the dogma of educational accreditation?

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Part I: Decolonial Reading of Academic Accreditation To tackle the previous questions, in this chapter, we adopt a decolonial lens concerning academic accreditation to examine higher education in the GCC within wider geopolitical-institutional dynamics and power relations. Shahjahan and Morgan (2015) describe decoloniality as “an epistemic, ethical, political, and pedagogical project that involves the denaturalization of modern civilizational cosmology, and the inclusion of non-modern systems of knowledge and categories of thought” (p. 95). Decoloniality therefore involves unveiling the Eurocentric/American process of expanding and generalizing modes of knowing, being, and representation and presenting alternative ways (Mignolo, 2013; Walsh, 2007). We use decoloniality as a theoretical framework to demonstrate how higher education institutions, such as QU, are finding themselves on the periphery of higher education. Just like their economies, they are dependent on the knowledge production of the “Western University” and are mere consumers in the current geopolitical knowledge landscape (Mignolo, 2003). This dependence stems from the assumption that knowledge (i.e. theory, research, methods, textbooks) is of better value and quality because they are products of the West. In the meantime, knowledge generated in the Global South is perceived as of lesser quality and context relevant, unlike that of “Western knowledge.”1 This has shaped “colonial universities” that act as producers of “global coloniality”—“the reproduction of coloniality at a global scale under neoliberal values and principles of education” (Mignolo, 2003, p. 100). In addition, decoloniality helps us understand how the growing global competitive environment in education “is not simply tied to market-based economic or political rationalities, but also operate under psychosocial dimensions (Shahjahan & Morgan, 2015, p. 93). By bringing the psychosocial dimension in, we recognize the logic that drives academics and university administrators to behave in a way that allows for coloniality to reproduce itself. Drawing on Frantz Fanon’s insights, Shahjahan and Morgan (2015) explain that “within the [current] geopolitics of knowledge” certain Global North countries find themselves occupying “zones of being” that enable them to produce “global designs” for the consumption of states that occupy less-privileged epistemic zones of being (p. 95). Therefore, scholars recently have started to utilize decoloniality to investigate how certain educational tools and templates function as “vehicles for internalizing, mediating, and reproducing the globally competitive Higher Education Institution, and thus the geopolitics of knowledge” (Shahjahan & Morgan, 2015, p. 101; Shahjahan, Ramirez, & Andreotti, 2017). Among such tools are the Global University Rankings and the Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO). In this chapter, drawing on a decoloniality as a theoretical When we use the term “Western knowledge” and “Global-North/South,” we do not intend on using the terms as though there has never been exchange of ideas in the past—which is not likely to be the case given the history of ideas that shows they always cross-fertilize (Abu-Lughod, 1989). Instead, the “history of such flows reveals that the multidimensional and transcultural nature of global culture is not a new phenomenon” (Ashcroft, Griffiths, & Tiffin, 2013, location 51). Therefore, it is difficult to identify ideas with certainty and disassociated from “Western” theory. What is necessary, and proposed by postcolonial theory in the case of “translating” theory, is that the process “is about making an intimate connection with an otherness, and struggling with it, not reducing it to the known and the safe place” (Dussel, 2015, p. 96; Said, 1989).

1

 Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi 155 framework, we argue that the international educational accreditation functions as another tool in the configuration of global coloniality. As faculty members at the College of Education at QU, which had been seeking accreditation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE), we maintain that teacher education is subject to accreditation in hope it achieves imagined “progress” and “development” projects pursued by the state. Through seeking accreditation, the college works in a way “to eliminate [perceived] obstacles to development, that is to say eradicate, or in the best of cases discipline, all those whose profiles of subjectivity, cultural traditions, and ways of knowing would not adjust” (Castro-Gomez, 2007, p. 436). In such process, future teachers are being trained to follow the scripted lesson plans as the faculty adopts standardized syllabi, something we further explore in the third section of this chapter. Before that, we examine in the coming section how concepts discussed by decolonial scholars resemble the logic that underpins the global expansion of educational accreditation.

Modernity, Universal Truth, and Faculty Members’ Location Decolonial scholars posit that “modernity/coloniality” was born at the same moment a universal “I” was deemed possible; a universal truth which is independent of its epistemic location, and hence can be transported to other locations to be emulated without recognition of other epistemic possibilities (Quijano, 2007; Grosfoguel, 2008). Grosfoguel (2008), for example, argues, “Western philosophy and sciences are able to produce a myth about a truthful universal knowledge that covers up, that is, conceals both the speaker as well as the geo-political and body-political epistemic location of the structure of colonial power/knowledge from which the subject speaks” (para. 7). Nonetheless, decoloniality scholars’ counterargument is: “Nobody has access to ultimate truth, and, consequently no one person (or collective, church or government) from the right or from the left, can offer a solution for the entire population of the planet” (Mignolo, 2007, p. 458). Yet, in a field where instant “fixes” are being promoted by international organizations and researchers, this basic myth seems to be far from debunked (Takayama, Sriprakash, & Connell, 2017). Instead, international accreditation bodies continue to promote themselves as assessing higher education institutions in the Global South to improve their programs, as such they foster recreating such universal truth myth. These bodies market themselves as having the potential to help educational institutions in the Global South graduate workers who are able to compete in the global knowledge economy (Johnson, Johnson, Farenga, & Ness, 2005). In such process, they portray their standards and procedures as universal that can be imported and applied in local contexts of the Global South. It is necessary for a decolonial analysis, which we conduct in this study, to expose the “totality depicted” by accreditation policies even if they are “good intentioned” (Mignolo, 2007, p. 464). The assumption that accreditation bodies in the Global North, such as the NCATE, can resolve problems in the Qatari educational context through accrediting the country’s college of education is one illuminating example.

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Hierarchies and Classification Decolonial scholars emphasize different aspects of the modernity/coloniality nexus (Escobar, 2007). For example, Aníbal Quijano maintains that classifications and rankings are essential elements in creating the “colonial difference” that enables the domination of the “other” (Escobar, 2007). In such context, not only people in the colonies are classified as “‘different’ but they are also deemed ‘inferior’ and need to be ‘civilized,’ ‘modernized,’ or ‘developed’” (Mignolo, 2003, p. 108). Unfortunately, this rhetoric prevails in the contemporary discourse of international education development. With regard to the Arab region, international development organizations (IDOs) reports refer to the educational status as “lagging behind” and emphasize the need for modernization and development to succeed in the current neoliberal economy (e.g., World Bank, 2008; Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, the United Nations Development Programme, 2014). Such rhetoric is also evident in national documents that, for instance, QU attempts to help the state achieve. For example, one of the goals of Qatar National Vision 2030 (Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics, 2008) is to “have successfully molded modernization around local culture and traditions” (p. 2). This makes the false assumption that local cultures and traditions are not modern and, therefore, “modernization”—an alien concept—needs to be molded around it. This kind of false supposition thrives on racial classifications and is visible in some research generated by the faculty of the American universities in the region. To illustrate, some of the North American faculty members working for these universities come to the GCC region motivated by a problematic “missionary impulse” which they are not shy to express (Kampeas, 2017). In their book, Higher Education Revolutions in The Gulf: Globalization and Institutional Viability, Badry and Willoughby (2016) also describe the attitude of the faculty at the American University of Sharjah toward local students stating: “Some Western faculty considered students’ weak English proficiency and their insufficient knowledge about Western culture a sign of lack of sophistication and, sometimes worse, a sign of stupidity” (p. 163). Also, they explain how entering the “uncharted territory” of Sharjah led to label faculty who arrived in the first year of the university’s establishment as “pioneers” and those who followed in the second year as “settlers.” According to them, the faculty of the university used to make jokes of academics developing “PTSD—Pioneer Traumatic Stress Disorder” because of the cultural shock they experienced (p. 152). Previous examples show how the existing culture at higher education “reproduce certain ideas of whiteness, about racial and cultural difference, and forms of colonial nostalgia in the Gulf ” (Vora, 2014, p. 177). In a similar vein, Vora (2014) explores the educational paradox in Qatar. For her, while Western academics’ “cosmopolitan ethos, language skills, and for many their whiteness, translated to a ‘value-add’ within Qatar’s job market” (p. 181), the local culture/traditions and expertise is perceived as compatible with the process of modernization. Vora’s (2014) insights among others highlight the psychosocial environment and climate under which the educational accreditation operates and

 Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi 157 uncovers the privileges granted to certain bodies in the process. This is of course compounded with other structures of authority in Qatar, both cultural, such as patriarchal structures, and legal, such as residency laws marking people’s “legality” in Qatar. We expand further on this in our discussion of our positionality in the coming lines and in Part III. Before that, it is important to note here that these structures cross with social and racial hierarchies brought in by higher education policy reforms intended to “internationalize” the university as earlier stated. For example, while it is already difficult for women to actually penetrate a masculinist culture in the academy, this is worsened when policy is made to seem gender neutral and fails to address grievances female faculty might have (For examples, see Karam & Afiouni, 2014; Mazawi, 2007, 2008). Clearly then, the global trend of educational accreditation is enmeshed in a global competitive ecosystem, nourished by an “imagined” project of “progress” and “development” pursed by regional governments, and fostered by a psychosocial environment that privileges “whiteness.” These hierarchies also cross over and worsen the already existing structures and biases academics encounter in the case of Qatar and other GCC universities. To this end, we argue that decoloniality as a theoretical framework will bring to the front the embedded complexities as it uncovers the ways through which certain policies lead to a systematic process of “erasing of memory, history, literacies and alphabetic traditions of the colonized, and creating the ‘good zombies’” that feed into the capitalist markets (Tlostanova & Mignolo, 2009, p. 137). It also highlights the epistemic location from which certain policy emerges and therefore disturbs the notion that a policy is “neutral” and the knowledge it brings is “universalized.” This brings us back to our research questions: How do faculty—such as ourselves—who are stuck in their organizations’ race of accreditation respond to, negotiate, and challenge the dogma of educational accreditation?

Part II: Methodological Note—Constructing our Autobiographical Narratives In tacking the previous question, we are cautious not to fall into the trap of making “universalized” assumptions about accreditation policy and homogenizing differences that would exist across contexts. Instead, we seek to engage in what Mignolo (2013, p. 138) refers to as “border thinking,” which is a process “of thinking and doing decoloniality.” This is amenable to what decolonial feminists refer to as “embodied experience.” According to Icaza and Vácquez (2016), thinking from embodied experience for those who have been subjugated involves the recognition that they bring a grounded/place-based/embodied view where the modern/ colonial system is not a historical totality but a center of power that has always been surrounded by what it sought to deny: long traditions of resistance and a multiplicity of ways of inhabiting our bodies and the world. (p. 69)

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Hence, in this chapter, we engage in constructing autobiographical narratives. Our aim is to “emerge from the silence and bear witness” and to respond to the existing literature that “fails to recognize the embodied encounters with international accreditation” (Motta, 2015, p. 111). We seek to bring to the forefront the flawed “discourse of a borderless world [that attempts] to depoliticize debates on identity and cultural difference” (Arashiro, Demuro, & Barahona, 2015, p. x; Simon, 2015). Instead our purpose is to expose our places “within an unequal world system” in the international educational accreditation debate (Simon, 2015, p. 84). To co-construct our autobiographical narratives, each one of us started writing about her own experience of teaching a standardized course and serving on committees that worked to ensure the alignment of course content with accreditation standards. First, we revisited the course material, assessment forms, and communications between the course coordinator and ourselves. Second, we exchanged our autobiographical narratives for an initial reading. Third, following the exchange, we conducted a Skype discussion regarding the narratives we have produced. This helped us to prompt further memories and stories relevant to the discussion of this chapter. Finally, we transcribed our Skype conversation and conducted a thematic analysis on the record to identify shared themes. Given that autobiographical narrative writing is a self-reflexive practice, we take a moment to reflect on our positionalities in the coming lines before delving into the outcomes of our narratives.

Our Positionalities It should be noted here that the “act of unveiling our positions” by exposing our personalities and experiences with educational accreditation is deliberate (Arashiro, Demuro, & Barahona, 2015, xii). We seek to avoid reclaiming ourselves as “a manifestation of a political will,” especially in the current higher education setting that increasingly renders the personal irrelevant and unscientific (Arashiro et al., 2015, p. xii). Although we are aware of warnings against the growing pressure on academics to “uncover” themselves “in specific ways for academic consumption” (Nagar, 2014, p. 84), we believe it is essential to engage in context-based/personal descriptions that is neglected in many scholarly educational research in the region. In taking this path, we are not adopting a cultural relativistic position; rather we are seeking to emphasis the “realness” of our experiences. The aim is to demonstrate the impact of certain accreditation policies and procedures on the lives of academics—such as ourselves— in the Global South. This makes our positionality in the current field of power an unavoidable part of the discussion. Hence, we wish to clarify that we both graduated from higher education institutions in the Global North. This in itself means that we have a currency in a university that values degrees from higher education institutions based in the Global North for being aligned with attempts of “internationalizing” its educational systems. The assumption is that scholars graduating from Western higher education institutions are likely to be able to publish more in English-language journals as such and help their national higher education institutions improve their global rankings, especially since today “major

 Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi 159 journals in the field are in English as are most of the research studies” (Takayama et al., 2017). Therefore, we both know that our educational credentials put us in a privileged position within our national institution. Nonetheless, what adds more “value” to this privilege is being Qatari nationals in a majority non-Qatari faculty body (almost 20 percent are Qatari) (Qatar University, 2014). For instance, Hadeel who is a Qatari national of Palestinian origin (wears Qatari attire and speaks a Palestinian dialect) has been often advised by the College of Education dean at the time to remind other professors who do not take her seriously that she is a Qatari citizen. In other words, being a national also means that complaints would be taken more seriously than from “replaceable” non-Qatari faculty who have short-term contracts and whose residency is tied to their work contract. Still, we are less privileged than native English-speaking faculty who find publishing easier in their native language. Also, their “whiteness” seems to give them added currency in a knowledge-based economy (Vora, 2014). At many times, in the college, we have noticed aspects of ‘uqdat al-khawaja, a form of master’s complex, present among us (Suleiman, 2016, p. 49). This includes finding the work of the Khawaja, a term historically used to describe the white colonial man, outstanding even when a local figure is able to offer the same performance. To illustrate, Qatari faculty in the college refer to an American professor as Al-faz’a, a person that “has you covered”; Al-faz’a arrives in situations of crisis to solve any problem. In this sense, Al-faz’a is the ultimate savior. The assumption then is, being Western means performing a given task adequately, and most importantly in the English language which “helps” the college. Additionally, working in a predominantly masculine institution, where 73 percent of the faculty are men (Qatar University, 2014), we are further disadvantaged by cultural presumptions about working women. It should be noted here that in QU, what makes the male domination is not just the percentage, but also the hierarchy. Very few women are in leadership positions. As such, female academics have little participation in the decision-making. In effect, female academics are constantly judged based on their gender. To illustrate, one of us was told upon applying for attending a conference in Finland that she might want to reconsider it as “there are no shopping malls” near to the conference venue. As if this would be the only criterion for a female Qatari faculty upon deciding on a conference destination. In addition, working in an increasingly corporatized higher education setting, it is important to note that, as female academics, we are doubly marginalized due to the competitive environment and preexisting social norms that attempt to place women in the household (Karam & Afiouni, 2014; Mazawi, 2007, 2008). In that sense, our nationality, accents, dress choice, academic credentials, and gender position us in different locations in multiple social and power hierarchies. While writing our narratives, we located ourselves within these multiple hierarchies and renegotiated our different locations. In the following section, we present our embodied description, drawn from our narratives, through which we describe how procedures introduced by international accreditation at the College of Education, especially the process of standardizing courses and syllabi, enact regimes of coloniality. Also, we explain how we responded to and negotiated such procedures as new faculty members under probation.

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Part III: Embodied Encounter with Accreditation— Teaching Standardized Courses Earlier we discussed how accreditation of a College of Education is experienced as an attempt “to eliminate obstacles to development, that is to say eradicate, or in the best of cases discipline, all those whose profiles of subjectivity, cultural traditions, and ways of knowing would not adjust” (Castro-Gomez, 2007, p. 436). In relation to that, the emerging themes in our narratives capture how we experienced such a disciplining.

Lack of Agency The impositions of standardized syllabi on us were associated with a lack of agency. Inheriting standardized courses that feature inflexible content (i.e., common syllabus, assignments, assessments, and learning objectives) made it hard for us to teach effectively. Instead, we felt stuck teaching “canned courses.” Similarly, we both conceive courses materials and designs as rigid and outdated. Knowing that we could not adjust the courses’ content and learning objectives due to “accreditation requirements” added more frustration to the situation. We were repeatedly warned that the learning objectives and course materials are nonnegotiable due to the accreditation process. We recall receiving warnings in different forms not to adjust the syllabus developed by the course coordinator. We were also consistently reminded that any change would require approval from the accreditation coordinator. In this sense, the accreditation process functioned as a mechanism that enabled a top-down management style within the department. On the pedagogical level, it was similarly constraining. The predesigned courses we taught involved teacher-centered approaches, affecting our relations with students. We could not mediate peer interaction between students to motivate their engagement, and at many times we failed to address our students’ valid questions and concerns over the course material. Perhaps satirically, Hadeel found herself copying and pasting a generic email in response to students’ questions: “Dear (student’s name), Thanks for your question; yet, the information you need is explained fully in the PowerPoint slides. Please check there first.” By doing so, she aimed to prepare her students for taking the standardized exams without jeopardizing their results. On that note, Esraa wrote: “I directed the students to rote memorization as a necessity because the exams are standardized and depend solely on the content of the PowerPoint slides.” In short, due to the lack of our ownerships and engagements in designing the course and our disagreement with aspects of course content, our students received the courses materials as inert factoids to be memorized. This pedagogical limitation is concerning considering that it is taking place at a College of Education where best teaching practices are expected to be the norm. As for the designated assignments, we found them as not being formative, rather they were prescribing including their rubrics. In such cases, we recalled how some students lean on local specialized agencies that offer writing assignments services for college students. Yet it was easy for us to determine students who resorted to such

 Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi 161 services. In effect, we had to engage in discussions with students about how they wrote the assignment and what they learn from the process. Similarly, a minor change in an assignment tended to catch the specialized agencies off guard. For example, Esraa requested a different citation method that the agencies were not accustomed to. In short, the taken quality control measures for teaching a standardize course seemed to defeat the purpose such courses were designed to achieve. Instead such measures allowed for unethical practices to emerge such as cheating by resorting to the agencies to complete the assignments. To summarize the discussion on our lack of agency, it appears to us that accreditation has stifled our teaching style, affected the interaction between our students and us, and disturbed students’ overall learning.

Silenced Bodies of Knowledge The course materials are culturally detached. Even if the courses were specifically addressing a Qatari or Arabic issue, and authored by Arab scholars, the syllabi would include Eurocentric theories and concepts to make sense of these issue. Furthermore, the context remained apolitical in the sense it did not touch on local problematics. This was visible to both of us as we reflected in our narratives. To counter that, Esraa used to take the liberty of providing her students with external readings. In her narrative she wrote, “I decided to offer the students the basics on the syllabus but make room for extra, more critical readings during classroom hours.” Some of these texts were by local scholars who have been marginalized by the academy because they were critical of the way reforms were currently taking place or of the wider governing policies in Qatar. Fearing repercussions for teaching off the syllabus, Esraa chose not to post the text on blackboard—the learning platform—and instead printed and distributed readings in class. On the other hand, Hadeel proposed to include some classical writings by Ibn Khaldoun in her course, stating that it was important for the students to learn about and from their heritage.2 This was met by accusations by the then head of department of wanting to “politicize” the curriculum and wishing to mobilize her “nationalism agenda.” Interestingly, having the course learning outcomes that were written in New York, for New York schools, introduced at the College of Education in Qatar is perceived as depoliticized and universal, while wishing to turn to classical Arab scholars is perceived as a threat in the technical version of teacher education. It is fair to argue that there continues to be a false assumption that Eurocentric theory is “detached and neutral” and applicable regardless of the geopolitical context (Mignolo, 2010, p. 1). Meanwhile, local bodies of knowledge are seen irrelevant or even worse politicized and therefore considered not suitable for today’s “neutral” corporatized university. Certainly, this “apolitical” façade the accreditation process and standardization of syllabi enabled made the inclusion of any form of critical readings difficult to negotiate. Many scholars consider Ibn Khaldoun to be the “Father of Sociology.” Ibn Khaldoun, from fourteenth-century North Africa, is widely considered a forerunner of original theories in historiography, sociology, economics, and demography. He is best known for his book, the Muqaddimah or “Prolegomena,” which records an early view of universal history.

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Thus, throughout our narratives, concepts that correspond to Abdel Khatibi’s (1983) notion of “silenced societies” are evident (quoted in Mignolo, 2000/2012); we noticed that our Indigenous bodies of knowledge were being devalued and entirely excluded at a time when Eurocentrism exists. It should be pointed out here that by “Indigenous bodies of knowledge” we in no way simply mean research written in Arabic or authored by Arab or Qatari scholars. That would be simply a nativist stance which we oppose. Instead, our concern was with our histories being erased by emptying the syllabi of any culturally significant figures in Arab and Islamic cultural and knowledge production. Some of these Islamic and Arabic scholars have contributed to what would be deemed as “Western knowledge” today through knowledge encounters historically (Young, 2001; Abu-Lughod, 1989). The significance of the inclusion of these texts would not be a promotion of nationalist pride, but an encouragement for future teachers to theorize from within their own contexts and experience and not depend on imported curricula and pedagogical philosophies unreflexively in their classrooms. Finally, these inclusions could help dismantle the social/racial and knowledge hierarchies that seem to be mobilized by the “Western University” by pointing out they lack credibility (Mignolo, 2003).

Senses of Self-Estrangement We could neither adjust the course content nor have our own teaching style. We also did not feel the curriculum was relevant to either us or our students. As such, we felt a sense of self-estrangement captured by such phrases as: “I worried about,” “I felt guilty,” “I had a feeling that I was confusing the students,” “I felt overly stressed,” “I could not stand up for my belief,” and “I was frustrated.” These statements were clearly associated with us being a mechanistic part of a stratified hierarchical working environment. Alfred (1985) argued that effective teaching and fruitful research are products of faculty motivation and involvement. Yet, he noticed that the faculty have become “tenants” in their own organizations to the extent that words such as “burnout,” “stress,” and “alienation” are oft-repeated to describe themselves. Our experience resonates with Alfred’s characterization. We felt molded into the “good zombies.” (Tlostanova & Mignolo, 2009, p. 137), regardless of the fact that we occupy a relatively high position in the social/power hierarchies being nationals.

Negotiation and Resistance The fourth theme relates to the issues of negotiation and resistance. We both have ended our accounts on a positive note arguing that more resistant voices are emerging, especially as younger local scholars begin to join QU following the completion of their graduate studies. We both have attempted to swim against the tide of accreditation demand in our different ways. For example, Esraa disregarded warnings not to teach off the syllabus and would bring copies of articles written by controversial local writers to complement her lessons. Hadeel tried to take a more formal route and wrote a full report to the course’s coordinator flagging all the problems in the course’s design and content. While this report has been disregarded, we hope more voices would emerge

 Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi 163 and echo similar objections regarding standardization, causing change to take place. Also, we view writing this chapter, through which we are critiquing accreditation and standardization, as an illustration of our resistance. Finally, we are in the process of rewriting this work in Arabic in order to contribute to the local debate and to the existing Arabic literature. We do not wish for this chapter to remain exclusively available to an English-speaking readership, given the demand from us to publish in English to improve the QU’s rankings (Hanafi, 2011). While critical voices at the College of Education are trying to swim against a tide of accreditation demands, we face different levels of obstacles based on our gender, citizenship, and accent. As such, these factors seem to play a role in faculty members’ level of and ability to muster resistance. Actually, the issue of nationality emerged a few times in our narratives. For instance, Hadeel was reminded to use her Qatari citizenship as leverage to be taken seriously. On her part, Esraa noticed that nonnational Arab faculty members are reluctant to voice any critical opinions during committee discussions. This hesitation confirms some of the literature that has emerged in the context of Qatar and also the United Arab Emirates (Austin, Chapman, Farah, Wilson, & Ridge, 2014; Romanowski & Nasser, 2010). We wish to end by expressing a note of caution, as the number of national faculty continues to shrink.3 This raises our concerns over any attempts of future resisting and critiquing the accreditation practices while a large bulk of QU’s faculty body constitutes of nonnationals who are constrained by the abovementioned factors. This is compounded with other factors such as religious or political constraints that render certain topics and figures untouchable. The GCC states have a history of deporting and detaining academics; just in March 2017, the UAE sentenced economics professor Nasser bin Ghaith to ten years in prison (Browning, 2017). Another example is the termination of a Muslim-feminist academic’s contract at Qatar University for what some believe is her role in “corrupting” Qatari women and teaching them to doubt “Islamic” teachings (Al-Fassi, 2018; Lindsey, 2017). In the final stages of editing this chapter, this same professor is standing trial in Saudi Arabia for her women rights activism (Nereim & Abu-Nasr, 2019). Given such a hostile climate from the state and the public, it is not surprising that few studies have raised the question of academic freedom in the context of the GCC. Those that have, described the state and religious censorship that scholars have to navigate (Al-Ajmi, 2016) and demonstrated how it’s complicated when one considers the possibility of deportation for noncitizen academics who discuss topics that can be considered a threat to state security or societal values (Austin et al., 2014; Romnowski & Nasser, 2010).

For example, in 1998 the percentage of Qatari faculty was more than half of the total QU’s faculty body (53.7 percent). Yet, by 2014, that number had dropped to only 20 percent. The expectation is that the decline is likely to continue as the university expands at a rapid rate (Mazawi, 2003; Qatar University, 2014).

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Conclusion: Envisioning a University “Otherwise” How can we reimagine our role as teachers of these “canned courses”? Both authors of this chapter participated in the reinvention of their roles as educators as they tried to alter and push the boundaries standardized syllabi imposed on them. This was derived from our own political and social understandings and agendas. In no way did we perceive our role as educators as being a role that required us to be “neutral,” which is impossible as we recognize in our analysis. Politically and culturally relevant education is not something new or unique to the Qatari context we operate under. QU’s first president, Professor Mohammad Kazem, declared at the inauguration speech of QU’s new campus in 1985, responding to a document prepared by UNESCO to offer assistance to “modernize” QU: “The [UNESCO] document . . . is oriented toward educational training [it aims at] preparing teachers for jobs. In its narrow sense, it detaches the university from its historical narrative” (Qatar University, 1993, pp. 22–23).4 Kazem refused to shift QU’s focus on knowledge as a noble pursuit to knowledge as power- and income-generating source. In his own words, the role of Qatar’s national university should be bigger than just training teachers, Qatar University’s role is essential to building the contemporary Arabic and Islamic Qatar. In this regard, we are responsible in front of God and the people to respond to the needs of society and react to it. And part of the university’s role is to push the society and impact it. Hence the university does not [only] have objective goals and limited purposes. Rather it is fluid like an ideology or a calling. We constitute a part of a civilization movement obligated to the revival of the Ummah (the Arab-Islamic nation). (Qatar University, 1993, p. 23)

Kazem’s words remind us of what it is like to be a university otherwise; a university that does not necessarily see its main goal as climbing ranking ladders or producing an efficient workforce. Instead there is a deep recognition that a national university has to be rooted in its sociopolitical context. In writing this chapter, we aimed to critique the discourse of international accreditation. We argue that, in the first place, the logic behind needing a foreign body to help assess the quality of a local educational program naturalizes global coloniality, as it portrays certain knowers and knowledge as universal—independent of the geohistorical and body-graphical—while undermining others (Mignolo, 2007). This chapter also suggests that the local cultural context is often portrayed as unfit for “modernizing” the educational systems in the Arabian Gulf region when seeking to achieve IDO’s visions of obtaining “excellence” and “quality.” Furthermore, in relaying our embodied experiences with teaching standardized courses, we illustrate how accreditation does not just silence Indigenous bodies of knowledge. It creates further disciplined subjectivities. Overall accreditation seems to fortify and operate on the basis of existing social and racial hierarchies. All translations from Arabic are renditions by the authors.

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 Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi 165 Nonetheless, resisting voices continue to be heard when faced with such higher education policies. Most recently, Dr. Khalifa AlSuwaidi, in his opening keynote address titled A Penguin in the Desert at the Education in GCC countries conference held at QU, provoked the audience by stating that such a coupling conflicts with the laws of nature (Al-Saai, 2016). Dr. AlSuwaidi clarified that the “penguin” represents the educational systems, policies, procedures, and curricula imported from the Global North. He explained how these foreign elements are imposed on Arab communities without scrutiny, analysis, or evaluation and argued that they lack compatibility with Arabic culture. Speaking in the affirmative, AlSuwaidi concluded: Only if penguins were able to live in the desert, then the borrowed Western educational systems and procedures would fit naturally in the Gulf landscape and it would be compatible with the nature and patterns of our region’s social life. (As cited in Al-Saai, 2016, para 2)

In writing this chapter, we seek to expand the critical engagements with educational internationalization tools and procedures and push against the dominant global coloniality underlying higher education reforms in many educational institutions in the Global South. It therefore contributes to a growing body of literature attempting to reveal the hidden power behind much of the policy imported to higher education settings in the Global South. We hope that this chapter drives us, and the readers, to search for alternative forms of measuring meaningful academic achievements in the region, to contribute to the plurality of knowledge (Mignolo, 2007). Although at many times in this chapter, we viewed the global expansion of accreditation as a serious threat to our shared governance and control over the curriculum and instruction, we do not consider it as a necessary evil. Instead, we call for a more pluralized vision of understanding academic achievement and accreditation practices by higher education institutions that distance themselves from the “myth of modernity” and the mirage it creates. Finally, we hope this chapter can act as a reminder to decision-makers and our colleagues in GCC higher education institutions of the importance of including cultural and socially relevant content when adopting internationalization policy (Arashiro, 2015). This we hope would dismantle assumptions of knowledge flowing in one direction, North to South, and instead allow the universities in the Gulf to better contribute to knowledge formation.

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 Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi 167 Browning, N. [Reuters] (2017, March 29). Amnesty says UAE sentences dissident professor to 10 years. Retrieved from www.r​euter​s.com​/arti​cle/u​s-emi​rates​-cour​t-idU​ SKBN1​702W0​. Castro-Gómez, S. (2007). The missing chapter of empire. Cultural Studies, 21(2–3), 428–48. Collins, I. (2015). Using international accreditation in higher education to effect changes in organisational culture: A case study from a Turkish university. Journal of Research in International Education, 14(2), 141–54. Dussel, I. (2015). Feminists in search of a postcolonial turn: Locating ourselves in the geopolitics of knowledge. Gender and Education, 27(2), 95–97. Escobar, A. (2007). Worlds and knowledges otherwise. Cultural Studies, 21(2), 179–210. Grosfoguel, R. (2008). Transmodernity, border thinking, and global coloniality: Decolonizing political economy and postcolonial studies. Eurozine, July, 1–24. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.eur​ozine​.com/​trans​moder​nity-​borde​r-thi​nking​-and​globa​l-col​onial​ity/?​pdf Hanafi, S. (2011). University systems in the Arab East: Publish globally and perish locally vs publish locally and perish globally. Current Sociology, 59(3), 291–309. Icaza, R., & Vázquez, R. (2016). The coloniality of gender as a radical critique of developmentalism. In W. Harcourt (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook on gender and development (pp. 62–73). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Johnson, D., Johnson, B., Farenga, J., & Ness, D. (2005). Trivializing teacher education: The accreditation squeeze. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Kampeas, R. (2017, July 30). What happens when a professor in Qatar is exposed as Jewish? The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved from www.j​post.​com/D​iaspo​ra/Wh​at-ha​ppens​when​-a-pr​ofess​or-is​-expo​sed-a​s-Jew​ish-i​n-Qat​ar-50​1131.​ Karam, C., & Afiouni, F. (2014). Localizing women’s experiences in academia: Multilevel factors at play in the Arab Middle East and North Africa. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 25(4), 500–538. Lindsey, U. (2017, March 10). Women and Islam: A topic that troubles. Al-Fanar Media. Retrieved from www.a​l-fan​armed​ia.or​g/201​7/03/​women​-isla​m-top​ic-tr​ouble​s/. Mazawi, A. E. (2003). The academic workplace in public Arab Gulf universities. In P. Altbach (Ed.), The decline of the guru: The academic profession in developing and middle-income countries (pp. 231–69). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Mazawi, A. E. (2005). Contrasting perspectives on higher education governance in the Arab states. In J.C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (pp. 133–89). The Netherlands: Springer. Mazawi, A. E. (2007). Besieging the king’s tower? En/gendering academic opportunities in the Gulf Arab states. In C. Brock & L.Z. Levers (Eds.), Aspects of education in the Middle East and Africa (pp. 77–98). Oxford, UK: Symposium Books. Mazawi, A.E. (2008). Policy of higher education in the Gulf Cooperation Council member states: Intersections of globality, regionalism and locality. In C. Davidson & P.M. Smith (Eds.), Higher education in the Gulf states: Shaping economies, politics and culture (pp. 59–72). London, UK: Al-Saqi, in association with London Middle East Institute SOAS. Mignolo, W. ([2002] 2012). Local histories/global designs: Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press; Mignolo, W. (2003). Globalization and the geopolitics of knowledge: The role of the humanities in the corporate university. Nepantla: Views from South, 4(1), 97–119. Mignolo, W. D. (2007). DELINKING: The rhetoric of modernity, the logic of coloniality and the grammar of de-coloniality. Cultural Studies, 21(2), 449–514.

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Mignolo, W. D. (2010). Epistemic disobedience, independent thought and decolonial freedom. Theory, Culture & Society, 26(7–8), 159–81. Mignolo, W. D. (2013). Geopolitics of sensing and knowing: On (de)coloniality, border thinking, and epistemic disobedience. Confero Essays on Education Philosophy and Politics, 1(1), 129–50. Ministry of Development Planning and Statistics. (2008). Qatar National Vision 2030. Retrieved from http:​//www​.mdps​.gov.​qa/en​/qnv/​Docum​ents/​QNV20​30_En​glish​_v2.p​df Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, the United Nations Development Programme. (2014). Arab knowledge report 2014: Youth and localisation of knowledge. Retrieved from http:​//www​.undp​.org/​conte​nt/da​m/rba​s/rep​ort/U​NDP-G​ENERA​ L-REP​ORT-E​NG.pd​f. Morgan, C. (2017). Constructing educational quality in the Arab region: A bottom-up critique of regional educational governance. Globalisation, Societies and Education, 15(4), 499–517. Motta, S. C. (2015). Becoming woman: On exile and belonging to the Borderlands. In Z. Arashiro & M. Barahona (Eds.), Women in academia crossing North–South borders: Gender, race, and displacement. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Nagar, R. (2014). Muddying the waters: Coauthoring feminisms across scholarship and activism. Urbana, Chicago: University of Illinois Press. Nereim, V., & Abu-Nasr, D. (2019, May 3). Saudi Arabia temporarily releases four detained women’s rights activists. Time Magazine. Retrieved from https​://ti​me.co​m/558​ 2578/​saudi​-arab​ia-wo​men-a​ctivi​sts-r​eleas​ed/. Qatar University. (1993). Jamia’t Qatar alnasha’h wa’ltatawor [Qatar University: Its establishment and development]. Doha, Qatar: Qatar University (in Arabic). Qatar University. (2014). University fact book: Faculty and staff 2013–2014. Retrieved from http:​//www​.qu.e​du.qa​/educ​ation​/accr​edita​tion/​2014/​stand​ard4/​onlin​e_exh​ibit/​ fact_​book_​2013-​2014.​pdf. Quijano, A. (2007). Coloniality and modernity/rationality. Cultural Studies, 21(2), 168–78. Romanowski, M. H., & Nasser, R. (2010). Faculty perceptions of academic freedom at a GCC university. Prospects, 40(4), 481–97. Said, E. W. (1989). Representing the colonized: Anthropology’s interlocutors. Critical Inquiry, 15(2), 205–25. Shahjahan, R. A., & Morgan, C. (2015). Global competition, coloniality, and the geopolitics of knowledge in higher education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 37(1), 92–109. Shahjahan, R. A., Ramirez, G.B., & Andreotti, V. de Oliveira. (2017). Attempting to imagine the unimaginable: A decolonial reading of global university rankings. Comparative Education Review, 61(S1), S51–273. Simon, J. (2015). Life as a white academic in the Global South: Colonial privilege and standpoint. In Z. Arashiro & M. Barahona (Eds.), Women in academia crossing North– South borders: Gender, race, and displacement (pp. 69–88). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Suleiman, C. (2016). The Arabic language ideology and communication: An image from Egypt. In D. Carbaugh (Ed.), The Handbook of communication in cross-cultural perspective (pp. 64–74). New York: Routledge. Takayama, K., Sriprakash, A., & Connell, R. (2017). Toward a postcolonial comparative and international education. Comparative Education Review, 61(S1), S1–S24 The World Bank. (2008). The road not travelled: Education reform in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Retrieved from http:​//sit​ereso​urces​. worl​dbank​.org/​INTME​NA/Re​sourc​es/ED​U_Fla​gship​_Full​_ENG.​pdf.

 Accreditation and the Standardization of Syllabi 169 Tlostanova, M., & Mignolo, W. D. (2009). Global coloniality and the decolonial option. Kult 6(Special Issue), 130–47. Vora, N. (2014). Expat/expert camps: Redefining “labour” within Gulf migration. In A. Khalaf, O. AlShehabi, & A. Hanieh (Eds.), Transit states: Labour, migration and citizenship in the Gulf (pp. 170–97). London: Pluto Press. Walsh, C. (2007). Shifting the geopolitics of critical knowledge. Cultural Studies, 21(2), 224–39. Young, R. J. C. (2001). Postcolonialism: An historical introduction. Oxford: Blackwell.

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Student Diversity and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education Curricula Transformation for Civic Learning Nidhi S. Sabharwal

Introduction Over the last few decades, higher education in India has experienced an unprecedented expansion. India has the second largest higher education sector in the world, with around 34.6 million students and a Gross Enrollment Ratio (GER) of 24.5 percent (MHRD, 2016). The expansion of the sector is a result of increasing social demand for higher education and public policies supporting the expansion of the system to meet the demands of the knowledge economy. The expansion has been accompanied by diversification of the sector in terms of types of institutions, sources of financing, the nature of programs of study offered, and the social composition of student. Higher education campuses have become diverse in terms of gender, economic, geographic location, and sociocultural backgrounds of student population. Over the last decade there has been a focus on the right to education in India. In 2009, the Right to Education Act was legislated that guarantees children’s right to free and compulsory admission, attendance, and completion of elementary education. There have been calls to change how teachers are taught, so that children, regardless of their background, have an opportunity to advance to higher education. Women have made impressive gains in accessing higher education and have outnumbered men in some of the states and in the higher education institutions in India (Varghese, 2015). Reservation policies at the time of admissions, relaxation of admissions standards, and financial support measures have been important sources for improving the gross enrolment ratios for the disadvantaged social groups1 such as the scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes The scheduled castes, the scheduled tribes, and the other “backward” classes are protected social groups for whom the government of India has developed Affirmative Action policies based on various Constitutional Provisions. The Constitution of India recognizes the social stigma and economic disadvantages facing these groups which have been placed lower in social hierarchy in the caste system. The scheduled castes are those who are included in a list/schedule of Castes that are the former “untouchable castes.” The former “untouchables” are now more frequently called

1

 Student Diversity and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education 171 (STs), and other backward classes (OBC). Promotion of equity in education being a major goal in various educational policies has been one of the major sources of student diversity in India. Student diversity in higher education campuses offer opportunities of engaging with multiple perspectives, collaboration across lines of differences, and developing inclusive habits of interactions in preparation for life in the twenty-first century’s globalized economy and society. Diversity also presents great challenges. Based on empirical evidences from the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE) study by Sabharwal and Malish (2016), this chapter shows that a diverse student body and a teacher body from a homogenous social background on campuses is characterized by replication of the nature of social systems which exists in the society at large. Intergroup relations on higher education campuses are constrained by social identities derived from social groups such as caste, gender, ethnicity, religion, each influencing the behaviour in diverse manners. Intellectual structures, on the other hand, create and sustain benefit for the privileged group. Alienation from the curriculum and pedagogical exclusions, discriminatory attitude, and negative perception against socially disadvantaged students are visible in student-teacher interactions and identitybased peer group formation on campuses. While legal methods have been implemented in higher education spaces to safeguard students of the socially excluded groups such as women, SCs and STs from possible discrimination (University Grant Commission, 2012) laws do not eliminate discriminatory behaviour all together. It is the social conscience which makes people to respect values of equal status and nondiscrimination. Some have argued that if diversity and differences between us (i.e., diverse people) is left untouched and diversity is not enacted, the history of power and privilege by way of birth-right will continue to hierarchically relegate some groups into dominant and some into disadvantaged positions (Wagner & Locks, 2014). Exclusionary behaviour, strained social relations, and stereotyping prevailing in higher education campuses pose challenges to the expected social role of higher education of training young people in values of equality, social justice, and nonviolence (UNESCO, 1998). To reclaim its social role, it is essential to make civic learning at the higher education level expected, rather than optional, by bringing it to the core of learning and teaching. In the context of a diversified student body, this chapter argues that there is an immense scope for introducing curricular interventions for civic learning and teaching in Indian higher education. The learning is “civic” when higher education classrooms offer possibilities of acquiring new knowledge, values, skills and habits of mind necessary to respectfully interact with people who represent diverse cultures, histories, values, and differing perspectives (AAC&U, 2011). Education for civic the “scheduled caste” (SC). The Scheduled Tribes (ST) category includes ethnic groups that have suffered from physical and social isolation. Their status resembles that of Indigenous groups in other countries. The other “backward” classes are Shudras or the lower castes but, not untouchables in the caste system. Among other constitutional provisions, in education, seats are reserved for the three disadvantaged social groups in public higher education institutions. The Constitution of India guarantees 15 percent reservation for SCs, 7.5 percent for STs and 27 percent to the OBCs in education and employment. The reader should note that, throughout this chapter, the terms “backward”, ethnicity, and related caste or group categories are terms found in India’s Constitutional provisions. These terms are not mine—NSS.

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learning becomes an important means for creating tolerant and inclusive campuses, those that respectfully welcome and consider different ethnic, religious, and caste groups as equals. While higher education, including teacher education programs, has responded with policies and courses focused on preparing professional and humane teachers (NCTE, 2009), preparing teachers to teach in a diverse higher education setting, with civic learning as a central approach in curriculum and pedagogy, has not yet emerged in Indian higher education. The section that follows discusses the “civic-learning approach” to education and its application through a review of the international literature. The third section explores empirical evidences on dominant values of teachers and students in higher education in India which reproduce historical hierarchies of social advantages and disadvantages. The fourth section highlights the implications of empirical evidence from the CPRHE study on teacher education course and training in higher education. The fifth section concludes this chapter.

Civic Learning as an Analytical Approach to Education: International Experience It is now increasingly recognized that higher education, in addition to building human capital for economy, can develop capacity to live and act in diverse sociocultural world through civic learning. Civic learning approach has the potential to help higher education to play its role in preparing students to know, to care, and to act in ways that will develop and foster a democratic and just society, and to develop a commitment to personal, social, and civic action (Banks, 2007). In this context, irrespective of characteristics of provider, that is public or private, education is now viewed as a producer of “global common good” that has social benefits for the society. UNESCO (2015a, p. 77) defines common good as “constituted by goods that humans share intrinsically in common and that they communicate to each other, such as values, civic virtues and a sense of justice.” Incheon Declaration for Education 2030 (UNESCO, 2015b) sets out a new vision for education that includes raising global citizens that value common good in order to achieve post-2015 sustainable development agenda. Common good approach to education promotes collective societal endeavor, and civic learning is a mechanism to facilitate the same. Curricular transformation for civic learning is pivotal for societies that are characterized by high degree of diversity in its social, ethnic, racial, and religious belonging. Literature on curriculum interventions to achieve civic learning offers national perspectives of various countries, and the ways in which educational policies and institutions have responded to cultural, ethnic, and racial diversity in their campuses. Schneider (1997) argued in the context of South Africa that “toleration, once considered a signal social virtue for liberal democracies, must be recognised as an insufficient value and practice in a society with diverse communal and religious traditions” (p. 105) and emphasized that “engagement with diversity in a pluralistic democracy needs to be established as a civic value, a new value requiring new norms for human competence and social practice” (p. 113).

 Student Diversity and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education 173 For South Africa, Ekong and Cloete (1997) highlighted the recommendations of the National Commission on Higher Education for curriculum transformation in order to “ensure that all students, irrespective of race, colour, gender or age, derive maximum benefit from their higher education experience” (p. 4). Role of higher education in creating a successful democracy was acknowledged, and the “development of critical intelligence throughout the society” was considered as “higher education’s most significant contribution to the future of South Africa” (Schneider, 1997, p. 103). The 1997 White Paper (Department of Education, 1997) highlighted the community service role of higher education at two levels: as a vehicle of economic growth “at local, national and continental levels through teaching, learning and research programmes,” and as a transmitting channel of democratic culture by providing “support to the development of democracy, and a culture of human rights, through education programmes and practices conducive to critical discourse and creative thinking” (p. 30). In the United States, civic capacities were viewed as a prerequisite for inclusive democracy which was defined as an “ideal that all human beings have equal value, deserve equal respect, and should be given equal opportunity to fully participate in the life and direction of the society” (AAC&U, 2011, p. 10). In 1992, the US higher education embarked on a path to build civic capacities of students going to college to improve race relations on campuses and achieve inclusive democracy. The United States developed initiative in 1992 to increase civic responsibilities by bringing about reforms in curriculum and pedagogy in colleges and universities (AAC&U, 1995). Three major approaches were identified within the curriculum and co-curriculum spheres: curriculum that provided knowledge about other groups to increase intergroup understanding; contact programs that provided opportunities for members of different groups to interact with each other in controlled settings; and skill programs to manage differences in a peaceful manner and collectively solve public problems. Reform in knowledge included a new curriculum with themes that dealt with diversity, inequalities, racism, sexism, religious oppression, classism, anti-Semitism, and heterosexism. To develop individual capabilities and skills, it introduced new pedagogical methods like intergroup dialogue and mixed-peer group, where students from diverse groups interacted and learned to respect differences. The third component was to motivate the students for action. The institutions were recommended to foster civic ethos on campuses through “service learning” and “community engagement.” Diversity in the student composition was viewed as a resource for new excellence and means to strengthen democracy (Hurtado, Milem, Clayton-Pederson, 1999; Zuniga, Williams, & Berger, 2005; Kurlaender & Orfield, 2006). These reforms were expected to enhance the “civic capital” among youth for enhanced citizenship. Sixteen years later, in 2011, a review indicated positive outcomes not only in civil learning and engagement but also in their academic performance (AAC&U, 2011). The impact of curricular and co-curricular initiatives resulted in reducing in racial bias in college students and creating a conducive academic environment for racial minority students. These initiatives supported cognitive growth, developed a commitment to personal, social, and civic action. Nurturing of democratic skills and critical faculty among diverse student body through collective learning and sharing of

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experience produced quality educational experience (Cacioppo & Petty, 1982; Chang, 2002; Denson, 2009; Bowman, 2010). In the Indian context, setting up of Women Study Centres and Centre for Studies of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policies at universities indicates a conviction that higher education is the space where knowledge on issues of discrimination and exclusion based on gender, caste, ethnicity, and religion can be produced and the impact of social divisions can be studied. These initiatives, along with selective implementation of courses on human rights and gender issues, can be seen as a broader social and political response to increasing diversity and issues of discrimination in and outside educational systems. Though its coverage is limited, setting up of these centers had been an important milestone in the history of education in India for realizing values of secularism, equity, and democracy. While, there has been recognition on the value of higher education in promoting democratic norms and pluralism (MHRD, 2009), the general pedagogical approach to inculcate such values have been confined to participating in community service activities through the National Service Scheme (NSS). Implemented as extra-curricular activities, student volunteers of NSS are exposed to social service and community development activities. These include blood donation camps, rural survey, awareness campaigns, and social service activities at campus and in community. The underlying assumption was that involvement of students in community activities provides opportunity for individual development as well as national development (Ministry of Education, 1968; Government of India, 1985). These activities however, disconnected from the curriculum, played a minimal role in advancing the understanding of the course content or resulting in a broader appreciation of the discipline or in an enhanced sense of civic responsibility (Sabharwal & Malish, 2016). Appropriate methodologies and content in teaching of civic education at the school level or preparing teachers to teach in diverse classrooms at the higher education level has not been adequately envisioned either in the policy documents (Thorat, 2013), or in the curriculum frameworks (Thapan, 2015; Yadav, 2013). As we will show, traditional values contradictory to democratic norms and practices continue to shape behaviors of young adults on campuses through socialization in the family and society. These challenges are taking new forms in changing times for India. We will discuss these challenges in the next section.

Dominant Values in Indian Higher Education: Emerging Concerns Concerns of discrimination, unequal treatment, and isolation experienced by the disadvantaged groups in higher education have recently come to light (Ovichegan, 2013; Singh, 2013; Sabharwal, Thorat, Balasubramanyam, & Diwakar, 2014). This section discusses dominant values and perceptions of diversity by the student body and by teachers and its impact on the classroom environment and the social life of campuses of higher education in India. The empirical evidence is based on a large-

 Student Diversity and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education 175 scale mixed method study (Sabharwal & Malish, 2016), which tried to understand the dynamics associated with diverse campuses and how faculty members were engaging and responding to diversity in their classrooms.

The Study This study was carried out in higher education institutions located across six states in India and employed both quantitative and qualitative methods to collect data. The sources of information included a student questionnaire administered to 3200 students, 70 focus group discussions, 200 interviews with faculty members and institutional administrators, and analysis of 50 solicited student diaries. A survey of students in the second year at the undergraduate level and at the postgraduate level was administered. With respect to disciplines, students were selected from three categories, that is, social sciences, humanities, and sciences. Faculty members were purposefully selected for the interview based on the criteria that they were from the same discipline as students, with a specific attention to include faculty belonging from the marginalized social groups. Social identity and caste system in India: Before we discuss the findings of this study, it is important to understand process of forming of social identity and the caste system in India. Given that social stratification system exists in India, social identity of the individual is predetermined by the accident of birth (Ambedkar, 1987). In the case of caste system, social identities are placed in a hierarchy with unequal social location or position relative to each other. This hierarchy has a graded nature with one group’s privilege as directly related to the other group’s disadvantage (1987). Prejudice against a particular social identity impacts the members of the social group considered inferior in the hierarchy. Graded inequality, thus, places people belonging to castes and ethnic groups on hierarchy and continuum of privileged and devalued identities. Discrimination and prejudice in the caste system stems from this belief of an inferior status assigned to group members. This also means that a position of a social identity cannot be asserted unless it is legitimized by people around (Shotter, 2004). As Jenkin (2008) has observed, “Process of identification through cognitive and symbolic means are essential for identity formation. It is not something that one can have, or not; it is something that one does” (p. 5, Italics in the original). The findings from the study show that students from the SCs encounter a “stigmatised ethnic identity” (Thorat, 1979; Deshpande, 2016) with the stigma getting reflected in various forms of discrimination and “micro aggression” (Solorzano, Ceja, & Yosso, 2000). Discrimination faced by the students from the socially excluded groups manifested in the form of biases and stigmatizing attitudes against them by their peers, social division in friendship, gender stereotypes, and sexist attitudes. Limited engagement with diverse perspectives in the classrooms, stereotypes, and insensitivity of teachers toward the needs of diverse students resulted in strained curricular interactions and an increase in the social distance between them and their teachers. Teachers negative conceptions of diversity: It was evident in the study that prejudices and biases stemming from the caste and ethnic backgrounds of the students often influenced teacher-student interaction in both academic and nonacademic domains.

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Many of the teachers viewed an increase in share of students from disadvantaged groups due to reservation (and not merit) the root cause of deteriorating academic quality in higher education. Some of the faculty members observed “student characteristics have changed . . . increasing number of SC/ST/OBC students are taking admission as there is relaxation in their admission marks which impacts academic quality.” Regarding the selection of marginalized, a senior faculty member expressed: “They are basically brought to that position rather than through the earning (merit) that position as compared to the general category students (non-SC/ST/OBC) . . . since admission is not earned by them by their competency, they lack motivation to work hard.” One faculty member expressed this in the following manner: “Generally SC/ST students think that they can manage to pass without working hard. Parents also inform them that way,” “some students think even if they get 50% (marks) they will get a job.” Some faculty members were of the view that as a result of relaxation in admission marks and in the way they have been selected to the college, students from marginalized groups find it difficult to compete especially in “difficult subjects” like economics. As a result of the perception that SCs/STs are “brought into system” rather than earned their way through competency or merit, faculty members believe that few of them work hard and put effort. This reflects biases and insensitivities toward the idea of social diversity. The observation that SC/ST students are not hard working and attempting to get only pass mark as they believe they would get a job through reservation clearly indicates anti-reservation feelings and negative attitudes toward very idea of inclusion and equity in higher education. This negative stance also results in teacher-student nonacademic engagement and mentorship being considered as unimportant. The role of teacher as guide and mentor is not valued across the institutions. Rather, they suggest for seeking assistance of a counselor who is “trained” in solving issues. Exclusion from curricular transactions, syllabus, and readings: In terms of what is taught, students in general in our survey reported that their teachers rarely included diverse perspectives in classroom discussions, and students from the socially excluded groups in particular felt that their experiences were not reflected in the curriculum. They felt that the curriculum is overrepresented by the perspectives, life world, and cultural practices of dominant social groups. This feeling of being ignored in the curriculum and curricular transactions was expressed during focus group discussions. Students across institutions studied in the CPRHE study felt that what is taught does not have adequate representation of worldviews, experiences, and symbols of subaltern groups. Most of the examples to explain theoretical concepts in social sciences are also derived from Hindu texts and life world of teachers. Examining the concepts through lenses that have to do with equality and social justice, and issues of caste, class, gender, religion, and language were not important. Students across social sciences and humanities disciplines shared that the coverage of issues related to caste, religion, and gender oppression as these get manifested at the societal level gets limited representation in the curriculum. While there was a practice of celebrating teachings from all religions as an attempt to induce respect for all the religions in students, for example, during departmental assemblies in the department of education, teachers could not identify how these related to their teaching. An analysis of the syllabus and reading list of the courses in teacher preparation program at the masters level (M.Ed. program) offered by the education departments

 Student Diversity and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education 177 in the higher education institutions under study revealed a minimal representation of references to the scholarship highlighting experiences and problems of the marginalized groups in India (Patna University, 2015; University of Lucknow, 2015; Calicut University, 2015; University of Delhi, 2015). The aim of the master’s program is to prepare teacher educators who would be involved in either initial teacher preparation or in-service teacher professional development or both. Concepts related to identity-based discrimination, intersectionalities of caste and gender challenges, and social injustices as the source of intergroup inequalities in human development were also generally not included in the syllabus of the program. Religious minorities are also mostly invisible in curriculum, syllabus, and reading lists. Pedagogical exclusions: In addition, most of the faculty members were not devising mechanisms to include all students in teaching-learning processes or promote positive in-class interactions. Mechanical completion of the syllabus still remained the central focus of the teaching process. Although the recent shift from annual to a semester system was envisaged to encourage student centric learning, majority of teachers in our study argued that the activities such as assignments, seminars, and projects were being implemented as a part of a ritual exercise. A faculty member from one college commented, “Idea of projects, seminars all those are good. But the teachers are trained in old fashioned way . . . along with that the missing of teaching days creates lots of trouble. Quite often we will be in hurry to finish the syllabus.” The dominant form of transaction in the classrooms included lecture method, mostly one directional, with minimal participation by students. Group discussions that have the potential to stimulate diverse viewpoints and discussions on alternative perspectives were also minimal, further adding to the feeling of alienation of the students from the socially excluded groups from classroom transactions. As a consequence, the possibilities to facilitate positive interactions among diverse social groups in the classrooms were being missed. Centralized process of curriculum development and a prescribed system: A centralized process of curriculum development, outdated syllabus, and a prescribed system resulted in faculty members teaching the “official knowledge” included in the syllabus in their classrooms. While at the policy level, the stated goal in the curriculum framework is a critical reflection on gender, disability, and marginalization to be cutting across the courses in core and specializations offered at the postgraduate-level programs for preparation of teacher educators (NCTE, 2014), curriculum development committees become gatekeepers to whose voices, narratives, and experiences are included in the syllabus and the reading lists. The faculty members across the institutions shared that the designing of syllabus and curriculum continued to be a centralized process. The curriculum and readings were being prescribed by the curriculum development committees’ set-up for subjects that were based in studies/departments of the universities. Organizational processes, a prescribed system, and a classroom culture in “action mode” seldom uphold the spirit of the vision at the policy level, producing an institutional environment wherein the pervasiveness of gender stereotypes and caste-based beliefs learned through the socialization process at an early age are reinforced and sustained. Attitudes and beliefs of students toward the socially excluded groups: Our results, as determined by one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) statistical technique (Sabharwal & Malish, 2018), show that the nature of social beliefs and biases that

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students hold against the socially excluded groups appear to have a relationship with the school attended before joining college, level of study, subjects being studied, and social group belonging. In other words, students from more selective schools (like private schools), those studying at the undergraduate vis-à-vis postgraduate level, studying academically high value subjects such as engineering, and from higher castes social identity had stronger feelings of biases and resentment, especially, toward the reservation policy benefiting the lower castes. Being longer in an educational process (e.g., postgraduate), as compared to lower levels, provided students essential values for thinking relatively more democratically (i.e., supporting principles of caste equality in academic abilities). However, antireservation views and the feeling that affirmative section is unwarranted remained at both levels of education. Stigmatizing attitude toward the socially excluded groups on account of the affirmative action is also linked with the subjects being studied. Students studying commerce and engineering tended to have anti-reservation views and feelings that suggest resentment as compared to students studying social sciences who seem to be more accommodating and tolerant. Beliefs of the upper caste peers of the socially excluded groups (SC/ST/OBC) were similar to those of the faculty members. The beliefs were rooted in the ideology of merit and against the idea of reservation. The higher caste students felt that universities frequently had to admit under-qualified SCs/STs/OBCs and that the reservation policy for these groups was no longer needed as the lower castes social group have progressed and they do not require reservation policy. These results imply a lack of knowledge of persisting intergroup inequalities in the society and on evidence of castebased discrimination in market and nonmarket transactions, even though caste-based discrimination is outlawed by the constitution (Thorat & Newman, 2010; Thorat & Attewell, 2010; Thorat & Sabharwal, 2015). A lack of knowledge on persistence of inequalities among students also indicates that this knowledge is not taught in the classrooms, as mentioned previously. On reservation policy, the students from the disadvantaged groups felt contrary to their peers from the higher castes. The statistically significant differences in the responses between the SC/ST/OBC social groups and the higher castes suggests that despite the negative views and stigma attached to this policy, students from the socially excluded groups were able to justify the necessity of the reservation policy. For example, debates for and against reservation policy takes place in the classroom. The following paragraph is based on the interview of a student from the SC group that shows divided stands being taken on the line of castes by students on this issue, with teachers opting to take neutral stand, instead of a stand for social justice. A class gets divided into castes when there is a discussion on the topic related to equality and reservation. . . . I remember one such interaction on reservation. There were two groups arguing—I was with the group that was arguing for reservation and general student against the reservation. They said why we should pay today on the name of reservation higher fee and lesser chances . . . why they are being revenged on the name of past days, people and rituals. In favour of reservation our group

 Student Diversity and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education 179 expressed empathy and called for our higher caste peers empathy for sc/st/obc . . . that we have faced denial of rights and opportunities over thousands of years . . . would you deny they are not your forefathers who exploited us or how is it that most of the land is still owned by the general castes . . . are you able to return our land. Our professor concluded diplomatically that reservation is a constitutional requirement, but it is a matter of national debate of being right or wrong.

Student dominant negative perceptions toward idea of reservation, diversity and social justice explains why students from the SC and ST social group are cautious about interacting with students from other castes and socialize within themselves. It was found that the peer group formation was being determined by social group belonging. In the case of higher castes students, identity-based peer group formation was due to same group preference, while among the SCs and STs, it was a support mechanism against unsupportive institutional environment, prevailing fear of discrimination, and a search for alternative source for social support. Wherever, disadvantaged students are active in extra-curricular activities, such activities and student participation are stigmatized, such as, in NSS. Students from the SC and ST groups explained during group discussions and informal interaction: Interaction with “our own” students is very important. Conducting periodic meeting . . . It’s important for our welfare and solving problem . . . in fact (others are) jealous about the reservation and concession like laptop and fee structure (exception from payment of fees) . . . these grouping are not leading to visible form of counter culture as they are afraid of public criticism of being “casteist.”

State-wide variations in casteist values among the students provide interesting insights. As seen in Figure 10.1, states where caste-based political mobilizations are strong such as Uttar Pradesh (UP), Bihar, and Maharashtra, a higher proportion of students disagree with the statement that some communities are simply inferior to other communities. However, among those who tend to agree with the statement, highest proportion is from Kerala and Delhi vis-à-vis other states. In case of Kerala, caste-based political mobilization is almost absent. Legitimization to caste hierarchy in progressive state like Kerala invites our attention to much debated relationship between caste politics and social division. It seems that when caste becomes a political capital for disadvantaged people (as in case of Bihar and UP), students tend not to accept the idea of caste superiority and inferiority. In other words, in the absence of teaching of content which make students aware about the problems of society and sensitizing them to these problems, there are other sources (e.g., caste-based political mobilizations in UP) that is at work to negate casteist values. Women in general and women who belong to SC and ST groups in particular are prone to gender-based exclusion and stereotypes. In the student survey we included Likert scale statements to understand students’ views concerning relationships between men and women in the contemporary society. The results on gender-related attitudes and perceptions showed that male students were inclined to agree that discrimination against women is no longer a problem in India; that universities are wrong to admit

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Figure 10.1  State-wide variations in beliefs toward diverse communities Source: Sabharwal and Malish, 2018

women in costly programs such as medicine, when, in fact, a large number will leave their jobs after a few years to raise their children; or they had the tendency to disagree with the statement university education is equally important for both men and women. Women students, on the other hand, felt the opposite. Women were also confronted with the issue of safety, sexual violence, and restriction on their freedom of movement and wearing clothes of their choice, with male students in some colleges going so far as to impose “dress codes” for women. The lack of feeling of safety prevails among the women impacts their learning as women do not stay back in campuses after the class hours due to fear of discrimination and harassment from male peers and locals. Derogatory comments particularly toward SC and ST women also exist in some colleges. In summary, such patterns of behaviour and beliefs on campuses are reflection of the values and norms of individuals in the institutions, organizational processes, and of society at large. Negative conceptions of diversity, exclusion from curricular transactions, knowledge that helps in sustaining social power are all linked to the existing nature of social beliefs and civic values on campuses. In turn, stereotypes and biased beliefs against students from the socially excluded group, such as the SCs, STs, OBCs, and women are indicative of deficiency of civil capital resulting in poor citizenship and gap in constitution ideals and practice.

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Curricular Interventions for Meeting the Challenges of Diverse Students in Higher Education The analysis from the empirical study suggests that massification of higher education with changing demographics brings new challenges for higher education institutions, and social ties across groups continue to be problematic. Preparing teachers to teach in diverse classrooms is shaped by contemporary demographic factors: teachers in universities and colleges are more likely to be from the privileged social group (non-SC/ ST/OBC), while students in the classrooms are increasingly from the socially excluded groups (Sabharwal & Malish, 2018). This social mismatch results in detachment with the curriculum and pedagogical approaches failing to address legacy of discrimination in caste system and sexism directly. As a consequence, institutional culture (which “pertains to the norms, values and ideologies that are created, shaped and sustained in an organization” (Tierney, 2008, p. 27) is such that it normalizes an array of prejudicial practices and undemocratic interpersonal behaviour.” To mainstream the fight against casteist values and gender stereotypes, curricular transformation for civic learning becomes an essential mechanism. It is against this background that there is a renewed call for higher education in India to narrow the gap between ideals of constitution and reality of daily lives of people (Ambedkar, 1956; Thorat, 2013). To begin the process of bridging the gap between constitutional values and its practice, a new orientation of teachers is essential that allows them to, first, critically analyze and rethink their own notions of caste, culture, and ethnicity so that they are less likely to be victimized by knowledge that protects hegemony and inequality (Winant, 1994; Nieto, 1999). Secondly, equip their students with an understanding of the knowledge construction process that helps them challenge the mainstream academic meta-narrative and construct liberatory and transformative ways of conceptualizing knowledge (Banks, 2007). Empirical evidence from our study suggests that those students who were being taught by teachers who encouraged students to respect different beliefs and included various perspectives of different cultures in class discussions/assignments felt positive about their institution of study and were unburdened of the feeling of friction around social differences in their colleges.2 The analysis in this chapter shows three elements of civic learning that are relevant for course syllabi to engage: namely new knowledge that makes students firmly believe in positive values, sensitizing them to prevalent social issues; skills to interact with each other respectfully; and motivation to engage with communities for civic action. Course syllabi with content knowledge and pedagogical strategies that creates crosscultural awareness and nondiscriminatory attitudes need to be implemented at the preservice level to students in schools of education pursuing their professional degrees For example, students’ responses show an inverse association between feelings of friction around social differences at college and teachers encouraging students to respect different beliefs (Pearson r = −174, p = 0.01). Similarly, there was an inverse association around social differences and teachers’ inclusion of diverse perspectives on cultural differences in class discussions/assignments (Pearson r = −0.72, p=0.01). Students also felt that teachers who encouraged students to respect different beliefs, included various perspectives of different cultures in class discussions/assignments (Pearson r = 0.334, p= 0.01).

2

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to teach across levels of education In addition, in-service teacher educators and faculty members across disciplines need to be supported through training to advance their skills to integrate civic learning into the curricula (Dade & Sabharwal, 2012). Components of training to future teachers and teacher educators thus include content knowledge that helps in developing critical thinking by challenging them to think more deeply about their assumptions concerning caste, ethnicity, gender, class, sexual orientation, or physical disabilities. Knowledge alone may not lead to the development of social consciousness for dynamic cross-cultural engagement; pedagogical methods for social cohesion are equally important. Mixed-peer group formations for curricular and co-curricular activities, intergroup dialogues (interaction with diverse peers), social awareness workshops, and community engagement activities become important components to promote mutual respect and social cohesion. Scholars have also argued for field experiences in diverse classroom settings, a necessary element in teacher preparation programs, to help teachers connect with their students, and not merely observe them, to be able to teach students in a socially responsive ways (Cross, 2010).

Concluding Remarks Higher education in a massified era is qualitatively different from elite stage of higher education expansion. Massification in higher education in India is characterized by massive presence of nontraditional learners from diverse social, familial, and precollege backgrounds. Resulting student diversity poses challenges and opportunities— challenges that include prevailing forms of undemocratic values among the stakeholders and practices in campuses. Empirical evidences clearly suggest that students are subscribed to values of caste and patriarchy. In other words, caste and gender norms existing in society are reproduced in campus life. It in fact challenges the social transformative potential of the education system. Dominant perception of the teachers and values of students is in variance with principles of democracy, equity, and social justice that the constitution of India upholds. Principles of equity and social justice on which reservation policies are framed are heavily opposed. One can see that meritocratic ideology triumph over social justice perspective and right-based approach to education. However, there is a general consensus among the students that caste is part of our cultural practice. Identity-based peer group formation leading to social exclusion and ghettoization of disadvantaged students need to be seen in this larger context. Similar is the case of issues of gender justice. Male students tend to believe that gender discrimination is no longer a problem in India. It indicates a lack of sensitivity and perspective about gender-based discrimination in social, economic, cultural, and political spaces. It has been well established that caste and religion discipline the bodies and aspirations of women. Admitting women students in higher education is not viewed as a socially significant initiative. The tendency to see women only in their traditional roles indicates a deep-rooted of patriarchal structure. Issues of safety, sexual violence, and restriction imposed on women in campuses further explain how values

 Student Diversity and Discrimination in Indian Higher Education 183 of patriarchy are translated into sexist behaviour and actions. Intersections of caste and gender make lives of women students belonging to disadvantaged groups more vulnerable in campus. It can be seen that institutions are ill equipped to address changing dynamics of student diversity in massified era. Teachers’ sensitivity toward diversity and social and gender identities are also low. Discrimination and exclusion are systemic and beyond the consciousness of individual actors as it is ingrained in the very structure and process of higher education institutions. The current practice of extra-curricular approach no longer seems to be helping to achieve the goal of civic learning. Through systematic curricular interventions, there is an immense scope for leveraging the space of higher education and student diversity in higher education for cultivating civic values across educational levels. For higher education institutions to play a role in social democratization, the course syllabi should provide spaces within which students can access knowledge to understand social injustices and challenge discrimination, have the opportunity to interact with diverse peers, develop skills and competencies to be able to engage in a point of view different to their own, and build capacities to function effectively in a diverse society.

Acknowledgment The author expresses her gratitude to Professor N. V. Varghese, Dr. C. M. Malish, CPRHE/NIEPA, and members of the regional research teams from Bihar, Delhi, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, & Uttar Pradesh.

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University of Delhi (DU). (2015). Curriculum for 2-year MEd Programme. New Delhi: Department of Education, University of Delhi. University Grant Commission (UGC). (2012). UGC (Promotion of equity in higher education institutions) Regulations. New Delhi: UGC University of Lucknow (UL). (2015). M.Ed. Two Year Programme: 2015–2017. New Delhi: Department of Education, University of Lucknow. Varghese, N. V. (2015). Challenges of massification of higher education in India. CPRHE Research Papers no. 1. New Delhi: CPRHE, NIEPA. Winant, H. (1994). Racial conditions: Politics, theory, comparisons. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Wagner, R. W., & Locks, A. M. (2014). Diversity and inclusion on campus: Supporting racially and ethnically underrepresented students. New York: Routledge Yadav, S. K. (2013). Preparing teacher educators: M.Ed. curriculum review and reconstruction. New Delhi: Department of Teacher Education, National Council of Educational Research and Training. Zuniga, X., Williams, E. A., & Berger, J. S. (2005). Action-oriented democratic outcomes: The impact of student involvement with campus diversity. Journal of College Student Development, 46(6), 660–78. doi: 10.1353/csd.2005.0069.

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Thinking through a Course on Educational Technology and Ableism Implications for Syllabus Design Heidi Janz and Michelle Stack

Introduction This chapter captures a conversation between Heidi and Michelle. We weave our interest in and research about ableism and educational technology together as we discuss our experience in the development of a syllabus for a new master of educational technology course offered to teacher educators and to educators more generally. The conversation raises core issues and debates around the design of courses dealing with technology and disability. In particular, we critique ontologies of the body that permeate courses in faculties of education. Our discussion of ableism offers us an opportunity to question basic assumptions associated with teaching and reading, opening these concepts on a wider range of experiential realities. Our approach goes beyond inclusion and diversity to an exploration of what teacher education that embraces multiple modes of communication and ways of being in the world could look like. Heidi is a playwright, filmmaker, young adult fiction author, and academic whose research focuses on disability ethics. Michelle’s research focuses on how and why we rank people and universities. She looks at the role of media and technology in educational policy and practice. We have been friends and co-conspirators since our high school days. From our conversation, we developed four themes. First, we discuss the need to acknowledge power relations in framing technology as a solution and the embodied experiences of using technology in education courses. Secondly, we discuss the need to recognize that we are living in a material world, and that this materiality requires teacher education to go beyond the buzzword of critical thinking to developing a critical ontology of the body and of the spaces in which it moves and travels. Thirdly, we discuss the ways in which geographies of disability—as they are enacted in the architectures of educational settings, the rhetoric around personalized learning and

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long-standing assumptions about how normal bodies and minds move through schooling spaces—impact teacher education. Finally, we suggest the need for teacher education to connect technology, space, and critical literacies about the human body to understanding choices about the organization of spaces of learning (whether physical architectures or online) and how these choices can constrain or widen opportunities for their future students. We are particularly interested in clarifying the implications of this conversation for syllabus design practices and how such designs could be made more sensitive to the wide spectrum of abilities and disabilities experienced by students and teachers in schools and classrooms.

Embodied Experience and Ableism Michelle: We are developing a course on ableism and educational technology. How do you connect the intersections between education, technology, and ableism? Heidi: Well, first, I think we need to define ableism because it is central to how we look at the connection between educational technology and disability. Ableism is a deeply rooted sense that the able body is species-typical and thus superior. The corollary of this is that to have a disabled body (and/or mind) is to be atypical, thus inferior, and, indeed, less than fully human. The ultimate goal of technology in an ableist society, therefore, becomes to eliminate disability. Michelle: Yes, when I introduce the concept of ableism to my students I have them list all the words that use disability as a pejorative or derogatory term— schizo, lame, retard, blind to it, deaf to it—and the indexical registry goes on and on. It points to how entrenched ableism is in the English language and the practices that underpin many of the core approaches to teaching and learning on which educators draw when engaging their classrooms. Heidi: Yes, there’s more to it. The conceptualization of disability as “a problem” that needs to be solved or eliminated is deeply entrenched in society and approaches to teacher education. Consequently, when we look at educational technology in relation to disability, we need to start with framing. Who is framing the problem that technology is supposed to solve? Are disabled people present in this process and in what capacity? Are Temporarily AbleBodied people (TABs) challenged to look at their ableism as part of thinking about the uses and misuses of educational technology? Michelle: Can you give me an example, out of your experience with educational technology that was, in fact, helpful for you? Heidi: Well, there is the low-tech technology. As you know, I have cerebral palsy (CP) and spasms that make sensitive keyboards a nightmare for me. My old IBM typewriter was equipped with a guard over my keyboard that allowed me to type despite my spasms. The guard was just a piece of metal with holes poked out for each letter, but that made a huge difference. I still use basically the same kind of keyguard on my computer keyboard now. When I have a spasm, the keyguard prevents me from ending up with a line of letters typed

 Thinking through a Course on Educational Technology and Ableism 189 in error. Notwithstanding, while the typewriter was an invaluable tool to me for most of my K-12 education, it wasn’t helpful when it came to math. So, my teacher just used a clamp to keep paper on the desk, which enabled me to write—or at least scribble—the equations with my hand. We often think of high tech as the answer, but sometimes, low tech is what is ultimately useful. Michelle: Do you remember when disability services at the university told you to learn the software known as Dragon? I think the idea was that Dragon would transcribe your speech and this would eliminate the need for you to type or for someone to type for you. Heidi: How can I forget? Through the bulk of my Honours Bachelors of English Literature, I relied on Disabled Student Services (DSS) to facilitate my disability-related accommodations. This included recruiting volunteers to take notes for me in my classes and read my course material onto tape. As I entered the penultimate year of my undergraduate program, the DSS office—with some fanfare—acquired a computer with a “cutting edge” (for the early 1990s) speech recognition software called? Yup! Dragon Dictate! For some reason—which, to this day, remains unfathomable to me—the director of DSS decided that I would be the ideal student to work with this system and showcase its miraculous potential. I can still remember sitting there, in utter disbelief, listening to her BIG idea and thinking, “Lady, what you need is a quad, or a para; I have CP!” What I DID say was that, because of my dysarthric speech and diminished lung capacity, it actually took more physical effort for me to talk for one hour than to type for five hours. The response I received was, “You can’t just assume you can’t do it without giving it a try! Please, just give it a try.” The only explanation that I can offer for why I even agreed to try it is that my twenty-something self was much more daunted by the prospect of challenging authority figures than was my thirty-, forty-, or fifty-something self! So, I acquiesced and agreed to try training the Dragon. Initially, I started meeting with a Computer Science graduate student twice a week to train Dragon to recognize a core vocabulary of around twenty words consistently. Michelle: It sounds like a complete waste and abuse of your time. Heidi: Indeed. Two months passed without any real progress. I reported this lack of progress to the DSS director, indicating that I had now given it enough of a try to know that it wasn’t going to work for me. She responded that it seemed to her that my lack of progress was likely due to the fact that I was only training the Dragon twice a week, and that I would surely see more progress if only I would add one more training session per week. When I objected that I simply didn’t have time in my Monday to Friday schedule, she proposed having the graduate student come in to work with me on Saturdays for the next six weeks, I was less than enthusiastic, pointing out that my training sessions with the Dragon were already cutting into my study and essay-writing time, and that I didn’t think that devoting more time to training the Dragon would be a wise move for me, personally, or academically. Then, tellingly, came the pointed reminder of how much time and expense the DSS office had already invested in training me with the Dragon (note the

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inversion), and how irresponsible it was of me to want to back out now. Again, at that point, thirty-something me and beyond would have recognized that a major line had been crossed, wheeled out of that office and never looked back. Twenty-something me, however, was still all too cognizant of the fact that I was totally reliant on that office for organizing volunteers to read my course material onto tape, and that, without that vital service, my university career would be over anyway. So, totally against my better judgment, I agreed to doing three Dragon training sessions per week, including a Saturday session, for six weeks. It was during these six weeks, however, that the situation spiraled out of control. First of all, a couple of weeks in, I was informed that the university’s alumni magazine was going to do a story on the acquisition of the Dragon System, and would be coming to do an interview and photo shoot with me the next week. Given that, as far as I was concerned, the technology wasn’t working for me, I was more than a little conflicted about taking part in this interview and photo shoot. But, when I expressed this concern to the director, I was simply advised not to focus on myself, but rather, to talk about Dragon’s “potential benefits to disabled students.” So again, fearing the potential consequences to my services if I didn’t participate, I agreed to do the media session. The final straw, however, came a few weeks later, when I was informed that, instead of writing my exams at home on my computer, in sessions that took 8 to 10 hours, as I had been doing since I started university, I would now have to write my exam on the DSS computer, either with a scribe or with the Dragon! Michelle: So, you were pressured to use the technology even though it was a hindrance to you. Heidi: Yes. But I DO NOT want to imply that every assistive and educational technology is detrimental to disabled students. Nor am I arguing against disabled students being given opportunities to try new assistive and educational technologies to find out whether or not a new technology could work for them. Rather, I am offering my accumulated experiences as a cautionary tale for educators and other helping professionals, as a warning against the dangers of becoming so enamored with the potential utopias these new technologies could create that they actually create dystopias for their students/clients by focusing on the needs of the technology rather than on the needs of the person who they are supposed to be assisting. It is also a cautionary tale for policymakers and educators of the illusion that technology “has the power” to overcome situations. This illusion has repeatedly resulted in distracting from thinking about the pedagogies, policies, and practices that need to be articulated and the implications they have for teacher education and for an equitable approach to course development and syllabus design. Michelle: What needs to take place in teacher education courses to help students to make that linkage between equity and technology? Heidi: First, they need to think about who is at the table when decisions about the syllabi are being made. For example, do you remember when you were doing American Sign Language (ASL) interpreting courses during high school?

 Thinking through a Course on Educational Technology and Ableism 191 Michelle: Yes, my ASL teacher, who was deaf, was part of organizing against cochlear implants (CI). She feared the death of deaf culture and also that children with implants would be neither fully part of the deaf or the hearing world. It was hard for many hearing people to understand deaf people who didn’t see themselves as having “a deficit.” Heidi: Exactly! Health care professionals thought it irresponsible not to do cochlear implants because they could not imagine a fulfilling life that did not involve hearing. Michelle: I like how Roulstone (2016) talks about the “narratives of rescue” that are central to the debates about CI but more generally, when referring to the intersections of technology and disability. In the work I do with education leaders I frequently see the “narratives of rescue” at play. I remember an excited superintendent telling me about a computer on a sturdy stand with wheels that could move around so that a student using a wheelchair could virtually move with classmates to inaccessible spaces. He considered this device as a great solution and one that “rescued” the student from being excluded. He did not ask “what if we built spaces so that student could move around with her classmates? What is it like for the student to sit alone in a classroom while a computer screen can move to inaccessible spaces along with her classmates?” Heidi: I think a central concept for our course is that different bodies have different ways of being in the world, and thus, we carry different knowledges of the world in our bodies. For example, my body moves in space differently than yours. Thus, our experience, our knowledge, of the same space is very different. Whether in health care, social work, or education, there are subtle and not so subtle assumptions made about the linkages between bodies and learning. Michelle: Agreed, our syllabi need to expose students to bodies of knowledge that trouble the very notion of the “normal” body and how that body ought to learn. Teacher candidates work in schools that are grounded in assumptions of normal versus abnormal bodies. Teacher education provides an opportunity to reflect on how we come to our assumptions about bodies and our responsibility to challenge these assumptions so that we can be educators that develop equitable pedagogies and practices. Until we do this we all stay trapped in narrow bodies of knowledge and ways of moving through and in space. Heidi: Sometimes, it is hard not to despair at the dominance of discourses depicting technology as liberating the tragic disabled. The barriers I faced in education seem to get reincarnated in every generation—the ableism is the same, but the technology is updated. For example, I was listening to a young person talk about his recent experience with schooling and much of it was similar to my own. If disabled people are excluded from being the actors in determining what is useful for them, nothing changes. Michelle: Yes, I agree and this gets back to the “narratives of rescue.” Rescue and pity do not engage those being rescued and pitied as equals but as people in

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need of saving. I often give my students case studies to grapple with. I created one recently in which a teacher complained to human rights about ableism in the workplace. The school had been ordered to provide professional development for staff focused on discrimination and ableism. The task I gave my students was to develop professional development (PD) activities. What do you think were the main suggestions? Heidi: “Blindfold” people so they think they understand what it is like to be blind or put them in a hospital wheelchair so they think I’m confined rather than free to get around because I use a wheelchair? Michelle: Indeed, those suggestions came up, and, don’t worry, I did discuss why these exercises often generate feelings of pity and superiority rather than insight around ableism. Heidi: Did anyone suggest bringing in disability scholars or activists? Michelle: No. There was a lot of focus on watching movies about disabled people who are inspirational and represented as the world being open to them because of technology, for example Stephen Hawking. Heidi: In other words, “curing” ableism by watching movies of disabled people who are superheroes. Overcoming ableism is actually about learning to see disabled people who are not Nobel Prize recipients or movie stars as equally valuable to the world. Michelle: Yes, the exercise raises many issues. For example, how do we expand the conversation to thinking about teacher education in such a way that it does not take TAB as its point of departure but rather ensures that learning as a human right is secured for all people? Heidi: It’s interesting—there are several battles for disability rights that I’m involved in right now. I’m struck by the realization that what it all comes down to is having to prove disabled people are human, and, as humans, we have human rights: Housing is a human right; Personal Support is a human right. And, yes, Education is a human right. I think there is a positive and a negative side to using a human rights approach to advocate for disability rights. The positive is that this approach creates a level playing field. The negative, however, is that it still always starts with, in some sense, having to prove that, yes, disabled people are human. Having said that, I do think there is great value in teaching educators to view education as a right to which all humans are entitled. It may be one of the most effective ways of stripping away all the bells and whistles that keep us fixated on technology, and bring our focus back to the educational needs of the people in our classrooms. Michelle: I think there are some strategies we can use in the course we are currently designing. I often bring in textbooks from the 1950s and 1960s to class. I find students are often horrified by the language used in these texts to talk about disability. I ask them “how are things different now for disabled people?” Heidi: I would bet that many students give a response that goes something like, “Now, we have inclusive education, and disabled students are part of schools like other children.”

 Thinking through a Course on Educational Technology and Ableism 193 Michelle: You are right. I then ask them to map the physical spaces we dwell in. What are the assumptions about the bodies that move through these spaces? Are there separate spaces for disabled people? What are the washrooms like? If someone needed to be changed is there a place to do this? Heidi: They probably find out many spaces exclude disabled students and even though there are inclusion policies students are spatially segregated in a variety of ways. Michelle: When I ask them how a disabled teacher or school principal would move through these spaces there is usually an uncomfortable silence. Sometimes a brave student will acknowledge that this thought has never occurred to them. Next, I have them make note of the technology throughout the building they study and work in. Heidi: Do they look at who was at the table in determining which technology should be purchased and why? Michelle: Yes, that’s the last part of the exercise. They often come back questioning why disabled people are not consulted and what this says about schools and the preparation of teachers.

We Are Living in a Material World: Critical Spatiality Michelle: It isn’t new that technology is seen as the panacea for all that ails education. The blackboard was predicted to revolutionize education, as were the filmstrip and video. Each time, technology was predicted to make education more accessible and inclusive. I remember at a meeting a few years ago being told the new education building would be a “high tech palace.” I must say as someone who teaches students how to produce videos and podcasts I was excited by the prospect of a “high tech palace.” But—once completed—what our tour of the building reminded me of was how technology is ascribed power in educational discourses that trumps conversations about relationships, and recognition of how different people move through physical spaces. Heidi: I must say that this brand-new education building at UBC literally embodies the unspoken assumption that only able-bodied professors need apply. It would have been so easy to make the space accessible, but the paradigm that the architects and those who they consulted with is based on the TAB moving through space. Remember last year when you asked about why some doors in the education building are difficult if not impossible for someone like myself to open and you were told by UBC facilities that they focus on automatic doors in places where “disabled people congregate”? Seriously, have they considered that it may be rather difficult for us to congregate in places that don’t provide us a way into the building???!!! Michelle: It’s a glaring example of how the ghettoization of disabled people is still normalized. In teacher education, I’ll use this new education building with its many screens and digital controls to invite students to think about how

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choices around spaces inform pedagogic practices, inclusions and exclusion. I think I’ll also bring in commitments of educational institutions around sustainability. There is talk about environment and ecology, but less attention is given to the ways human beings actually circulate and move around in physical buildings and spaces that are made by other human beings. We need to think more carefully about the allowance or destruction of diversity in terms of who can move through which spaces and what technology is used to facilitate or hinder their movement. One term that is on my education buzzword bingo game is critical thinking. Heidi: Agreed! The notion of critical thinking ignores bodies and how they are empowered or constrained through architectures. It dismisses the materiality of life and the fact that we can’t float against gravity or just go through walls. Though, admittedly, I have attempted to go through a few walls with my wheelchair in spaces that weren’t as accommodating as they were purported to be! We could provide these and other examples to our students that point to the need for spatial criticality in thinking through the creation and implementation of technology. For example, flashing lights and sensitive controls can be a nightmare for people like me with cerebral palsy. Michelle: What we see as possible or impossible is based in the words we use that shape who and what we value, and through this process it is easy to get in the trap of seeing education as just a cognitive process—paradoxically forgetting that people physically move through space. We forget teacher education and schooling takes place in buildings that are often designed in ways that exclude a large number of students. Central to teacher education should be preparing future teachers to adequately understand the pedagogy of spaces and how to account for them in meaningful ways. Heidi: Yes, it is key to look at spaces and to question why spaces are made in the ways they are and by whom. Michelle: And connecting to sustainability, which is also about preserving ways of being in the world. What is the range of experiences that are permitted and does the use of the technology expand or narrow possibilities? Heidi: Exactly. For example, if you think about it, the fundamental assumption that fuelled the focus on Dragon was that I should perform like everyone else. But the reality is that I don’t need to perform like everyone else, nor do I want to. Michelle: If we think about a syllabus, which encompasses multiple ways of communicating and moving through the world, we need to think about the spaces in which we ask students to work. It is interesting I taught a class that was hybrid—partly online and partly face to face. I asked the students what they preferred. I had students with English as an additional language who spoke about preferring online because they had time to consider their response and they were not expected to jump in to conversations before they were ready. I’ve had students who prefer face to face because they become anxious when they can’t see people and “read their reactions.” For some students, videos and podcasts are useful, while others dread these readings.

 Thinking through a Course on Educational Technology and Ableism 195 Understanding multiple ways of being means that universal inclusion does not exist. How do we have conversations with our students about choices and open up debate as to whether these choices engage with a range of experiences and ways of reading and making the world?

Geographies of Disability, Personalization, and Standardization Michelle: We need to include in the syllabi articles that get at why we ascribe technology with the power of disembodied teacher. I think of how many breathless stories there are about educational technology “teaching numeracy and literacy, and critical thinking.” We need to ask ourselves, as instructors, how we want to learn about self and how to be able to care for others and the planet; I think one of the biggest challenges facing teacher education is to move beyond simply asking, “How do I use this tech to teach?” to asking questions like, “What are the values and beliefs that were part of creating, using and marketing this technology?” And, “How does that connect or disconnect with what I consider as a ‘good education,’ and why?” Heidi: It seems to me that there’s an ever-present tendency to view technology as an end in and of itself. But the reality is that technology serves and advances the values of the humans who create and use it. Michelle: Challenging the single story needs to be central to our course. The work of Helen Meekosha (2011) and Bathseba Opini (2016) is helpful to consider. Both talk about conditions in the Global South, creating impairment. For example, we can look at the mining of cadmium for cell phones and other technology in the Congo. Children often do the mining with no safety equipment or concern for their lives. They are treated as disposable labor and many die or become disabled. There are children who are recruited to be child soldiers and become disabled in the process. When disabled, there are no resources accorded to them. Many starve because they are no longer seen as having useful bodies for companies that provide the materials for cheap technology sold around the world, like cell phones. I think the criticism of disability studies not looking at these complex interactions is particularly important in a course on technology and disability. Technology might be empowering for someone with money in the Global North but has taken the life of someone in the Global South. Heidi: I think this is an important point. I also worry about ghettos. For example, with cuts in staff at schools it is easy to see school districts deciding a child can learn at home online. This would be a new form of segregation. Michelle: Yes, in schools that make use of various technologies, those technologies could indeed be used to exclude disabled students. On the other hand, in poor and middle-income countries, it is estimated 5 to 15 percent

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of people with disabilities have access to assistive technologies needed to participate in educational and other activities that they have rights to under the UN Convention on the Rights of People With Disabilities (Borg, Larsson, & Östergren, 2011). Heidi: Yes, I do not think geographies are given enough attention and we should look at this in our course. We need to look more critically at the notion of declaring a technology universally empowering that might be based not just on a particular disability but also on location. Michelle: Yes, this is where having a critical sense of geography and spatiality is essential. How do we connect educational technology with how as humans we interact? Are the ways we are developing and using technology challenging or reinforcing ableism, racism, heteronormativity coloniality and sexism? I like the work of Aimi Hamraie (2016) who talks about Universal Design (UD) and the “ideologies of ability.” He points to how UD started with planners who had disabilities but became co-opted. I think a key issue to explore in teacher education is what bodies we see as having expertise and why. How concepts, such as UD, start off as a way to challenge ableism and turn into buzzwords disconnected from it? Heidi: Great example. It can be difficult to explain why prevalent UD discourses are often critiqued by disability studies scholars. I sometimes get the question, “Don’t you want environments that are accessible?” And my answer is to explain that early UD work was done by disability activists and planners, to whom I’m grateful. But, unfortunately, this work got co-opted, and so we are back to pretending disability is something that could be eliminated, through technology. Michelle: A great reminder that we should develop activities that analyze the archeology of terms often used indiscriminately in some courses, such as UD, and what the histories of these terms means for challenging or reinforcing how we think about through a body-aware critical pedagogy in teacher education. I’m reminded of another buzzword that is frequently associated with technology as a panacea for all that ails education, namely “personalized learning.” Personalized learning is usually premised on computers facilitating self-regulated learners who exert agency in determining what they want to learn and how. This approach has major implications for teacher education. It sounds great, particularly for disabled students, but it’s based on rewarding students deemed to be good, entrepreneurial learners and seeing those who do not take these opportunities as lacking initiative. The focus on technology as the answer often distracts from frequent cuts to education that disproportionately impact marginalized students, including disabled students. In our classes you and I need to be a bit of a broken record, raising questions like, What are the aims of education and how does the way we are using technology facilitate these aims? Who decides what the aims of education are and why? Who—and whose body—is absent in the decision-making process and why? If educators are committed to equitable questions, then we need to ask these questions throughout.

 Thinking through a Course on Educational Technology and Ableism 197 Heidi: I think these examples of buzzwords in education and technology point back to the importance of understanding ableism and one’s positionality in thinking through educational technology and disability. Michelle: Say more about that. Heidi: Well, I think the distinction between “speaking out” and “speaking for” is absolutely crucial here. I’m disabled but that doesn’t mean I can speak for people with autism, for instance; they can speak for themselves. Often TABs think that disabled people can’t speak for themselves, but some of the strongest challenges to ableism have come through disability activists and scholars. We are all implicated in ableism and we all have a role to play in disrupting it. The expression from the Disability Rights movement still holds true “Nothing about us without us.” Michelle: So, we need to go beyond a narrow approach to “inclusion” and move to thinking about different forms of communicative capacities and literacies each with capacity to make sense of the world, as Freire would say reading the “word and the world” (Freire & Macedo, 1987). Heidi: Yes, and in doing so, move away from the notion of generously including those deemed as lesser to understanding the gain for all in learning how different people make sense of the world in diverse ways. Technology can be helpful only if its development and use are grounded in equitable relational principles and practices. As we see from the examples provided by Opini and Meekosha, a technology might facilitate inclusion in the Global North but may be based on the exploitation of bodies in the Global South. Michelle: We need literacy about embodied ways of learning and disability but also literacy around the values and beliefs behind the architecture of technology we use. Heidi: I agree, and for this to happen, we need for conversations across professions and areas of scholarship. Challenging ableism requires looking at how TABs and disabled people come to know themselves and each other through teachers, health professionals, technologies, and so on. Too often, disability studies scholarship is ignored in the education of educators, health care professionals, and the many others that impact the daily lives of TABs and disabled people. Michelle: Yes, and hopefully thinking about ways to engage in education that centers on the pedagogic practice of curiosity about a variety of ways of moving, thinking about and feeling the world. I think it would be helpful to have our students think about different architectures—physical architectures, architectures of knowledge, and architectures of technology. Heidi: Yes, and based on these architectures we can ask them to explore their reaction to when they see someone that seems out of place in a space. Michelle: I think your very presence as a professor pushes students to look at what assumptions they may have about who should be at the front of a classroom. I’ve had students come to me in tears after we give a class on ableism. The challenge is turning the frame around.

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Heidi: I agree. How do we think through a trans-professional discourse where educators become literate in plural communicative modes to moving through online and offline spaces and relationships, go beyond inclusion, to modes of being and witnessing? Michelle: This discussion takes me back to the classes I took as a doctoral student in the philosophy of education. There is the concept of goodness and the notion of fulfilling one’s potential. How do we help teacher candidates think about goodness in relation to difference and diversity? Heidi: We seldom discuss goodness. We think about teachers, engineers and architects mainly in terms of their ability to transmit knowledge or to design something that is functional for a very narrow range of bodies. Michelle: The unstated paradigm that sometimes frustrated me in those classes was a sense that education is a spiritual exercise that is remote from the physicality of the world. Everything we’ve been talking about points to the fact that it is time not just to speak about embodied learning but about the pedagogy that takes material space as a crucial point of departure in thinking about relationships. Heidi: One of the biggest challenges in teaching and learning is not to become trapped in the world we create through the words we use. Perhaps if we become more aware of the distance between words and worlds, we can become more careful with the way we deploy words to capture the things that we see, but we don’t fully understand. Michelle: I think we might want to include work by Galis (2011) that connects disability and science and technology studies. Heidi: Yes, I think Galis’s theorizing is useful for thinking about the interactions between and across humans and technology. I find this quote from him useful: The important point here is that disability does not reside solely in the body or in society. Disability is an effect that emerges when impaired bodies interact with disabling infrastructures/culture. (Galis, 2011, p. 835) Michelle: The connection between science and technology studies and disability studies is perhaps more urgent than ever before. It is now possible to implant chips in a person’s brain. An exoskeleton can mean someone might be able to walk who could not otherwise do so. But who controls the software? Does identity get lost? Within an educational setting, will parents and students be pressured to accept technologies that might make them more compliant and better students but that ultimately lead to less human diversity? (Albrecht, Seelman, & Bury, 2001). I can think of examples where parents felt pressured by educators and health care professionals to get augmentative and assistive technologies for their children that they did not see as helpful, but other situations where they did want these technologies but could not access them.

 Thinking through a Course on Educational Technology and Ableism 199 Heidi: I recently read an article by Rick Stoddart and David Turnball. Stoddart has cerebral palsy and provides oral communication training to professionals, cab drivers, and others on how to understand his speech. He finds people need a couple of hours of training to understand his speech and many are positive, but some professionals are angry and think he should use assistive technology (Stoddart & Turnbull, 2016). They talk about the work as a political action that insists Stoddart be treated with dignity and those who work with him make the effort to understand him. I thought it was an interesting article we might assign our class. Heidi: Can we talk about assigned readings and even the concept of what a “reading” is? If we want to engage the kinds of challenges that we have been talking about, how do we create a syllabus that does not privilege written text as the only form of legitimate scholarly communication? Michelle: Good point. I think we should challenge the notion of standardization—the idea that we can find one universal way to be accessible and check that off. I think the growing focus on standardization is a problem. Rankings and standard global tests focus not just on what a norm is represented as locally but the imposition of a global (read Global North) notion of the good body and mind from a human capital framework that privileges the economic person. Heidi: How do we create a syllabus that transcends the limitations imposed by our deeply entrenched thinking about what represents the normal learner and educator? It is crucial to debunk the notion that technology means we can limit the constraints of inaccessible spaces. Accessibility is about the values and beliefs that go into the building of spaces. Michelle: Yes, and those online spaces can be just as exclusionary if the architects of the spaces have not had opportunities to look at human diversity outside of ableist norms. Heidi: Let’s make sure we have readings that challenge the checkbox approach to technology accessibility. I think back to being forced to spend hours as an undergraduate trying to train the Dragon—the insistence that, if I just trained the software, I could be normal—perform like everyone else. Michelle: I agree. We could have them look at representations of disability and technology and trace who is involved in decisions related to technology and disability in their workplaces. Heidi: And to think about how the decision-making might be different if people who view disability as part of diversity rather than as something to eliminate or mitigate were part of the decision-making process. Michelle: Great idea. This chapter is for a book called Bodies of Knowledge. The book centers around the questions: What is a body or bodies? And how do we think about them in relation to the material world? When it comes to understanding the ways in which ableism impacts the development and use of educational technology, I think there is never an arrival point, but rather it’s a process of continually asking how we come to think we know what someone

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else needs and who decides if, for example, technology is “the answer” and what technology? Heidi: And a crucial part of that process is continually seeking to discern the ableist assumptions that inform the notion of disability as a “problem.” Paradoxically, there are also representations of technology that makes disabled people superhuman and having an unfair advantage over TABs. Oscar Pistorius is probably the best-known example of this. I’d be happy just not to have to fight to be seen as human. It seems either disabled people are to be pitied or getting so-called unfair superhuman advantages. This means that we need to talk about embodied learning; we need to think and talk about how to make spaces for different ways of experiencing and moving through the world, and how to help students question why the TAB is seen as the ideal. And, ultimately, we need to wrestle with the question which penetrates the very heart of ableism in all its forms: Why is being a normie so important?

Conclusion Our conversation critically unpacked a formulaic story of technology as savior of disabled people. We agreed that the notion of disability as an individual’s problem—a problem which should be minimized or eliminated by technology remains pervasive, in society in general, and in education in particular. Central to disrupting the narrative of technology as the answer to the problem of disability is interrogating the relations of power. Is the technology a way to homogenize the way we move through space and communicate with each other? Often it is assumed that disabled people will benefit from being more “normal” or “typical,” but unexplored is who decides this and on based on what values and beliefs about what it means to be human? We also explore the fact that we are living in a material world; critical thinking does not allow us to defy gravity. How do we create spaces that exclude from our thinking bodies and minds that are deemed abnormal? This is a crucial question for teacher education. Disabled students, teachers, scholars, and administrators will continue to be excluded if the focus is on a rhetoric of inclusion, while simultaneously ignoring the unquestioned acceptance of ableist structures. Ableism is not only expressed in a lack of ramps or automatic door openers but also in how we rank each other as normal and abnormal and based on these rankings decide who is given access to different bodies of space and knowledge. We considered the importance of geographies of disability. How in teacher education do we talk about rights of children? For example, when we think of disabled students in teacher education, who comes to mind? Do we think about the rights to resources of middle class, white disabled children in the Global North differently than the needs of a poor, black child from the Global South who has become disabled through exploitation as a child laborer in a factory run by a Global North multinational? These questions and issues are crucial to thinking about who we imagine when we talk about personalized learning. Where are the collective rights of students who are structurally oppressed, including disabled students?

 Thinking through a Course on Educational Technology and Ableism 201 Our conversation also explored how exclusions are normalized through online and offline architectures and who is included as knowledge producers throughout our syllabi. Are disability scholars included? Who decides a disability is a problem and what the solution should be? What interests are behind these decisions? Teacher candidates come with years of apprenticeship. They watch movies about what a good education is. They learn what it means to be a normal student and an abnormal one. They form ideas of what teachers and principals look like and how they move through space. If we are to create inclusive education, we need to think through our own apprenticeship in ableism and to see challenging ableism in our syllabi as a lifelong process. We are hopeful that a teacher education which connects technology, space, and critical literacies about the human mind-body can open up spaces in which teachers can imagine themselves co-constructing with students the architectures of accessible physical and online spaces of learning.

References Albrecht, G. L., Seelman, K. D., & Bury, M. (2001). Handbook of disability studies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Borg, J., Larsson, S., & Östergren, P.-O. (2011). The right to assistive technology: For whom, for what, and by whom? Disability & Society, 26(2), 151–67. https​://do​i.org​/ 10.1​080/0​96875​99.20​11.54​3862. Freire, P., & Macedo, D. P. (1987). Literacy: Reading the word & the world. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey Publishers. Galis, V. (2011). Enacting disability: How can science and technology studies inform disability studies? Disability & Society, 26(7), 825–38. https​://do​i.org​/10.1​080/0​96875​ 99.20​11.61​8737. Hamraie, A. (2016). Universal design and the problem of “post-disability” ideology. Design and Culture, 8(3), 285–309. https​://do​i.org​/10.1​080/1​75470​75.20​16.12​18714​. Meekosha, H. (2011). Decolonising disability: Thinking and acting globally. Disability & Society, 26(6), 667–82. https​://do​i.org​/10.1​080/0​96875​99.20​11.60​2860. Opini, B. (2016). Walking the talk: Towards a more inclusive field of disability studies. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 20(1), 67. https​://do​i.org​/10.1​080/1​36031​ 16.20​15.10​73800​. Roulstone, A. (2016). To augment or not to augment? That is the question. In A. Roulstone (Ed.), Disability and technology: An interdisciplinary and international approach (pp. 207–236). https​://do​i.org​/10.1​057/9​78-1-​137-4​5042-​5_7. Stoddart, R., & Turnbull, D. (2016). Why bother talking? On having Cerebral Palsy and speech impairment: Preserving and promoting oral communication through occupational community and communities of practice. In P. Block, D. Kasnitz, A. Nishida, & N. Pollard (Eds.), Occupying disability: Critical approaches to community, justice, and decolonizing disability (pp. 195–207). https​://do​i.org​/10.1​007/9​78-94​-017-​ 9984-​3_13.

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Challenging Relations

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An Existential Dimension of the Syllabus in the Life of a Teacher Samuel D. Rocha

In this essay, I will attempt to accomplish three things. I cannot promise more than these three attempts and the reader, as always, will be left to judge the mixed results. The first attempt will be to explain how my chosen title brackets and contains its propositional content. In other words, when I use the expression “an existential dimension of the syllabus in the life of a teacher,” there are a number of reasons for using that expression and for not using other expressions one might imagine as eligible substitutes for, or equivalents to, it. To that end, the first thing I hope to accomplish in this chapter is to clarify what the chapter intends to express and disclose. As important as this may be for the sake of a certain kind of analytic or anecdotal clarity, it will surely require the deployment of certain philosophical techniques. If taken at face value, these philosophical techniques, and the resources they draw from, may in fact occlude more than they seem to clarify, giving a preliminary impression that may be experienced as being less than clear and, perhaps, outrightly unclear and even confusing. What I mean by “clarify,” then, is not a simple matter of optics nor is it an attempt at securing any degree of objective certainty. I am not trying to create a seamless representational model or build a tight analogical structure for a perfect correspondence between the propositional form of the title and the thing proposed by its proposition. Instead, my aim for clarity is as much about preventing a “natural” or “ordinary” sense of clarity to take root as it is about offering a clearing or sense of clearness that may seem unnatural or a bit out of the ordinary. Anyone who has taken the time and care to observe anything in its fullest detail and widest possible sense will surely recognize why the pursuit of clarity requires both a suspension of what is sometimes called “the natural attitude” and an acceptance of an entirely different attitude about what clearness can be. At this point, it seems worthwhile to admit that I have been mixing and will continue to mix between ordinary language and some of the technical expressions of the philosophical tradition of phenomenology. It is not within the scope of this chapter to fully or even partially lay out that tradition and the specificities and even idiosyncrasies that are entailed in my usage of and appeal to it. I will rely on the reader’s goodwill and my own strong sense across the formal tradition that phenomenology

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is but another way to describe the more general work of philosophy that aspires to a kind of “first philosophy,” a kind of philosophy that tries to understand what things are in and of themselves. In this sense, the question that drives me to compose this chapter and postulate its title is simply, “What is the syllabus?” I have avoided asking this question until now because it is deceiving to pretend that this direct question can be answered as directly as it is asked—as we will see, it will at some point require some rephrasing. For the moment, however, the word “syllabus” in the direct question, “What is the syllabus?” has been expanded into the words of the titular expression “an existential dimension of the syllabus in the life of a teacher.” I do not find this longer expression less direct than the question. Quite the opposite: it is perhaps far more direct than the generic question because the sense of “directness” changes between the curt “What is the syllabus?” question and the title, “An existential dimension of the syllabus in the life of a teacher.” While the interrogative force of the grammatical question is lost in the longer formulation, I believe that there is an added sense that the syllabus emerges from a world that is specifically and intimately pedagogical which makes up for whatever speculative virtues might be exchanged by abandoning the question. After all, the grammar of the interrogative sentence has no monopoly over the mood and force of the true question. It is my hope that the reader will see this title and feel its pedagogical world along with its questions. Returning to my philosophical approach and phenomenological method in this chapter, a generous and active reader is surely better suited to the purpose of distilling the thoughts and purposes of this chapter than a first-person meta-analysis of its execution or method. One reason for my methodological hesitation and caution about giving an account of my approach to philosophical method is because this chapter will ultimately focus on pedagogical method in the domain of teaching. This focus will employ, as I have hopefully made clear, an application of philosophical technique and method. But I do not want to overdetermine the technical at the expense of the ultimate focus which is more properly pedagogical than philosophical. My light touch with this minimal account of philosophical method, then, is for the sake of the heavier portion that should emerge when I offer an account of pedagogical method which is not only a matter of this chapter’s composition and execution but also, more importantly, a crucial insight into the nature of the syllabus when investigated through its existential dimension in the life of the teacher. Nonetheless, the reader should be assured that, for better and for worse, the methodological orientation of this chapter will be philosophical in its terms of its scope of analysis. Perhaps the only added methodological component is the literary vehicle of the “essay.” I approach this medium in the French classical style, often traced historically to Michel de Montaigne (1533–92), where the essay is little more than thinking. Unlike other essayists, my use of sources is sparse to nonexistent. This is not for the sake of feigning independence of thought nor because of any originality on my part. It is perhaps better understood as my profound awareness of the antiquity of these ideas and the limit of their representation through citation. What the form of the chapter does perhaps add to the philosophical character of my method is a literary sensibility to the work of philosophy and pedagogy, including, as we will see, within the potentially essayistic work of composing a syllabus.

 An Existential Dimension of the Syllabus in the Life of a Teacher 207 This mostly philosophical, yet also literary, orientation leads us to the second attempt of this chapter, after the first attempt of trying to clarify its title. I hope to provide a description of the thing proposed in the propositional content of my title. In short, I want to try and show what “an existential dimension of the syllabus” is as it appears “in the life of a teacher.” This “life of the teacher” happens, in this case, to refer to some sense of my own existence as a person and a teacher but it also extends to the students whom I regularly teach who are teacher candidates and to any teacher who might relate to these descriptions. In particular, my students who are teacher candidates are teachers, too, at least in potentiality which is different from the ordinary potential of anyone who may be a teacher in a more deferred sense of potentiality or possibility. These students’ enrolment in my university’s teacher education program makes them a unique kind of teacher, standing at the threshold between pure potentiality and the realization of a vocation of teaching. I also teach practicing teachers in other programs of graduate studies, but that audience will not be my focus in this chapter. Regarding the teacher who is myself, I should immediately prevent myself from giving any possible impression that I know myself well enough as a person or a teacher to give the reader any reliable account of my own existence. Even more importantly, I should even more forcefully admit that I have no particular insight into the lives of my students who are studying to become teachers. After all, who can satisfy the oracle’s call to “know thyself ” for themselves and, more absurdly, for others? Who one is alone and who we are together and apart is a great mystery to those who truly wonder about these questions and accept their invitation into the abyss of unknowing. I offer no promises, dear reader, of any insight into that mystery here. By contrast, I hope that whatever I am able to demonstrate in this small chapter might shed some dim light on the entity that many of us may take the syllabus to be and, perhaps, what that entity’s relation might be teaching, and who the person who is a teacher may be and become in that relation to themselves and their students. These, then, are the first two modest aims of this chapter: to give some account of my chosen language and to then move beyond the purely linguistic realm and into the realities that this language may refer us to. I doubt I will be able to hit my marks fully or in their perfect centre, but should I even be so lucky as to gesture in their general direction, grazing my target, I pray that my reader will be kind enough to complete the movement by using their own powers of originality—even if it requires a necessary departure from or rejection of my ideas. In this way, this essay is but an opening gesture toward a future direction, nothing more and nothing less. In this case it is the opening sense that matters more than the gesture, since I hope to avoid closing it on anything too definitive or prescriptive. I hope that some propelling force for this opening has already begun to make an impression. My third and final attempt will emerge from this attempt to avoid closure. In that final attempt, I will focus on an aspect of the syllabus as such, emerging from the first two attempts at offering some consideration of an existential dimension of the syllabus in the life of a teacher. It is time to continue with a fresh line. *  *  *

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Language comes to us, like music, in lines. Like a pointing finger, a staff, or a conductor’s baton, these lines often direct and guide. In many respects, this sense of the line is the atomic element of prose and poetry. At the very least, we can observe this fundamental element in the written word’s pictorial manifestation that employs the basic elements of shape and color combining to compose the graphic line on display in each part and the whole, from the graph of the letter to the line of the phrase. The title I have chosen for this chapter might be understood, then, as precisely this type of thing: a title, a phrase, a line. What does this opening line mean? What does its author intend for it to say and do? What does “an existential dimension of the syllabus in the life of a teacher” refer us to, exactly? And, perhaps most importantly, what are the things that this line does not intend to refer us to or, indeed, may refer us away from, or against? We might begin by dividing the line into two. When we make this division, we realize that the second line—“in the life of the teacher”—is a point of emphasis that can already be found in the first—“Existential dimension of the syllabus.” What this second line emphasizes is the specifically and uniquely pedagogical sense of what the term “existential” refers to. In other words, by putting the “existential dimension” within “the life of the teacher” we should hopefully find it plausible to suggest that this is not a plain or generically stated existential platitude. By “an existential dimension” specifically delimited within “the life of the teacher” I mean to focus on the object of this chapter— and, indeed, this book—which is the “the syllabus.” An existential dimension of the syllabus in the life of the teacher, then, is to turn toward a single and common measure or quality of size, shape, density, and even color. This type of dimension within this type of object is not the sort of thing we can pick up off the street with our hand nor is it something we can point to empirically with our physical senses. This is not to say that this thing—“the syllabus”—is disembodied or purely spiritual, it is merely to suggest that any dimension it seeks to capture is something like heat or anxiety or even love. Above all, we should find a slight opening descriptive sense of the syllabus here since it is with a syllabus that the teacher creates some sense of the dimensions or common measures for a class. (Note: I realize that this mixes the progression between the first and the second attempts of this chapter, but artificial sequence, like artificial lines, cannot inhibit the real life of a line of thought that is developing.) I do not mean to reduce a dimension or a syllabus to a feeling. After all, it is a common measure. However, unlike standardization and accountability measurements that we have become accustomed to within education, this common measure cannot be contained or measured by standardized objects of accountable measurement. The common measure prescribed by the syllabus cannot be objectified into mere logistics. At the very least, the existential dimension of the syllabus is what prevents this objectification. From this prevention we might recover a deeper sense of standards and accountability, but these would be entirely distinct from the ones we encounter in the natural attitude of such things in status quo discussions. After all, a dimension is in itself a common measure which forces us to abandon the common sense of objective measurement. If we are willing to leave behind the common sense of objective measurement, we are still within our rights to wonder, ask, and even insist that this negation be rectified in some constructive direction. We may then find the most appropriate place for the syllabus to emerge within the existential dimension.

 An Existential Dimension of the Syllabus in the Life of a Teacher 209 Here, in this request, we find the emergence of the syllabus from this “existential dimension” as something that substitutes for the common sense of the syllabus as an objective measurement or standard. It is precisely because of the phenomenological sense of this common measure of a “dimension” that we must adopt it with the added placement of “existential.” Where is this existential place where we find the true sense of the common measure of the “dimension”? Here, I claim, we turn fully from the philosophical into the pedagogical. This turn is a journey from the phenomenological “dimension” into the place of the “existential” and, finally, into the concrete “existential dimension” we find “in the life of the teacher.” This movement into concreteness is not a descent into objectivity; however, this concreteness retains the phenomenological dimension and place of the existential. It is a pedagogical concreteness. At this point, after this turn away from the natural attitude of objective measurement and toward pedagogical life, I am left with little more than the impressions of the syllabus that have already begun to emerge. I am also left with testimonial accounts from my own teaching and perhaps from the act of teaching itself. After all, teaching might be understood as little more and certainly nothing less than offering testimony which means to demonstrate and bear witness to something. This demonstrated something that the teacher bears witness to may most intimately be what we would call their “life.” Within this existential dimension that carries us into the life of the teacher, I claim, we find the pedagogical register of the syllabus emerging more fully. *  *  * A teacher is a person who offers to a student. This sense of offering is limited to distinguish itself from the gift. In other words, on my understanding, the teacher cannot “give” to the student, since the student always remains free to accept or reject, ignore or miss, the teacher’s offering. This sense of the offering preserves the direction of the teacher’s personhood toward the student, but it does not dictate the conditions of the possible exchange and communion to the student. The ultimate offering of the teacher, then, is the teacher as such, their personhood. This offering demonstrates and shows in the direction of the student although it can never be fully given to the student and may be rejected or simply ignored and lost upon the student’s psyche or memory. While we might begin by noting that everything that the teacher offers entails a necessary existential condition—in other words, that the teacher’s first and final offering is ultimately who they are as a person—this is by no means the only condition or even a sufficient condition of teaching. The teacher cannot rest upon the ultimate offering as if it were self-sufficient and we cannot relax this analysis as if it is selfexplanatory. I am by no means suggesting that the teacher is a syllabus unto themselves. The teacher must offer more than their ontological self-disclosure but this is not to say that the offering of the teacher is reducible to psychological or even epistemological knowledge pure and simple. The knowledge we encounter within the psyche and consciousness through knowing and memory, along with the more formal questions of knowledge that emerge in any epistemological study, are surely consequential in a final analysis, but, at this stage in the analysis, we might move more slowly from the existential offering of the teacher as such—the existential dimension of their life

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and personhood—to any entity that mediates between the teacher’s ontological selfpossession and the dispossession from which they offer to their student. This entity, I claim, is the physical body of the teacher. One might contrast this sense of the body from the ordinary language of the “student body,” using the word “body” in its sense of plurality. In this case, however, I would contend that the person cannot offer the body of another person so, while it may appear individualistic to limit this sense of the body to the person, the limit emerges from the physical limitations themselves. These limits also must be pressed, as we will see now. The teacher offers from a personhood that includes flesh and bone and skin. This physical embodiment, however, is not the only sense of “body” to be accounted for. Without turning completely to knowledge in an externalized and disembodied sense, we might stop just short, or perhaps simply be willing to speculate a synthesis, by taking up the “body of knowledge” as an imaginative possibility. What does a body of knowledge look like? How might it resemble the physical body of flesh and bone and skin? Is this the psychical body somehow? Could the teacher who offers their personhood through a physical body also, and at the very same time and place, offer their personhood through the body of knowledge they carry within their pysche or their heart? Here we must judge a book by its cover and also its contents. In other words, the teacher is present in the existential terms of their offering but also on the pedagogical terms. Just as the body of the person is one of these existential terms, so too we might take their body of knowledge as existential or at least existentially related and through this body of knowledge, which surely must include aspects of the physical, we arrive at the pedagogical offering that is more unique to the teacher than their existential offering of self. The reasoning for this claim is simply that every self can offer from itself existentially, whereas only the teacher can also offer pedagogically to their student. In other words, only the teacher can offer a body of knowledge in this exclusively pedagogical sense. By the same reasoning, the syllabus can only be offered from the personhood of the teacher. In this sense, the syllabus becomes an inverted pedagogical incarnation: the flesh becomes word and the body becomes a body of knowledge. Strictly speaking, these bodies of knowledge are not purely internal possessions and could also appear as objects external to the subject. These external objects would be the objects of knowledge, included within a body of knowledge, that can be grasped before and long after the possession of knowledge is considered and even after the subject they are external to has gone away. These are the routine objects every teacher and student is familiar with: texts and media, tools and instruments for the use of these texts and media and even for the creation of other forms of text and media. From this unquestionably pedagogical offering, which every teacher must offer in addition to their ultimate existential offering, we find the “textbook” and the “syllabus.” These are not simple objects and we might consider the complexity and even controversy of their canonicity and the necessary and unnecessary exclusions that emerge. While these are certainly legitimate concerns, I would place them within the epistemological domain that emerges from this more ontological stage of analysis. There are also many other pedagogical offerings we can think of and these two I have named go by many other names, but in this chapter I will consider only one aspect of one of them: the syllabus.

 An Existential Dimension of the Syllabus in the Life of a Teacher 211 This aspect of the syllabus, as we have seen, is not the existential dimension of the syllabus in the life of the teacher as such. Instead, this aspect has emerged from that existential dimension and arrives now as the body of knowledge the teacher uniquely curates and creates, guards, holds, and offers to their student. This offering is no longer simply from the teacher, it is also for the student. Until this point, this aspect has remained hidden and the title has served as a crucial delay to excavate around it. Now, the title is little more than a false positive. In the space that remains, then, let us begin a new line anew. This new line will shift away from the “fromness” of the syllabus in its existential dimension (i.e., the sense that the teacher is in a real way the student’s ultimate syllabus and text and body of knowledge and that every object the teacher offers, including a syllabus or lesson, emerges from this fundamental “fromness”). This shift from “fromness” will be, in the positive direction, toward the “forness” we encounter in its pedagogical dimension. It is precisely this “forness” of the syllabus that will be considered. Unlike the “fromness” that preceded it, and can therefore be accounted for to some extent, this “forness” presently stands at the threshold of the existential dimension of the syllabus in the life of the teacher and the pedagogical offering that transforms the “from” into a “for.” *  *  * At this point, the titular expression “an existential dimension of the syllabus in the life of a teacher” should be exhausted but also somewhat clarified. The syllabus that emerges from that clarification begins in the very personhood of the teacher and, more specifically, in their body of knowledge, extending within and across the physical into others forms of embodied life including pedagogical objects. In this sense, the syllabus is what we bring to offer, and this offering is not always something the teacher intends as a willful act. In many cases, what the teacher offers from their personhood is beyond or beneath the scope of their will or even their intellect. What this implies is that there is never a truly standardized syllabus if we allow for the existential dimension to circumscribe the full scope of the phenomenon. But the fact that the syllabus is reducible to these elementary existential conditions and operations does not satisfy the pedagogical dimension that distinguishes a teacher from not only their student but also from any other teaching object or person who’s teaching is happenstance and accidental. This is one way we might distinguish teaching and study—that is, being a teacher and student—from generic learning. We might be tempted to allow anything and everything to become a teacher and forever blur the line between teacher and student, subject and object, and other-well known divisions. This may be a plausible project philosophically speaking—a project that would seem to ultimately end in theology—but it would not be conceivable as a pedagogical project. After all, the demands of pedagogy are clear to anyone who feels their call. So, in this sense, the teacher must do more than account for the syllabus in the existential dimension of their life and must look at more than what the syllabus is in terms of where it comes from and begin to take seriously who it is for. This reintroduces the distinction between “fromness” and “forness” that I outlined earlier, and now we should fully rephrase our question from “What is the syllabus?” to “Who is the syllabus for?”

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Rephrasing our question from “what” to “who” does not lose the initial aim of the inquiry. It is simply the phrasing that best accompanies the move from “fromness” to “forness.” The “who” is the true aim of the aspect of “forness” we find in the syllabus. It may seem that this redirection should find its way to the student and, in many ways, it is the student whom the syllabus is for. But there is a need for caution here. After all, the “from” and the “for” are parts of a single whole; they are not divided or mutually exclusive; the from remains in the for. The lover says to her beloved, “I offer this from my heart but, most of all, I offer it for you.” I would also suggest, then, that the syllabus is equally for the teacher as it is for the student insofar as it enables the teacher to be for the student in a specifically pedagogical way. Both of these persons, the student and the teacher, are who the syllabus is for. This is not to say that the syllabus is for everyone. The strict parameters of the teacher and student relation confine the syllabus so that anyone else to whom the syllabus, like the teacher, might offer toward is a happy accident in both senses of those terms. When teaching and study occurs outside of the teacher-student relation, this is not counterfactual evidence against that relation; it is a felicitous yet still accidental to the substance of that relation. It retains the “from,” but not the “for.” Above all, the syllabus is not only not for everyone but also, and much more strongly, not for the institutional “everyone” that often prescribe the syllabus as a contract or covenant or brochure of some kind to the teacher. We are likely familiar with this faceless “everyone”: the university, the school, the corporation, the institution. These entities are not teachers and have no place in this analysis. For that reason, they should be understood as outside of the “from” and the “for” of the syllabus. To be clear, my understanding of the syllabus emerges from the existential dimension we find in the life of the teacher. It extends into the pedagogical relation between teacher and student, and thus moves “from” the teacher to “being for” the student. In that sense, my understanding of the syllabus is similar to the crucial distinction we find between what is moral and what is legal. One might hope that the law is just and good, but one is permitted to think of justice and goodness without conflating them with legality or civility. In the same way, I hope it is not controversial to suggest that anyone who confuses the syllabus, from its existential to its pedagogical manifestation, with the policies and procedures of an institution has at the very least committed a serious category mistake. Returning to the analogy between legality and morality again, the moralist cannot be justly accused of being anarchic before the law. Only the law that disobeys what is moral can be justly accused of disorder. In the same sense, the syllabus as it manifests itself within the pedagogical relation is not anarchically anti-institutional. It would be better understood as both pre- and post-institutional—it predates and will post date these “everyone” institutions—in the very same way that the teacher and the student are not ontogenetically confined to any given institution. For these reasons, I stake my claim that the syllabus is for the teacher and the student but not for everyone in general—which would deny the specific personhood of each teacher and student—nor for the incorporated “everyone” we find in the corporation (this is precisely what it means to be incorporated) or the institution, including the university and the public school. We have now arrived at a sense of the syllabus I can trace in terms that are not only charted philosophically but might now finally take the risk of sharing a more direct

 An Existential Dimension of the Syllabus in the Life of a Teacher 213 sense of pedagogy. In my teaching, I broadly compose three senses of a syllabus. The first is “syllabus as outline,” the second is “syllabus as essay,” and the third is “syllabus as correspondence.” For the past five years, I have regularly taught a one-credit course in my university’s teacher education program. The course is titled Education, Knowledge, and Curriculum and is intended to cover ideas in philosophy of education and curriculum theory. The course meets once per week for six weeks and for two hours in each class session. For the purpose of teaching this course for teacher candidates, I have found that the third sense of the syllabus—“syllabus as correspondence”—best captures the uniqueness of teaching future teachers about teaching. By “correspondence” I broadly refer to the art of writing a letter to someone. One might find this a bit odd since it is not usually the case that a student would send me a letter in return, but I am not deterred by this. There is also a sense of the “pastoral letter” which has long religious history but also retains its folk relation to shepherds and sheep and song. This folk relation is fundamentally pedagogical in its gathering and aspects. We can also find religious pastoral language within the domain of a teacher certification where this class occurs: the provincial authority that governs the profession of teaching is labeled the “Ministry of Education.” In the Christian tradition, I draw inspiration from the gentle letters of Paul to Timothy written in the first century CE and the rather crazed yet inspiring letters of Ignatius of Antioch to the Romans written in the second century CE. In these letters, the writer often offers counsel, and above all, they offer encouragement. When I teach future teachers, I find that they seek and may even desire this sort of courage in words of encouragement of a letter. So I try to compose a syllabus in that voice and style. In some versions, I have written the whole document in this mode of address; in other cases, I mix the outline approach to cover the details and then append a warm signed letter. This is often met with puzzlement just as much as I am sure it is ignored, but I do it all the same for these reasons. Another more recent and secular example of this approach to the syllabus can be found in Rainer Maria Rilke’s (1875–1926) lovely book, Letters to a Young Poet (1954). I read these letters as every bit as pastoral as the previous ones. Rilke replies to letters from a young poet where he is asked questions about how to become an artist and what that becoming entails. They are letters about art and life and love and, above all, the love of letters. I sometimes feel that this love of letters has become too rare in my classes or even in my university, but it is hardly worth trying to assign blame to anyone. In this vein of things, I often hear complaints that students do not read their syllabus, but I am not sure that they are accustomed to being offered a syllabus that has been written with the same attention that the teacher expects. I doubt that a car company gets upset that no one reads their car manual thoroughly. When so many approach a syllabus as a manual or set of instructions, I do not think we ought to burden students with literary demands. “A syllabus that is written to be read,” I say to myself, “will be read.” And, regardless, my syllabi are not infrequently ignored and when they are mentioned many times they are criticized as being too bizarre or odd or untraditional. In these moments of despair and cynicism, I am reminded that I have chosen to compose a syllabus as a pastoral letter in some part because of a love of letters instilled in me by my teachers that offered these bodies of knowledge to me as a student. I am not sure that I read every syllabus or that I even read every book assigned on them, but I did, somehow,

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come to accept some of what was offered to me and from that acceptance I write for my students who desire to become teachers in this way. Whether the syllabus is written as a letter, an essay, or an outline, or anything else we might think of, I think the full conversion of the from to the for is contained in the offering of teaching that, in the syllabus, is expressed through a form of writing that is not only from the teacher to the student but, more radically, for the student and, in that conversion, for the teacher as well. For the student, the offering is optional but always present should they choose to accept it. For the teacher, the offering often returns as a question that takes the existential “Who am I?” and converts it into the pedagogical “Who am I for?” I do not feel instrumentalized by this question when it returns from my own pedagogical offering. Instead I realize that the question is also a reminder that I cannot be a who if I am not first and foremost for a who. As a teacher, I cannot be without being for. In this pedagogical realization, we find the enigma of the pastoral letter and the syllabus as correspondence: the teacher who encourages the student also seeks their own consolation. The teacher who teaches the young teacher about teaching yearns to know what teaching is, who they are, and who they are for; the poet who writes to the young poet is madly in search of a poetic life. As Rainer Maria Rilke (1954) wrote in his Letters to a Young Poet, “Do not believe that he who seeks to comfort you lives untroubled among the simple and quiet words that sometimes do you good. His life has much difficulty and sadness and remains far behind yours. Were it otherwise he would never have been able to find those words” (p. 72). In the same way, dear reader, do not think that the thoughts and attempts in this chapter stem from best practices or model behavior. What to make of it is best left to your intelligence and judgment. I pray to have offered some slight gestures in a general direction that may, someday, do you some good.

Reference Rilke, R. M. (1954). Letters to a young poet (M.D. Herter Norton, Trans.). New York: Norton (Original work published 1904).

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The Tension of “Othering” in Writing Course Syllabi in Saudi Arabia Amani Hamdan

Introduction Progressive education, which includes giving students the ability to think outside of generally accepted norms, is a vehicle for change and empowerment in any society; Saudi Arabia is no exception. This chapter shares my personal narrative as a Saudi university professor who has been pushing well-established administrative and pedagogical boundaries for the benefit of student empowerment. I am a graduate of a Saudi Arabian university (B.Sc. in physics, with a one-year postgraduate training in physics in Canada) as well as of two Canadian universities (Master of Arts and PhD, both in education). These experiences have made me aware and fully conscious of my hopes and dreams to bring some of the aspects of the Canadian system—in which students are self-learners—to Saudi Arabia’s didactic system of education, in order to empower Saudi students with greater ability to think independently. The former system is arguably much more diverse and open to differences, in particular by allowing and supporting students to think outside of accepted norms and act outside of many of the constraints that are widely accepted in society—and to do so without incurring any threat to their personal and academic freedom. Upon my return to Saudi Arabia to teach at the university level, I wanted to reflect on the lessons that I had learned and personal insights I had gained from my lived experiences abroad, some of which were shaped as a student and instructor in Canada and as a Muslim woman living in the West. I then wanted to implement those lessons and insights in my Saudi classes, as appropriate. In this chapter, I examine some of the challenges associated with writing course syllabi for a social sciences class that I teach to female students at a Saudi Arabian university. This experience could resonate with other third-space professors who live and work in more than one culture. The syllabi normally contain readings and references assigned by the instructor (e.g., articles, books, chapters, conference papers). I have employed various contextual modes and teaching approaches to encourage classroom discussion about these readings/references. These approaches have typically involved methods that differ from those specified in “top-down” course syllabi, in which

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knowledge is transferred from professor to students through reading from textbooks in a lecture-style setting. I have often found that the use of up-to-date (often lengthy) readings—sometimes including English references in their original form or translated into Arabic—sharpens students’ critical thinking (i.e., their ability to argue, discuss, analyze, and synthesize) about both the world and the ways in which educational theories evolve. The references I choose usually to offer multiple applications to the issues at hand—not necessarily answering questions, but in many cases raising new questions for consideration. In this endeavor, I have found that the majority of Arabic references and resources chosen by others for syllabi are neither critical nor oriented to encourage encounters with a wide range of arguments. For instance, when the reading at hand tackles issues that are relevant to Kuhn paradigm shift theory, it is possible to present multiple English references that provide students with multiple lenses through which to view the many shades of Kuhn paradigm shift theory. In contrast, the use of only Arabic references usually presents a limitation to students’ learning while students can also be exposed to references that are written in English. While no reference is neutral including English references, presenting a variety of perspectives on a topic is much more applicable to higher education than presenting a sole text that offers single perspective that might be familiar to students, or one that is mainly full of technical terms. As another example, readings that tackle gender equality issues are vital in order to ensure that Saudi female students are not isolated from perspectives to which graduate students in other cultures are exposed to. I incorporate these readings into my teaching by prescribing documents that are relevant to gender issues in Saudi Arabia, some in the form of theses and dissertations produced by Saudi graduate students enrolled in Western universities. I have found that this approach helps students to personally relate to both the readings and the analyses contained within. More generally, this approach exposes Saudi students to novel perspectives that differ substantially from those to which they are typically exposed. Broadly speaking, the Arabic references usually included in Saudi course syllabi are written by non-Saudi authors, thus creating a risk of a lack of relevance to the Saudi context. On the other hand, certain valuable, critical literary resources written by Saudi authors could be incorporated into syllabi in order to add value to the course content. Commonly included Arabic references are repetitive and obsolete in terms of their content and analysis, while others are uncritical at a time when it is especially important for educators to foster the development of free and open-minded thinking. These deficiencies strongly suggest that these sources are not making meaningful contributions to critical thinking and thus are unlikely to change the status quo. I often use references in which students have opportunities to see how they can become more active participants in owning their learning within the Saudi context and as global citizens. In this endeavor, I seek to show female students that there are many similarities between their experiences and those of women in other parts of the world, in particular through various key texts such as bell hooks’s (1997) Teaching to Transgress, Maxine Greene’s (1973) Teacher as Stranger, and Deborah Britzman’s (2003) Practice Makes Practice.

 The Tension of “Othering” in Writing Course Syllabi in Saudi Arabia 217 The use of these references as materials to support my courses has elicited critical responses from my students as much as it has prompted some colleagues to challenge the “sacredness” of the course syllabi. In addition to the “public invisibility” of my course syllabi, based on my decision to avoid sharing them online, I teach all of these courses alone, as the concept of teaching assistants (TAs) does not exist in Saudi Arabia in the same sense as in North America. In Saudi Arabia, no TAs are assigned to professors. Rather, the role of TA is the final step leading to an appointment as an assistant professor. While TAs teach classes that have laboratories, they do not support professors, especially in the humanities and social sciences. Here, I use the phrase “public invisibility” because I choose not to share my course syllabi on any Learning Management System (LMS) medium—an approach that helps to minimize conflict. That being said, I do share each applicable course syllabus with my students and discuss every aspect of it at the start of the term. My female students have been engaged—and even enthralled—with my approach, and comment about these courses on social media. This feedback, combined with the fact that these courses are closely related to those that are same as one taught to male students, confirms that my teaching style crosses boundaries and overcomes the status quo in teaching. For example, by giving female students the space to discuss their points, argue their perspectives, and present their own examples, instead of attending a lecture in which they only listen and take notes, I give them the opportunity to learn in a way that is more similar to Western courses than to didactic teaching. My course syllabi contrast with traditional syllabi that present and reproduce topics that have already been covered at length during students’ undergraduate degree. I particularly call attention to new ideas. Some of the challenges I have encountered when adding, modifying, or changing textbooks and course readings for my courses have revolved around (a) teaching and learning as acts of crossing the threshold from the known to the unknown for students who are largely inexperienced with the practice of critical thinking; (b) the relevance of selected aspects of the Western narrative to Saudi students, such as the history of both feminism (including the history of movements to extend voting rights to women) and racial segregation/desegregation of American schools; and (c) the relevance of postmodernism to a traditional audience. Although the work of some feminists is of great relevance to the Saudi context and Saudi female students, including that of bell hooks, in this chapter, I discuss the ways in which I have tackled these issues while responding to the sensitive nature of conservative Saudi classrooms, a state of affairs that is exemplified by restrictions on presenting ideas that contradict entrenched social values such as women’s supposed inability to lead and make independent decisions. One of these sensitive issues is male supremacy—a problem whose existence many people attempt to deny or minimize, especially in the workplace. These social norms are at variance with key elements of Islam, both as it existed historically and as it continues to exist within its core holy texts. For example, the Quran brings to light and values a substantial number of prominent women including Mary (the mother of Jesus) who, as one of the most honored figures, is repeatedly mentioned to the extent that she is the only woman to whom a significant chapter of

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the Quran is dedicated; she is presented as outspoken, honest, and righteous and, of course, as having fulfilled a prominent role in Jesus’ narrative. Another woman with a prominent role as a religious figure is Aisha (the wife of the Prophet Mohammed, Peace Be Upon Him), who narrated most of his sayings, which Muslims continue to read and teach; these are contained in the Sunna, which is the compilation of the Prophet’s sayings and actions as well as the record of his daily life. Asmaa is yet another prominent young Muslim woman, who risked her life as an eighteen-year-old to carry food on her nitaq (waist belt) to her father Abu Bakr (who would later become the first Caliph) and the Prophet, PBUH, while they were discreetly migrating to Medina in one of the most important parts of the Islamic narrative. Rufaida Al-Aslamia is yet another Arab-Muslim woman who made a significant contribution to her community. She was the first nurse in Islam and built a hospital for war-wounded men near the Prophet’s, PBUH, mosque in Medina. It is also important to acknowledge that Arab women sometimes led tribes during the pre-Islamic era. The aforementioned examples underline the fact that the exposure of Saudi women to Western examples of feminists and feminism does not diminish the credibility of Islamic women in leadership roles. No theory of feminism is being taught explicitly in Saudi Arabia to date and there is many anti-feminist theorists emerging. For instance, speaking of women’s rights from an Islamic perspective would be associated with Westernized vision. This said, Islamic feminism is not different from what is known to be Westernized views of basic women’s rights, which fully acknowledges some differences among Islamic feminist scholarship in the past forty years. The word “feminism” and the theory have recently carried a negative connation in Saudi Arabia, as a result of several female activists calling to overthrow male guardianship. Despite these concerns, I do not view the theories as downplaying the sacredness of Islam. Indeed, an emphasis on Arab and Muslim as well as Western precedents can help to challenge entrenched aspects of Saudi society, including the view that women in academia should be obedient and submissive and never criticize the status quo while teaching, researching, or presenting arguments in written form or meetings. I feel strongly that the widespread belief that women should remain silent must be openly discussed and discredited. This belief—including the notion that women should defer to male authority in the academic world—has no basis in Islam or in ethical reasoning. Notwithstanding Saudi Arabia’s deeply entrenched traditions and beliefs related to the role of women and gender relations, the Saudi government has implemented significant policies in recent years that are beneficial for women’s status. A notable measure was the appointment of thirty women to the Shura Council (the formal council or assembly that advises the king and his cabinet); these members include physician Khawla Al Kuraya, scientist Salwa Alhazza, and social activist Thuraya Obaid. Other notable measures include the recent authorization of women to both vote and drive. In addition, the ban on female travel without a male guardian was lifted in late 2019. These changes suggest that the tide might be turning in favor of Saudi women. These reforms also suggest that the efforts of female professors to promote gender equality are likely to bear even greater fruit in the future. Comparing the concept of Saudi feminism to Western feminism could be highlighted by the fact that Islamic feminists

 The Tension of “Othering” in Writing Course Syllabi in Saudi Arabia 219 consider the value of Islamic teaching, in which men and women don’t compete but complete one another (i.e., Leila Ahmed). A specific example of something that I have done with Saudi female students in relation to feminist and gender equality issues is to highlight the fact that some students associate knowledge and authority with male professors while overlooking the value of female educators. A recent study found that Saudi female students have a greater tendency to register for classes taught by men, despite the fact that this registration requires them to sit in partitioned rooms or be instructed via closed-circuit television (CCTV) in order to minimize direct interaction between them and the male professor. Female students in Saudi Arabia were also found to associate greater knowledge and higher academic status with male professors (Reda & Hamdan, 2015). Although the perception that men are the primary producers and repositories of knowledge can be found in the West, I have found this view to be much more prevalent and much more deeply entrenched in the Middle East, not in any scared source of Islam. Some theorists claim that the basis of this lies in Islam and its teaching; however, I argue that the basis lies instead in certain sexist traditions and cultural values that give men full authority over women in any given situation. As a sidebar to this, I also facilitate role-playing the “what if ” question, which is often raised in some of the sources and references that I use. By “what if,” I refer to alternative scenarios to those that students live and experience in a system that teaches them to both accept particular forms of unquestionable knowledge and avoid any argument or dialogue that could lead to disagreements. For instance, I might ask students: What would be the priority for women in higher education? What would you do if you were given the ability to change two things in higher education? (Here, it is worth mentioning that in very recent years, many changes have taken place in favor of women. Women have entered scientific councils in many Saudi universities; furthermore, after universities sought national and international accreditations, women have become deans and department heads and thus oversee both men and women and are able to attend university council meetings.) This approach can be used to encourage students to rethink their own role when they interact with their professors, as well as the role of textbooks and course materials when they interact with these documents.

Theoretical and Pedagogical Underpinnings University instructors are expected to be agents of change (Price & Valli, 2005). Critical pedagogy and educational theory as informed by Freire (1994, 1998a, 1998b, 2005), Kincheloe and McLaren (2005) and hooks (1997; 2003), as well as relational theory articulated by Llewelyn (2009), highlight social, cultural, political, economic, and cognitive dynamics of teaching and learning. The emphasis on the impact of power relationships on the educational process is a sensitive issue in Saudi Arabia. According to Al-Eissa (2009, 2010), Saudi Arabian teachers still use a very traditional teaching methodology. Students are seen as receptacles for information imparted by teachers and are not encouraged to think beyond the confines of what is presented (Freire, 2005).

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Therefore, students seldom think reflectively, use components of critical thinking such as analysis and synthesis, or make connections between ideas and topics. Their ideas are often superficial, and they struggle to present and defend them (Alkhrmani, 2007; Al-Saati, 2017; Alsalem, 2015). Based on my experience, the use of updated Arabic references—and sometimes English references in their original form or translated into Arabic—has sharpened students’ critical thinking in terms of examining the world and the ways in which educational theories and methods evolve. The main reason for this phenomenon is that these academic references provide different and novel perspectives relative to those to which the students are usually exposed and subjected.

Setting the Stage: “Contradictory” to the Status Quo Teaching Philosophy Urging all of us to open our minds and hearts so that we can know beyond the boundaries of what is acceptable, so that we can think and rethink, so that we can create new visions, I celebrate teaching that enables transgressions—a movement against and beyond boundaries. It is that movement which makes education the practice of freedom. (hooks, 1997, p. 12)

As an advocate of bell hooks’s (1997) vision of teaching to transgress, I support the view that students should be encouraged to transcend frontiers of race, class, and gender in order to partake of the gift of freedom. I ask myself how I can teach both to promote freedom among my Saudi Arabian students and to ensure that they are better able to transgress boundaries that delimit their thoughts and actions in Saudi Arabian society. To transgress boundaries, one must move outside of one’s comfort zone. One must question what is being taken for granted regarding who one is and where one is situated in the world. This is not an easy task due to the discomfort that may be triggered by questioning oneself and one’s beliefs. Yet it is this self-interrogation that is a major contributor to the strength that I use in supporting my students—to help them to improve their ability to transgress boundaries, think critically about the status quo, and challenge it. All students deserve the opportunity to search for meaning in the world in which they live and to do so in a fulfilling way. I believe that my approach is yielding substantial results. For example, one of the students in my postgraduate class indicated in her reflection journal that as a result of our open class discussion and, in particular, our examination of issues from multiple perspectives, she has started to think differently, accept unfamiliar ideas, exchange thoughts, and avoid judgmental perspectives. I also aim to teach students essential principles of social justice and tolerance. One of the major activities that we pursue in postgraduate courses is community service on behalf of schools in need. Like bell hooks, I emphasize a wholistic approach to teaching whereby students are encouraged to develop in mind, body, and spirit, and in which it is the teacher’s responsibility to care for all three of these dimensions.

 The Tension of “Othering” in Writing Course Syllabi in Saudi Arabia 221 Because many students are accustomed to memorizing books and then emptying their mind during exams—along the lines of Freire’s (2005) “banking system of education”—I invest considerable time into challenging the ways in which they perceive their classes. I try to move their thoughts out of their comfort zone and into the learning zone—transgressing the realm of fear and steering the class discussion into the realm of growth. Although many students come to class expecting to be spoon-fed, I try to lead them to reflect carefully and critically about both their readings and the relationship between their readings and their prior experiences. Some students come to postgraduate classes under the impression that they will be able to memorize for the test while avoiding writing any essays, and then move on to a higher level. Other students come to class expecting to be provided solutions to every problem and answers to every question. However, after a few weeks in my classes, these same students start to realize that my classes are different. They begin to adjust to new teaching and learning experiences, and to the process of learning to think independently. In their feedback on the program-evaluation form, some students assert that only in my classes did they feel that they were actually in graduate school. In order to stimulate independent and critical thinking and create opportunities for discussion and analysis, I expose my students to a diverse array of learning activities. These activities include wide-ranging reading assignments, formal and informal writing assignments, internet searches, oral histories, and social-action projects. I strive to both optimize student engagement in the course and support the learning that takes place outside the classroom. I also encourage students to examine and think about gender equality issues in their personal lives and in Saudi society. An example of such an issue is the recent lifting of the ban on Saudi women driving. Another topic that I raise in my classes is women in leadership roles. After all, recent research has found that the teaching of soft skills, including leadership skills, is not a matter of choice but instead should be treated as a key element of all faculty members’ range of responsibilities. In order to respond effectively to twentyfirst-century challenges in the workplace and global community, faculty should pay close attention to these skills and try to integrate them into all academic programs (Alghamdi & Ahmed, 2018; Alghamdi & Al-Hattami, 2017; Alghamdi, Al-Hattami, & Alexander, 2015). In addition, I ask each student to maintain a learning log to which I can have access (akin to a learning contract). This log provides an opportunity for students to select their own learning projects and determine their own deadlines. These processes generate insights into how students think through and analyze issues in the readings. Rather than limiting the log to class readings, I encourage students to discuss any issues that they find intriguing that are raised in television programs, newspaper articles, or any other medium. I also actively encourage dialogue with students through an open-door policy. Female Saudi graduate students find it difficult to communicate with their male professors because the teaching takes place through glass walls, CCTV, and/or Cisco communication systems (Al Lily, 2011; Elhussein, Düstegr, Nagy, & Alghamdi, 2018). I welcome students during office hours and by appointment and also communicate with them via email. In addition, I provide comprehensive information about course assignments, study guides, and grading rubrics in order to support student learning.

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In Canada, for instance, in order to present the topic of exceptionality in the classroom, including how to be thoughtful and accommodating toward students with special needs, I invited Canadian dancer and painter Simona Atzori to speak with my class. Simona was born without arms and uses her feet to draw, write, and perform almost all of her daily activities. She talked about both her experiences in the classroom and how her teachers made a positive difference in her life. It was a fascinating class, and the students’ feedback was outstanding. However, in Saudi Arabia, this scenario would be unlikely to happen because there must be a clear pedagogical connection between the invited guest and the course content, regardless of the positive impact that the potential guest’s background and life experiences might have on students’ worldviews. To continue, when students participate in community service activities at schools that are lacking in resources, they experience great advantages in terms of their personal and professional growth. These schools appreciate the help provided by the students through the delivery of workshops, preparation of science laboratories, and provision of activities to young students. This feedback has helped me to develop as a teacher and scholar. Although the university administration initially disapproved of the changes that I had made toward infusing more critical thinking, reflection, and international reading into my classes, the comments from both students and the community have given me extra encouragement (and courage) to carry on, to stimulate even more critical thinking and to create even more space for discussion, critique, and analysis. Another challenge that I could not easily overcome was the hierarchical structure within the university. This required me to obtain approval from the administration for any and every move related to such things as the implementation of community service, the addition of class readings, the launch of an open-book final exam, and changes to grading schemes.

From “Sage on the Stage” to “Guide on the Side” In the Saudi context, course syllabi are not a locus of freedom or creativity on the part of the professor because they are written and distributed to professors who are assigned courses in a top-down manner. As a result, professors have very little freedom to assign readings about particular concepts to students in undergraduate or postgraduate courses. The syllabi also include specific grading schemes and methods of assessment. All course syllabi are of nine to twelve pages of instruction and include the course objectives, topics to be covered, textbooks, and other required and recommended readings. Along with the other restrictions, this leaves at most only very limited scope for professors to add different assessment methods, which in turn limits a professor’s ability to teach or think “outside the box.” One of the principle aims of this administrative approach is to ensure that the same course content is delivered to all students in all classes, regardless of the students’ level of aptitude or interest in the course. This approach is consistent with the recent focus of the Saudi higher education system on domestic and international official

 The Tension of “Othering” in Writing Course Syllabi in Saudi Arabia 223 rankings, as well as on achieving higher placements in Webometrics and other ranking systems. Despite the apparent attractiveness of the ideal of ensuring the same learning outcomes for all students, I argue that a “one-size-fits-all” mentality will not promote excellence, but will instead lead to mediocrity, including failures to explore students’ and professors’ full potential. The current policy actually tends to forestall the possibility of teaching “outside the box” and thus confines any hope of transgressing to excellence to a dream nurtured by a small number of professors and students. If excellence is the aim of universities, then the creation of a less tightly regulated and more competitive operating context will prepare students to acquire twenty-first-century skills. These skills cannot be taught through the textbooks that are currently selected and mandated at the national level. The focus instead should be on interaction, collaboration, and active learning— learning activities that are not possible unless students actually live these experiences and unless these activities and experiences are reflected and properly built into course syllabi. While teaching graduate and undergraduate courses, I have always included international ideas and perspectives that are traditionally avoided in Saudi Arabia’s official course syllabi. Whenever possible, I create a course syllabus that incorporates readings and other materials that challenge students’ thinking and perceptions about the world around them. As previously mentioned, these readings include texts by hooks, Freire, and Greene, among several others—texts that are critical for rising to higher-order thinking levels. For instance, we read about ethical reasoning, which is a subject few Saudi students have been exposed to outside the scope of the ethical and moral content of the Quran and Sunna. Moreover, the didactic method of instruction traditionally employed throughout Saudi students’ schooling (and indoctrination) may have stunted their ability to think critically and form independent thoughts, which is a necessary condition for effective ethical reasoning. As explained by hooks (1997): There are times when personal experience keeps us from reaching the mountain top and so we let go of our goal because the weight is too heavy. And sometimes the mountain top is difficult to reach with all our resources, factual and confessional, so we are just there, collectively grasping, feeling the limitations of knowledge, longing together, yearning for a way to reach that highest point. Even this yearning is a way to know. (p. 44)

I keep her perspective in mind to help me overcome some interesting and challenging feelings of loneliness and discomfort as I pursue my pedagogical and personal objectives. I continue to strive as a professor who is not in favor of indoctrination but instead seeks to extend the boundaries of my students’ thinking beyond what is contained in the prescribed readings, to reach into the realm of reflecting critically and making sense of and connections between their readings and context. When I taught in Canada and the United States, I was given the latitude to choose the readings that would be discussed in the classroom. I added many readings and

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articles that I considered to be relevant to the discussion. For example, in teaching a multicultural education class in Canada, I selected newspaper articles that reflected the ways in which the media tackled issues related to the schooling of child immigrants. The in-class discussion was very open and many different narratives were presented in relation to the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including the ways in which schools and some educational practices exacerbated the “othering” of Arab and Muslim students (i.e., the schooling of child immigrants). On the other hand, when teaching postgraduate courses in Saudi Arabia, I have had to adhere to the prescribed course outline, textbooks, and reference books, all of which are determined at a higher level. Although I create my own list of readings for each course syllabus, I still have to adhere to the assigned readings; whenever possible, I try to gloss over the latter and focus instead on fostering in-class discussions about the major contextual issues portrayed in the other readings. In Saudi Arabia, course syllabi are not only formulated and handed down to professors in a hierarchical manner but also must be approved by various committees before implementation. This process is always centralized, minimizing the voice of individual professors. I believe that if the textbooks and reference books are not up to date and do not tackle issues of importance in today’s world, then a great limitation is imposed on students’ thinking. However, in Saudi Arabia, the course syllabi submitted by higher committees and approved by each institution’s curriculum committee typically include textbooks and course materials that are at least three to five years old. Moreover, the content of Saudi syllabi and books typically does not include any information whatsoever about feminist and gender equality issues. This omission makes it especially important to provide students with readings and articles about these issues and to discuss and analyze them in class—an approach that I have employed with my Saudi female students. Although this kind of material is easily found in the educational literature pertaining to most of the world’s regions, major countries and major cultures (e.g., Confucian, South Asian, Western European, North American), it is almost completely absent in the case of Saudi Arabia. Preservice teachers and postgraduate students in education are exactly the kinds of thinkers, theorists, and professionals who need to be up to date about current bodies of knowledge—a requirement that cannot be satisfied if we are restricted to using outdated materials and textbooks. In the courses that I delivered to students in Canada and the United States, progressive professors expected me to include readings and other materials about feminists and gender equality matters, as these are embraced and supported in many (if not most) Western countries. This inclusion does not necessarily mean agreement with every viewpoint; however, it does mean that students are exposed to multiple perspectives that in turn can enrich their own perspectives. I have consistently sought to trigger discussions that are relevant to students’ experiences and, like hooks, I have tried to create a classroom community of practice: “As a classroom community, our capacity to generate excitement is deeply affected by our interest in one another, in hearing one another’s voices, in recognizing one another’s presence” (hooks, 1997, p. 8). Constructions of “good education,” “good students,” and “good teachers” in course syllabi, together with the extent to which spaces for alternative bodies of knowledge are made possible or denied, form another major concern. In addition, the rigid grading

 The Tension of “Othering” in Writing Course Syllabi in Saudi Arabia 225 system does not help to create a community of learners but instead creates students who focus on grades and tests ahead of actual learning and the higher ends for which that learning can be used. This focus on dividing and constructing students by grading them strictly is contrary to an approach that fosters diversity in the ways in which students think. Changing these dichotomies and accepting students’ wide-ranging talents and intelligences are what every professor should aim for when teaching. If graduate-level education students are not given the opportunity to respect their own differences, it is unrealistic to ask them to respect their eventual students’ differences. Stereotyping and “molding” students to conform to the formulaic characteristics of the “good student” are not suitable for progressive education because they exemplify a “one-size-fits-all” mentality. My motive for teaching is not to mold students’ thinking. Rather, I strive to teach students to think, question, and analyze everything they read; I emphasize a wholistic approach to teaching whereby students are encouraged to develop their mind, body, and spirit.

My Experience in Writing a Course Syllabus in a Saudi Context: Tension of “Othering” in Writing Course Syllabi The development of progressive course syllabi encourages disagreement and celebrates difference—and treats the classroom as a forum where differences can be revealed, articulated and analyzed. I have sought to foster this kind of creative disagreement within my classes by introducing a large number of lengthy new readings and books that are not listed in the handed-down Saudi syllabi. Examples of these materials include Hosseini’s (2004) The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns (2007); hooks’s (1997) Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom and Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom (2009); Greene’s (1973) Teacher as Stranger and The Dialectic of Freedom (1988); Freire’s (1998a) Teachers as Cultural Workers; Britzman’s (2003) Practice Makes Practice; and Bruner’s (1990) Acts of Meaning, as well as sections of Greene’s (1978) Landscapes of Learning and from Critical Theory and Educational Research. Although most female Saudi students are thrilled to engage with diverse readings and unfamiliar ideas, I have often faced resistance from some colleagues. This has included some amount of “othering” and being characterized as “Westernized” by some of my colleagues—especially for introducing foreign readings to my Saudi students. The knowledge that reading this material has enhanced my students’ ability to read, understand, and critique has been highly beneficial and worthwhile to me. My aim in taking on this pedagogical challenge is to light a candle in order to enlighten students beyond the relatively minimal learning and development that can be obtained from reading what I perceive to be traditional and outdated material. Designing syllabi becomes more intricate and sensitive when embracing interdisciplinarity in a range of subjects and disciplines that require individuals to think and act outside of their scope of intellectual expertise and professional and personal experience. Stepping outside of one’s comfort zone and exploring the kinds of readings that enrich learning experiences certainly becomes more difficult within the

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context of the syllabi that have been prescribed by the higher committees. In my view, the impact of syllabi that have been imposed from above can be seen in many students’ eventual inability to cope with open discussions that are contemporary and relevant to the context. Syllabi should have life; they should be a kind of living organism. To that end, they should leave sufficient space for growth, namely for the regular infusion of new and relevant material (Hussain, 2018). The syllabus is part of the curriculum. If it is part of a progressive curriculum, it should be treated as an organic entity.

Implications for Pedagogical Practices Alnassar and Dow (2013) argue that the responsibility for improving teaching and learning must be shared through a partnership among individual teachers, department heads, college and university leaders, and the national government through its ministry of education. This is why I believe that writing course syllabi that challenge the traditional monolithic way of teaching and learning in the Saudi higher education system is very significant, particularly in order to ensure improvement of both the system and the caliber of its graduates. I argue that such a change in attitude and in the writing of syllabi requires professors to have courage in terms of believing in the transformational power of education and viewing education as an intellectual undertaking rather than as a vehicle for preserving the status quo. Higher education should be a context in which to stimulate students’ thinking in order to move in new and creative directions and disseminate knowledge. Conversation and debate activities should be included in course syllabi in order to prepare students to succeed in an environment that offers opportunities for growth. The professor’s role is to write a syllabus that excites and stimulates students’ minds. This can include inviting guests with extraordinary life experiences in order to incite students to think in new and unfamiliar and creative ways. Universities are not mere diploma factories. Novice professors (or those new to this pedagogical style) will likely need collegial support to move from textbooks and outdated references to ones that convey up-to-date knowledge and provide many opportunities to think deeply and critically. Reading longer academic books, articles, and chapters that are in formats conducive to complex and in-depth learning—as opposed to outdated and overly brief material—is preferable for twenty-first-century students. Progressive course syllabi are crucial for developing problem-based learning, debate, analysis, teamwork, critical thinking, leadership, and reflections that are important in order for education to be fruitful and for students and recent graduates to be able to grapple with complex issues.

Conclusions One of my principle aims has been to deliver high-quality teaching and learning to female university students in Saudi Arabia. This is largely premised on my belief that exposing students to a diverse range of educational theories, theorists, researchers, and

 The Tension of “Othering” in Writing Course Syllabi in Saudi Arabia 227 perspectives will improve their understanding of the world around them and open their minds to even more ideas. My commitment to writing evermore progressive course syllabi—to replace traditional syllabi that have been handed down from above—stems from the sister commitment to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of both my students’ learning and my own teaching. Writing course syllabi in this way enables me to offer students the opportunity to excel through thinking that will prepare them for real education, in contrast to the kind of teaching they are accustomed to receiving. Through my teaching, I try to offer alternative engagements with questions on social issues interdisciplinarity of knowledge. The challenge is teaching from a different perceptive, and writing an extraordinary syllabus, feeling confident that this is supported and welcomed by students and colleagues, and knowing that it is the aim of higher education.

References Al-Eissa, A. (2009). Education reform in Saudi Arabia between the absence of political vision and the perception of religious culture and the inability of educational administration. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Al-Saqi (in Arabic). Al-Eissa, A. (2010). Higher education in Saudi Arabia: The quest for identity. Beirut, Lebanon: Dar Al-Saqi (in Arabic). Alghamdi, A., & Al-Hattami, A. (2017). The efficiency of a leadership program on Saudi students’ perception of leadership skills. Journal of Education and Learning, 12(2), 1–13. http:​//www​.ccse​net.o​rg/jo​urnal​/inde​x.php​/jel/​issue​/view​/1495​ Alghamdi, Hamdan, A., Alexander, N., & Al-Hattami, A. (2015). Saudi female students’ perceptions of leadership: An overview. Advancing Women in Leadership, 36, 36–48. Al Lily, A. E. A. (2011). On line and under veil: Technology-facilitated communication and Saudi female experience within academia. Technology in Society, 33 (1–2), 119–27. Alghamdi, A. K., & Ahmed, E. (2018). Leadership skills of female university students in Saudi Arabia: Possibilities for improvement. Journal of Global Research in Education and Social Science, 11(1), 1–14. Alkhrmani, A. (2007). Common errors in the oral and written expressions of students memorizing in Koran schools, and science students in the Department of Arabic and Islamic high schools (Unpublished master’s thesis). Umm Al-Qura University, Makkah, Saudi Arabia (in Arabic). Alnassar, S. A., & Dow, K. L. (2013). Delivering high-quality teaching and learning for university students in Saudi Arabia. In L. Smith & A. Abouammoh (Eds.), Higher education in Saudi Arabia: Higher education dynamics (pp. 49–60). Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer. Al-Saati, M. Z. (2017). A question of relevance: Teaching with sci-fi and fantasy film in a Saudi university. In E. Janak & L. Sourdot (Eds.), Educating through popular culture: “You’re not cool just because you teach with comics”—Studies in the integration of popular culture in teaching and learning (pp. 127–44). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. Alsalem, A. S. (2015). Using critical theory approaches to improve reflective writing, social consciousness, and social engagement of 10th grade female students in Saudi Arabia: A mixed methods study (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Carbondale, IL.

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Britzman, D. P. (2003). Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Elhussein, M., Düstegr, D., Nagy, N., & Alghamdi, A. (2018). The impact of digital technology on female students’ learning experience in partition-rooms: Conditioned by social context. IEEE Transaction to Education, 61(4), 265–73. Freire, P. (1994). Pedagogy of hope. New York, NY: Continuum. Freire, P. (1998a). Teachers as cultural workers: Letters to those who dare teach. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Freire, P. (1998b). Pedagogy of freedom. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary ed.). New York, NY: Continuum. Greene, M. (1973). Teacher as stranger: Educational philosophy for the modern age. New York, NY: Wadsworth Publishing. Greene, M. (1978). Landscapes of learning and from critical theory and educational research. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Greene, M. (1988). The dialectic of freedom (John Dewey Lecture Series). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. hooks, b. (1997). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York, NY: Routledge. hooks, b. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. New York, NY: Routledge. hooks, b. (2009). Teaching critical thinking: Practical wisdom. New York, NY: Routledge. Hosseini, K. (2004). The kite runner. New York, NY: Riverhead Books. Hosseini, K. (2007). A thousand splendid suns. New York, NY: Riverhead Books. Hussain, I. (2018, April). Early childhood curriculum: That living being. Menhaj Altofola thalek Alkayn Alhai. Paper presented at the Sixth Early Childhood Conference, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (in Arabic). Kincheloe, J. L., & McLaren, P. (2005). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In N. Denezin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research (pp. 303–42). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Llewellyn, J. (2009, November). Restorative justice: Thinking relationally about justice. Paper presented at the National Restorative Justice Symposium, St. John’s, NL. Price, J. N., & Valli, L. (2005). Preservice teachers becoming agents of change: Pedagogical implications for action research. Journal of Teacher Education, 56(1), 57–72. Reda, G., & Hamdan, A. K. (2015). Gender, language, and society: Saudi female university students’ perception of the category of professions. Multidisciplinary Journal of Gender Studies, 4(2), 666–89.

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Mending the (Cartesian) Split Reflections on Offering a Pedagogy of Wellness to Teacher Candidates Stephanie Glick

Introduction My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restrictions of externally imposed definition. (Lorde, 2007, pp. 120–21)

Western higher education frequently pivots from a Cartesian understanding of teaching and learning that ascribes value to the mind while segregating or silencing the contributions of Other knowledges located in the body, senses, nature, and non-dominant cultures. While Descartes himself might have been deeply invested in complex and layered thinking, “Cartesian” knowledge (also referred to as the “Cartesian split” and “Cartesian dualism”) has come to represent limitations in thinking that advance notions of singular “objectivity” (Andreotti, 2016). Specifically, Cartesian knowledge relies on linear logics that have been taken up and reproduced by White male epistemologies that are devoid of the body (hooks, 1994). As I argue in this chapter, the segregation of bodily and Other1 ways of knowing reinforces histories of racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, and other “-isms” that continue in the academy today. I posit that by denying Other ways of knowing, we disconnect from a multitude of intelligences. Among these intelligences is the knowledge located in our bodies which can alert us to our own biases.

“Other” spelled with a capital letter O represents marginalized, nondominant groups that have been socially and politically pathologized and, thus, disregarded in terms of epistemological and other social and political contributions. Some groups include people of Color, people with disabilities, women, and LGBTQ+. “Other” in this context does not assume homogeneous contributions would be made within or between marginalized groups. On the contrary, it is intended to speak to the diversity of knowledges and contributions that are being silenced by dominant forces.

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This chapter is a reflection on my experiences of introducing a student-led wellness activity requirement into courses I taught to teacher candidates in an eleven-month teacher education degree program (TEDP). While I had incorporated wellness exercises in other university courses, the activities were usually impromptu based on student energy levels, and I was often the sole leader with the occasional student volunteer joining me. The wellness exercises I reflect on in this chapter were facilitated in courses that regularly analyzed racism, classism, sexism, misogyny, and other forms of institutional and societal violence as they pertain to education and schooling. However, as Hua (2018) notes, too often “helping students to develop critical tools to identify systemic inequities does not translate to students’ consciousness of their own hegemonic biases” (p. 80). In my courses, special emphasis was placed on how we, as teachers, could consider our own complicities in said systems, how we might prevent perpetuating such injustices, and how we might attempt to make amends when we do perpetuate harm. The candidates worked in pairs or small groups to develop and present their wellness activity to the class. Though on the syllabi I included data on the physical/ mental/emotional benefits of secular based mindfulness meditation practices and provided examples of wellness and mindfulness activities, the term “wellness” was intentionally left as a broad category for candidates to interpret as they saw fit. In addition to syllabi articulations, I also led candidates through various exercises during the first several classes including guided meditation, body movement, a breathing exercise, and, later in the term, a mindful eating exercise. The student body composite of the classes were quite racially, ethnically, and gender diverse. As for my own social location, I identify as an able-bodied, cisgender woman who benefits from white privilege. However, as I address in this chapter, there was a time when my body was physically impaired. This impairment helped me develop a greater awareness about how discourses of “wellness” and “self-care” tend to pivot from nondisabled perspectives. Further, as I address later, disability is often problematically taken up within Western discourses including medical, social, and other models.

Embodiment and the Body Literature on embodiment in the social sciences and humanities tends to offer somewhat vague—if any—descriptions of the term. “Embody” (a verb) and its derivative “embodiment” (a noun) is largely written about from a perspective that assumes that readers already have a general and universal understanding of these terms. Alternatively, Merriam Webster Dictionary offers a finite definition of “embody” (a verb) meaning: 1. to give a body to (a spirit): incarnate 2.a. to deprive of spirituality 2.b. to make concrete and perceptible

 Mending the (Cartesian) Split 231 3. to cause to become a body or part of a body: incorporate 4. to represent in human or animal form: personify men who greatly embodied the idealism of American life—A. M. Schlesinger born 1917 While I am eager to offer a concise definition of embodiment, my research suggests that I must resist. Defining embodiment in absolute terms risks reduction to Cartesian logic that thrives on notions of objective knowledge rather than culturally and temporally specific logics. Embodiment is more subjective than this. I cannot define embodiment any more than the next person. Perhaps this is a sign that the potential of something seemingly as fixed and “universal” as a corporeal, flesh body is in reality too fluid to define. Instead, I can reflect on my uptake of embodiment in relation to my goals for bringing wellness into my classroom. In this sense, embodiment reflects the body’s potential to experience and convert emotions (acknowledged or unacknowledged) into physical symptoms and sensations that carry information. Through this lens, humiliation might be converted into a burning sensation; anxiety into heart palpitations; depression into tears or fatigue; and contentment into a full heart. Similarly, embodied learning regards “the body as a site of learning, usually in connection with other domains of knowing (for example, spiritual, affective, symbolic, cultural, rational)” (Freiler, 2008, p. 39). Pairing embodiment with embodied learning allows the information attached to sensations to be decoded and understood. For example, “a flutter in the chest,” as I address later in the chapter, signals a prejudice in one person’s body. The significance of including the body in teaching and social justice work is to “loosen people up, rather than harden them” (Thompson, 2017, p. 56). When we are hardened, we are separated, delineated, falling upon ideological lines, and not working in collectives to resolve widespread social and educational dilemmas. Normally in teacher education programs emphasis is placed on a Cartesian articulation of “reflexivity” which is largely disembodied. Correspondingly, Thompson (2017) reflects, “The academy ask[s] people to trade in their body parts, anything below the neck, in order to be successful. . . . I realized that I wanted my body parts back—my legs, my arms, my core, my feelings especially” (pp. 56–57). Wellness activities in my classroom involve acts of embodiment wherein the body becomes a potential space for learning.

Why I Introduced Wellness into My Classroom My desire to engage in a healing modality in the field of education came in part from my own frustration of being forcefully disembodied during k-12 education. Sitting face-forward, looking at one person speak and write on a chalkboard for eight hours a day dimmed my desire for schooling though my desire to learn continued to flourish, albeit outside the four walls of the academy. As an academic, though I despised the Cartesian allegiance upheld in the academy, I participated in it. As a first generation, nontraditional college student who pursued advanced degrees, the first thing I did in a master’s program was dedicate almost all of my free time to studying and writing. I did not garden, play an instrument, learn

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to make micro-brews, or take on any of the other hobbies that more confident fellow graduate students did in their free time. I was partly miserable, but I excelled in the program. Once in a PhD program, I hunkered down equally, but with a little more time dedicated to Iyengar yoga. When one day I noticed my eyes skipped along the page of a book or article in a way that was not smooth or linear, I thought I had a learning disability. When I heard my professors and colleagues talk during a lecture but could not make out their words, I thought I was experiencing hearing loss. Years have passed and I better understand that both of these symptoms and other physical ailments were embodied responses to stress. Unfortunately, my realization was not clean and linear. It also took a debilitating injury irresponsibly and accidentally induced by a healthcare practitioner to force me to acknowledge my body’s signals. At various times over the course of fourteen months, I was unable to walk. As such, I practiced the gamut of healing that ranged from Eastern to Western interventions. During this time, I began the secular practice of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). Mindfulness is defined by Kabat-Zinn (1994) as “paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally” (as cited in Ergas & Hadar, 2019, p. 1). Some days I was too far down the pain chain for MBSR to work in changing my perspective on pain. Other days MBSR offered relief, not necessarily of the actual pain, but in my interpretation of pain; sometimes I experienced the sensation that there was more space in my body. More space was a welcome outcome in a body that often felt shrunken, constricted, and completely occupied by pain. This perceived expansion of space also expanded my consciousness so that I noticed other sensations such as the subtle one produced from rubbing circles with my forefinger against the pad of my thumb. This may sound like an insignificant observation to some, but being present to something other than pain was nothing shy of a gift. Surgery offered incredible relief. Though, at first, I thought my physical ailments had been resolved, new symptoms soon emerged. Though the surgeon found the symptoms unique, he released me from all physical restrictions and told me to live normally. Since I had continual pain, I practiced secular MBSR regularly, though admittedly, I had a complicated relationship with the fact that secular versions are disconnected from Buddhist epistemologies. Following my surgery, I was offered an opportunity to teach in the TEDP. Though I was immensely excited to get back into the classroom, I questioned whether I was up to the task physically. I knew that as the term went on, and deadlines mounted, I would be tempted to give up my MBSR practice to meet other demands. However, if I built wellness into the syllabi, I would be dedicated to practice at least twice a week with my students. Further, the requirement was not intended to benefit only me: I knew my students would need coping mechanisms not only in their future classrooms but also to get through this intensive and demanding program.

Why Wellness Is Imperative for Teacher Educators TEDP is known for its intensive pace. Physical burnout of candidates is a common observation of teacher educators. Concepts of candidate wellness in relation to enhancing one’s teaching skills, or in relation to anti-bias training, including the

 Mending the (Cartesian) Split 233 acting out of biases in the form of microaggressions, are not deeply (if even topically) addressed in the program’s various curricula. My goals for integrating a studentled wellness component into my courses were to assist candidates (and myself) in practicing wellness at least twice a week in class, and ideally develop their own personal practice that would help them to: (1) engage in techniques to make greatest use of their health and multimodal learning capabilities beyond the Cartesian split; (2) engage wholistically with their own students, rather than restricting teaching and learning engagements to “neck-up” techniques too often taught within traditional, Western schooling that expects disembodied interactions; and (3) involve their bodies to notice “flutter in the chest” moments that can awaken teacher candidates to their own biases such as to race, gender, disability, social class, and others. (Choudhury, 2015, p. 101). As I address in greater detail later, learning about biases from our bodies can help us respond to them proactively rather than permitting the toxicity of bias to leak out unintentionally, as is sometimes the case with microaggressions. This allows us to engage with students in meaningful ways rather than sub/consciously hurting students as a result of not having done our own work. On a social and cognitive justice level, acknowledging and unlearning our biases is paramount to co-creating more just societies in an increasingly politicized and policed world. Becoming conscious of our biases is also relevant to diminishing unspoken hierarchies in the classroom that predetermine which students speak (typically White/male students) and which students are silent or silenced in the classroom (often people of Color/women/students with visible and invisible disabilities).

Wellness, Disability, and Marginalization Integrating wellness exercises into the classroom should not be restricted to able-bodied exercises. Too often, discourses around wellness are framed from ableist perspectives that assume everyone can walk, dance, and move about in physically equal ways. Further, disability discourses are frequently framed from Western perspectives despite the fact that “disability is not universally understood,” and different cultures have different interpretations of disability (Meekosha, 2011, p. 678). Conceptualizations of disability as written about in contexts of the Global North are limited (Meekosha, 2011; Opini, 2016). For example, as a discipline, disability studies is noted for marginalizing scholars in the field from the Global South by excluding their voices from the literature (Meekosha, 2011). Disability Studies also fails to appropriately include a critique of the West’s responsibility in impairing and disabling people in the Global South (Meekosha, 2011). In the Global South, disability is created through wars and conflicts imposed by, among other things, the Western military industrial complex (Meekosha, 2011)— interestingly, the very model upon which many educational leaders had been trained in the past.2 Shapiro and Gross (2013) note that “educational leaders were trained using military and business models. . . . [they] were taught about the importance of the hierarchy and the need to follow those at the top and, at the same time, be in command and in charge of subordinates” (p. 28). Though rationalized through an ethic of justice which touts “objectivity,” this approach was devoid of other

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Issues of wellness, disability, and marginality are important to address in classrooms particularly because students represent different social and geographical locations and have different life experiences. Students come to the classroom with diverse histories to which most teachers, instructors, and professors are not privy. Addressing issues of wellness, disability, and marginality beyond Western contexts can send a signal to marginalized and centered students that multiple knowledges and vantage points are encouraged in the classroom.3 While much on the intersections of gender, race, class, disability, and others were addressed through specific units as well as small and large group discussions, on a practical level, I was intentional about reminding student wellness leaders that disability is not always visible, and as such, all activities needed to be presented on a spectrum so as to be relevant, appropriate, and engaging to people with varying degrees of dis/ability. Similarly, I voiced and re-voiced to student participants that they have agency over their involvement; no judgments would be rendered against anyone who decided not to participate in the wellness activities. I also articulated that no assumptions would be made about those who decided to quietly observe the activities or leave the classroom altogether (after all, folks need to replenish water bottles, go to the washroom, etc.). Indeed, a small number of students did both.

The Resistance The Institution For me, there is a subversive element to bringing wellness into a higher education institution, and into a TEDP, particularly when it is intended to challenge systems of oppression such as racism, ableism, sexism, classism, and other -isms. In developing my courses, I was told that I could change up to 20 percent of the existing syllabi. In addition to the overrepresentation of literature written by White males on the master syllabi, I also noticed that much or all of the material was disembodied. This is especially problematic in an age when higher education is correlated with significant rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality (Eisenberg, Gollust, Golberstein, & Hefner, 2007). Yet providing my students with readings about how to become embodied would only maintain heady engagements devoid of the body. I added the component of wellness without seeking permission. My resistance was not so much to the program in which I taught (instructors were hardly micromanaged) but to the histories of education that sought to exclude, assimilate, delegitimize, or humiliate anyone or any way of knowing that did not fit into Western, White, heterosexual, male, Christian, middle class, “educated” logics (Archibald, 2008; Belenky, Field, McVicker-Clinchy, ethical paradigms such as an ethic of care, that “require[s] leaders to consider multiple voices in . . . decision-making process[es]” (Shapiro & Gross, 2013, p. 29). An education system developed on the foundations of force, offence, defense, and undiscerning discipline relies on the body but not embodiment. For these reasons and more, it would appear that Cartesian knowledge in isolation of Other epistemologies does not serve the education system, youth, or society. 3 Simultaneously, it is critical that stories about marginalized groups not be limited to trauma and victimization stories.

 Mending the (Cartesian) Split 235 Goldberger, & Tarule, 1986; Opini, 2016; Rich, 1986; Simpson, 2014). As a sessional instructor, with no job security, introducing and embracing the body as a pedagogical tool in a highly ranked university that touts Cartesian logic in its motto was not exactly perceived as a welcomed endeavor.

Legacies of Colonial Thinking During the time of my physical debilitation, I realized that the entities and energies of violence via the legacy of colonization, as well as coloniality,4 racism, sexism, capitalism, and others have thoroughly organized around the masses being stuck in uncomfortable, ailing bodies.5 This investment in our discomfort is churned because we are less likely to organize and resist the institutional structures (that many of us participate in and benefit from) if we are exhausted, in pain, depressed, or overwhelmed. This is not to say that all activism comes out of feeling well, or fully embodied, indeed not. Plenty of activism is taken up by those who experience post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that results in disassociation or disconnection from the body (KhanCullors & Bandele, 2018). To be clear there are times when disconnection from the body is a necessary self-protection such as in cases of grief, trauma, and PTSD brought on by ongoing racism (Khan-Cullors & Bandele, 2018), sexism, (sexual) assault, war/ combat, poverty, and displacement. But for those of us not experiencing PTSD, grief, and other factors that might necessitate disembodiment, it might be worth considering that when we cannot make a connection between a spot of discomfort in our bodies and the element(s) that may have put it (them) into place, we could be out of touch with ourselves, as evidenced in my perceived hearing loss. This disconnection often renders us unable to locate and articulate that which is making us anxious, irritated, frustrated discontented, and weepy. Easiest is then to take that embodied discomfort to the couch, to the bed, to the television, to work, to drinking, to gambling, to eating, to starving, to many other addictions, but too often, not to introspection. When we are numbing this much discomfort, we might not be activating and organizing to resist the violent institutional forces that benefit from our discomfort. In short, on a macrolevel we are not often organizing collectively for greater societal justice and goodness when we are plumb exhausted. Nor are we showing up whole on the micro level of our everyday lives. Yet this disconnection from self has specific implications for educators, as I address here.

Coloniality names a logic that assumes Western European thought is universal (Mignolo, 2011). It operates at the nexus of capitalism, hegemony, and epistemic racism (Andreotti, 2011; Mignolo, 2011). Andreotti (2015) articulates coloniality “as a system that defines the organization and dissemination of epistemic, moral and aesthetic resources in ways that mirror and reproduce modernity’s imperial project” (p. 195). 5 Not least of all, corporations reap profits by offering “solutions” to these discomforts: prescription medications designed to make us feel better; new diet fads; commodification and appropriation of yoga and other spiritual practices while also selling us specific garments so that we can appear as if we are engaged in these activities, even if we are not. 4

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The Paradoxes of Wellness It should be noted that by integrating wellness into my syllabi, I am both defying coloniality’s insistence that we abandon our bodies in the processes of teaching and learning, and I am perpetuating coloniality’s insistence that dominant cultures can appropriate as they wish (in this case, mindfulness from the Buddhist tradition). I am also at risk of perpetuating neoliberal aspects of wellness in the classroom. In a market-driven economy, neoliberalism transfers the responsibilities of care onto the individual so that the institution (read: university) can maintain an edge in a competitive marketplace (Webb, Gulson, & Pitton, 2014). As such, one might argue that by bringing wellness into the classroom, I am enabling neoliberal values that place the burden of self-regulated care on teachers and students rather than holding the institution accountable for its increasing demands on individuals, which leads to burnout. As Reveley (2015) suggests, integrating wellness techniques such as mindfulness-based interventions in educational settings for therapeutic purposes such as “ameliorating teacher burnout” may in fact be “acclimatizing teachers to a [sick] system that is responsible for the conditions that create burn out in the first place” (as cited in Ergas & Hadar, 2019, p. 31). This and other critiques of “self-care” are essential and necessary to making such practices operate beyond a discourse of feeling good. Indeed, as I argue throughout this chapter, notions of wellness ought to be taken up so that we have the energy to contribute to more socially just classrooms, schools, districts, communities, relationships, and beyond. Maintaining violence within ourselves through the mechanisms of addiction and disassociation described earlier does not free us to be whole. As educators, if we are exhausted, disconnected, overwhelmed, overreactive, or a slew of other unchecked energies, we might be chronically disengaged from ourselves, our students, and our colleagues. We might be missing microaggressions in the classroom that could otherwise become tender teachable moments with lifelong impacts. Worse yet, we might be turning away from blatant bias, racism, microaggressions, or bullying in the classroom because we lack the energy to intervene or because our tired brains are not remembering how to practice the de-escalation techniques on which we were trained (Wolpol, Johnson, Hertel, & Kincaid, 2011). As I reflect on the necessity of doing our own work so that we can be better educators in the classroom, it would be remiss of me not to point out the potential complications of including pedagogies of wellness for those who identify as women and especially women of Color. Expectations of emotion work and labor often fall disproportionately on both (Hua, 2018; Wong, 2007). Western societal expectations and discourses frequently dictate that women, and particularly women of Color, should (want to) fulfill “gendered expectation[s] of care” (Hua, 2018, p. 82), which might include attentiveness to student wellness as addressed in this chapter. Especially for women of Color faculty (and quite likely, faculty with disabilities), notions of passionate teaching become “naturalized . . . essentialized, and freely chosen” rather than understood through a discourse of skill (Acker & Feuerverger, 1996, p. 402, as cited in Hua, 2018, p. 83). Passion further becomes conflated with “morally abiding love” allowing the institution to “prais[e] ‘passion’ instead of compensating for it in

 Mending the (Cartesian) Split 237 salary increases and promotion” (Hua, 2018, p. 83). Yet ironically, women of Color are frequently penalized because their work with university students is “presumed to be heart-driven, rather than research-based” (Hua, 2018, p. 82; italics added). This is one double bind that women of Color can face in the academy.

Teacher Candidates In addition to these aforementioned points of resistance, some teacher candidates were not instantly convinced that bringing wellness into the classroom was a good idea, let alone a valid way of practicing education. I was grateful when one candidate asked doubtfully if they had to bring wellness into their own practicum classrooms and how they would do so logistically considering the breakup of the public school day. This gave me an opportunity to clarify: Your classroom is your sanctuary. You may decide that you do not want to bring wellness into your classroom. Why do I extend a wellness practice to you in my classroom? So that you can experiment with possibilities. Let’s imagine how a regular wellness practice might be relevant in any teacher’s life. Let’s say one morning you are running late—you hate being late. As you commute to your school you get stuck behind a slow driver. You start to have uncomfortable feelings—frustration, anxiety, anger, panic. You get to school just before students file into homeroom and you realize your classroom technology is not working, putting you further behind schedule. Then, as you are fidgeting with your equipment, you hear shouting in the hallway. You go to check on the commotion and you find two students fighting. How do you show up for those students in that moment? Do you contribute to the hostility with knee jerk reactions, or do you successfully allay the chaos because you are grounded? Also, how do you feel after the confrontation? Do you take agitation back to the now packed classroom, or are you able to take a few deep breaths, get centered, and engage with your students in the present moment?

The aforementioned example speaks powerfully to the hectic life of a school—the unpredictable things that may come one’s way, the accidental and the fleeting; and how to maintain a grounded and stable orientation in the body and mind. While I do not pretend to know what that student or others were thinking following this discussion, I recall that there was an encouraging silence in the room that indicated reflection. Yet, my monologue did not ease all students’ resistance to practicing wellness in the classroom. Occasionally, a student would share with me that they loved the wellness requirement but that they wished that some of their more resistant colleagues did as well. I was not offended by this. I sometimes explained that embodiment has been trained out of us from our first days in school. It must be very challenging for some people who have been required to segregate their bodies from other ways of knowing to become re-embodied in just one term. In this light, resistance makes sense. Despite these rumors of resistance, the end of terms revealed a significant shift as anonymized student surveys indicated overwhelming support for taking up wellness in the classroom.

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The Body as a Starting Point for Easing the Violence If institutions that manifest violence want us to be stuck in our bodies, so too can our bodies release us from violence. In particular, the body can alert us to when we are perpetuating violence as in the case of bias or prejudice. Reflecting on a moment in which his body alerted him to his own bias, Shakil Choudhury (2015), a former school teacher and author of Deep Diversity recalls a time when he was walking to the subway and a woman in a wheelchair asked him for directions to a government building. He describes how the two of them hit it off and engaged in conversation. When she disclosed that she was a social worker, Choudhury describes his response: “I noticed a little flutter in my chest. This body twitch was subtle, yet important enough that I wanted to ignore it” (emphasis added) (2015, p. 48). Choudhury’s embodied “flutter” led him to recognize that he “did not expect [a woman in a wheelchair] to say that she had a career as ‘elevated’ and ‘respectable’ as a social worker. I expected less from her” (p. 48). Choudhury’s reflection reveals how his body acted as a compass that guided him to uneasy feelings. When unpacked, the uneasy feelings taught him about a previously unacknowledged bias against people with disabilities. Choudhury’s story is a testimony to the value of being connected to the body’s signals. Similarly, Ruth King, teacher of Insight Meditation and the Mindful of Race Training program, reflects on working with a White male student who felt uncomfortable attending diversity meetings at his place of employment. He feared being called out by African Americans in particular and wanted instead to be appreciated for all he has “done for them in the past” (King, 2018, p. 119). King invited “Jimmy” to observe his experience with “care and patience” and to further engage journaling and meditation in his process of discovery (p. 119). Jimmy’s meditation practice untucked an old family story of mistreating his Black nannies. During his mediations, Jimmy became aware of his bodily sensations that helped him in his process of discovery. He reflects: “It felt like a large, hard door had opened inside my chest—a door I wanted to close because of the draft of shame, but I couldn’t close it. I allowed this intensity, and then my body began to settle a bit” (King, 2018, p. 120). Jimmy’s work—both embodied and meditative—led him to realize that his agitation targeted at African Americans in his diversity meetings originated from “a conditioned expectation that [B]lack people should be more respectful and kind toward me without question. . . . I realized that underneath my righteousness, was a faint need to feel loved by African Americans. I wanted them to forgive me for the secret I had not even acknowledged to myself until now” (King, 2018, p. 120). In King’s reflection, we see how engaging practices of wellness, such as meditation, can awaken one’s connection with the body’s messages around bias and racism. Both Choudhury (2015) and King’s (2018) stories offer sound reasons for integrating the body as a pedagogical tool for exploring emotions, reactions, and biases while exploring topics of social (in)justice in the classroom. Further, the authors’ reflections are consistent with my own students’ insights that were collected through anonymous surveys during the midpoint and end of terms. Reflecting on how wellness

 Mending the (Cartesian) Split 239 or mindfulness exercises might inform personal bias, one student wrote, “[I am] more aware of myself [and] where I come from . . . the lens through which I see the world allows me to recognize/address my personal biases.” Another candidate articulated how the wellness exercises interrupted notions of “normalcy” allowing the student to come to terms with epistemological bias and thus experience an “attitudinal shift around different ways of learning.” This student further expressed how “these [wellness] experiences are not difficult to implement—except for the conditioning they require us to confront.” Other candidates saw the potential of wellness activities as a means to “help [our own] students grow in personal/social ways.” One continued, “I think wellness activities can help [our] students learn more about themselves and their identity.” Beyond these observations, students also commented on wellness activities as a beneficial exercise for being with discomfort rather than avoiding it. Reflecting on chewing a raisin during a mindful eating exercise, one candidate wrote, “I hated the raisin activity because it made me so aware of the raisin and it was a very, unique, powerful, vulnerable experience. . . . It made me realize that I don’t really pay enough attention to minute details and little wonders.” This student’s reflection complexifies common notions of “hate” as a finite emotion and instead reframes it as something that—if one stays with it—can lead to other possibilities, described here as “little wonders.” Lastly, this candidate addresses the internal shift that can result from staying with discomfort, “I have a more reflective instead of a destructive relationship with my uncomfortable feelings.” This statement corroborates my own argument that the ability to sit with discomfort is necessary to truly confront and possibly be transformed by difficult topics.

Spotting Microaggressions Microaggressions are relevant to this work because they represent one way that biases are often perpetuated. As embodied learning can alert us to our biases, it can also help us prevent the acting out of microaggressions. The tricky thing about microaggressions is that they are not always obvious. Sue (2010) describes them as “the everyday verbal, nonverbal, and environmental slights, snubs, or insults, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative messages to target persons based solely upon their marginalized group membership” (p. 3). By definition microaggressions are often small enough to go under the radar of the dominant consciousness but are large enough to be noticed by the aggressed (Sue, 2010). Sometimes microaggressions are even described as unintentionally committed by wellmeaning people, though recent research shows that these unconscious expressions are more harmful to marginalized groups than overt acts of racism, sexism, and other -isms (Sue, 2010). Students’ microaggressions may show up in various assignments and during share outs in class. Again, because the nature of microaggressions in that they are not always obvious, there is of course, no “one-size-fits-all” approach to addressing them. Depending on the situation, I might respond to a student’s microaggression in my written feedback to them. In such cases, I pose questions rather than making diehard

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statements, and I provide quotes written by scholars that can illuminate alternative perspectives to what the student has expressed. I might suggest that the student and I follow up with a conversation. Other times, a microaggression reveals itself in a curious statement made in a student’s writing. In one particular case, I sensed that giving written feedback to a student who exhibited a possible bias in his writing would not be an educative or useful method for him. Instead, I invited the student to meet in person so that we could read each other beyond words written on paper (had I not had a regular mindfulness practice, I might have missed or skipped this opportunity). Meeting in person gave me an occasion to communicate in a way that made sense to him. I read to the student what he wrote and tied the problematics of the statement back to his teachable/major area. I acknowledged to this student that my job is not to make learners think exactly the way I think. Instead my intention is to share my observations, engage in idea exchanges, and encourage students to think critically about their assumptions without denying them, but exploring them deeply so that they can get to the root of a bias. Most importantly, from this level of introspection, it is much more possible that a bias will be released, and the person will be able to move forward in ways that will not harm others. In establishing the position that students do not have to think like me, I do not try to create a false sense of “neutrality,” rather, I develop trust and allay any defensiveness that might impede a deep conversation about microaggressions (Kelly & Minnes-Brandes, 2001, p. 440). In the particular instance I referred to, the student and I were able to openly discuss the statement’s implications as if we were on the same team trying to solve a problem, rather than if we were engaged in a heated debate. The learning was not only for my student, but also a way for me to practice being a better educator. I approached the conversation from a place of curiosity (which is highly emphasized in mindfulness), rather than self-righteousness. I did not want to lead the conversation from the frustration that somebody was ignorant to something that seemed so obvious to me. I also wanted to lead remembering the responsibility of being an educator: to know when to push students to the edge of discomfort, and when to give them space to explore their uncomfortable realities. All of this probably seems obvious— plenty of us touch upon these points in our teaching statements. However, what I have noticed in myself is that it can be difficult to be patient in a body that hurts. Even when not in pain, it can be difficult to be patient in a body that is under looming deadlines, an impossible schedule, and too little sleep—as is often the case of university professors and instructors. Having a regular wellness practice that extended into my classroom made me more accountable to my teaching philosophy. Because part of the teaching and learning process was dedicated to being in our bodies and taking up physical space together as a class, I believe my student and I were better able to operate on a level that exceeded the boundaries of knowledge such as who should know what and by when.

Reflections and Suggestions Since this writing, I have incorporated a student-led wellness activity requirement into additional courses (some courses being outside of TEDP). Going forward, I would continue to make changes. To begin with, I would be less trepidatious, more curious, and more confident about the inclusion of wellness in my syllabi because we need to

 Mending the (Cartesian) Split 241 think about education more comprehensively. Education must be thought of beyond intellectual “neck-up” pursuits that allow us to understand, connect with, and learn from our bodies’ messages. Doing so can help us relate to ourselves and to each other better so that we can read each other more accurately. Reading each other and patiently holding space for each other is a necessity in an increasingly globalized, binarized, politicized, and policed world. Educating our whole selves is central to creating peaceful, just, and caring societies. On a practical level, I would include more literature on my syllabi about the powers of the body and embodiment, not allocating the topic to one unit, but peppering material throughout so that it complements units such as trauma, learning, and education; education as an act of love; the politics of education; residential schools; Indigenous art and education; social justice; teacher activism; critical media literacy; environmental factors in teaching and learning, and so many others. In this way, students might come to see the relevance of the body in teaching and learning as intrinsically tied to our everyday lives and activities, not as an “optional” consideration to be taken up solely in private. I would also continue to diversify the literature on my syllabi, always being careful not to relegate wellness only to Western, White, male, able-bodied voices. Though I would include important trauma literature as it pertains to the body and stems from the perspective of Western medicine (van Dernoot Lipsky & Burk, 2009; Maté, 2009; van der Kolk, 2014), I would also include women of Color scholars and poets many of whom identify as having disabilities or other struggles with the body (Anzaldúa, 2002; Lorde, 2006; Yoo, 2017) as well as musicians, writers, filmmakers, and artists from around the world who center notions of embodiment in their work. Doing so would offer opportunities for seeing the body beyond pathologized discourses that position the body solely through limitations. For example, in Anzaldúa’s (2002) reflections on conocimiento, we see how the body is at once disabled through illness and a space for the emergence of awareness, teaching, learning, spiritual engagement, and transformation. As always, when reviewing the syllabus on the first day, I would ask students what perspectives still need to be represented. I would urge them to make contributions that reflect their own cultural, ethnic, religious, social identities, and beliefs, especially as it pertains to the body and wellness. I would encourage students to work collaboratively on this feedback. I always make space on my syllabi that allows for student feedback and edits. It is important that students can be participants in their own teaching and learning. It is also important that students have a “structured opportunity to critique or act on their teachers’ choices” (Bigelow, 2001, p. 299 as cited in Kelly & MinnesBrandes, 2001). As such, the first version of the syllabus that I share with the class is fluid until we agree that it is final. There are a slew of assignment possibilities to consider, but for the sake of brevity I will offer two. It should be noted that I believe that collaborative work on wellness and embodiment would offer a robust learning dynamic though my examples here are of individual work. Further, as I offer a framing of ideas, I am inspired by Thompson’s (2017) description of body-centered teaching, which is not to dismiss analysis and intellectual pursuits in favor of “soft” approaches to teaching. Rather a bodycentered approach “keeps the intellect in the room while teaching through the body” (Thompson, 2017, p. 59).

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Following wellness activities, students would journal (write, draw) noting the different embodied sensations (or lack thereof) that surfaced from the exercise. I would provide a list of prompts for students to consider but give them the space to approach the reflection as they wish. The short essay assignment in which students reflect on their own experiences of schooling and why they became teachers might be tied to prompts such as: What embodied responses do you recall that are tied to the memories you are sharing (e.g., I had butterflies in my stomach; I laughed uncontrollably; I remember the scent of lunch that wafted from the cafeteria)? What do the embodied messages and memories offer you about the moments on which you are reflecting? In what ways do they educate? This is not to suggest that all embodied responses will be easy, appealing, or comforting. Again, the “flutter in the chest moments” (Choudhury, 2015) are as important for decoding the body’s messages as any others.

Conclusions and Connections In spaces of higher education, the common teaching practice is to segregate notions of teaching and learning from the body. Alternative to this, I have noticed that an ease in relationships develops when we practice swaying, stretching, dancing,6 meditating, and even giggling together in a shared space. These relationships develop on a level that includes and goes beyond words, beyond teacher-student binaries. Moving and meditating together also makes more space for addressing conflict in constructive ways. In this way, connection becomes the medicine for healing the divisions imparted on us (and taken up by many of us) via colonization, coloniality, racism, sexism, capitalism, and others. Connection here should not be romanticized or confused with fostering a climate that allows group members to look the other way when someone makes a transgression. Instead, connection creates possibilities to better engage in difficult conversations that can be helpful and necessary for acknowledging and healing our biases. This type of connection suggests that holding each other accountable is part of a collective desire to heal transgressions, not avoid them.

References Andreotti, V. (2011). Actionable postcolonial theory in education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Andreotti, V. (2015). Postcolonial perspectives in research on higher education for sustainable development. In M. Barth, G. Michelsen, M. Rickerman, & I. Thomas (Eds.), Routledge handbook of higher education for sustainable development (pp. 194–206) . London: Routledge.

In dancing, we do not abandon the goal to make the activities available to students on a spectrum of differing abilities. As one student wellness leader stated “I’m pretty sure everyone can shake something!”

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 Mending the (Cartesian) Split 243 Andreotti, V. (2016). (Re)Imagining education as an un-coercive re-arrangement of desires. Other Education: The Journal of Educational Alternatives, 5(1), 79–88. Anzaldúa, G. (2002). now let us shift… the path of conocimiento… inner work, public acts. In G. Anzaldúa & AnaLouise Keating (Eds.), This bridge we call home: Radical visions for transformation (1st ed., pp. 540–78). New York: Routledge. Archibald, J. (2008). Q’um Q’um Xiiem. Indigenous storywork: Educating the heart, mind, body, and spirit. Vancouver: UBC Press. Belenky, M. F., McVicker Clinchy, B., Goldberger, N.R., & Tarule, J.M. (1986). Women’s ways of knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind, 10th Anniversary Edition (10th ed.). New York: Basic Books. Choudhury, S. (2015). Deep diversity: Overcoming us vs. them. Toronto: Between the Lines. Embody. (n.d.). In Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary. Retrieved from https​://ww​w.mer​ riam-​webst​er.co​m/dic​tiona​ry/em​body. Eisenberg, D., Gollust, S. E., Golberstein, E., & Hefner, J. L. (2007). Prevalence and correlates of depression, anxiety, and suicidality among university students. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 77(4), 534–42. Ergas, O., & Hadar, L. L. (2019). Mindfulness in and as education: A map of a developing academic discourse from 2002 to 2017. Review of Education, 1–41. Freiler, T.J. (2008). Learning through the body. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, Fall 2008(119), 37–47. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York: Routledge. Hua, L.U. (2018). Slow feeling and quiet being: Women of color teaching in urgent times. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Spring2018(153), 77–86. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20283. Khan-Cullors, P., & Bandele, A. (2018). When they call you a terrorist: A Black Lives Matter memoir. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Kelly, D. M., & Minnes-Brandes, G. (2001). Shifting out of “neutral”: Beginning teachers’ struggles with teaching for social justice. Canadian Journal of Education / Revue Canadienne de l’éducation 26(4), 437–454 King, R. (2018). Mindful of race: Transforming racism from the inside out. Boulder: Sounds True. Lorde, A. (2006). The cancer journals: Special edition. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. Lorde, A. (2007). Sister outsider: Essays and speeches. Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. Maté, G. (2009). In the realm of hungry ghosts: Close encounters with addiction. Toronto: Vintage Canada. Meekosha, H. (2011). Decolonising disability: Thinking and acting globally. Disability & Society, 26(6), 667–82. Mignolo, W. D. (2011). The darker side of western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Durham: Duke University Press. Opini, B. (2016). Walking the talk: Towards a more inclusive field of disability studies. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 20(1), 67–90. Rich, A.C. (1986). Blood, bread, and poetry: Selected prose, 1979–1985. New York: Norton. Shapiro, J. P., & Gross, S. J. (2013). Ethical educational leadership in turbulent times : (Re) solving moral dilemmas. London: Routledge. Simpson, L. B. (2014). Land as pedagogy: Nishnaabeg intelligence and rebellious transformation. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 3(3), 1–25. Sue, D. W. (Ed.). (2010). Microaggressions and marginality: Manifestation, dynamics, and impact. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

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Thompson, B. (2017). Teaching with tenderness: Toward an embodied practice. UrbanaChampaign, IL: University of Illinois Press. van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York: Viking. van Dernoot Lipsky, L., & Burk, C. (2009). Trauma stewardship: An everyday guide to caring for self while caring for others. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Webb, P. T., Gulson, K., & Pitton, V. (2014). The neo-liberal education policies of epimeleia heautou: Caring for the self in school markets. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 35(1), 31–44. Wolpow, R., Johnson, M., Hertel, R., & Kincaid, S. (2011). The heart of learning and teaching: Compassion, resiliency, and academic success. Olympia, WA: Washington State Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Compassionate Schools. Wong, K. (2007). Emotional labor of diversity work: Women of Color faculty in predominantly white institutions (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ. Yoo, J. (2017). Illness as teacher: Learning from illness. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 42(1), 54–68.

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Instructional Design and Pedagogy Reconceptualizing Practices Erica Neeganagwedgin and Bathseba Opini

Introduction What makes for a meaningful education? And, how do we conceptualize wholistic education that connects to the heart? In Canada, as across the globe, educational institutions have developed standards or curricula that are vetted to ensure learners receive what is considered a high-quality education. The question that remains is the extent to which those who deliver that curriculum can challenge and add information to, or subtract information from, what is prescribed in a set course syllabus or curriculum. The setting of standards has significant implications for those who have not participated in, and have not brought their perspectives into, the curriculum design and implementation process. In some sense, this means the status quo could remain, and experiences universalized. One example of this is the way that, historically, Indigenous ways of knowing and those of other racialized groups have been excluded. Although there are instances in which institutions have incorporated other ways of knowing, a crucial element in this process is ensuring that this is done meaningfully. This requires consultation with members of the community as well as thought, care, and effort. However, these requirements are not always met, and this can result in spirit injury. This chapter presents our reflections on the question of meaningful learning, education, and syllabus construction. We share our experiences as a way of learning and examining what we think about when designing course syllabi. We interrogate the idea of syllabus construction and its connection to the ways in which knowledge is produced, and we discuss the ways in which these conceptions are at times used to sieve, separate, and further marginalize some knowledges in the academy and broader society. Discussions about syllabus, its creation, and purposes have been happening for years. In postsecondary settings, Fornaciari and Lund Dean (2014) rightly noted that syllabi are fundamental to how those teaching in higher education contexts operate their courses. Other scholars have looked at syllabi as a form of contract between

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instructors and students (Parks & Harris, 2002; Matejka & Kurke, 1994). The contract spells out the responsibilities and sets the expectations for the particular course. It is also a permanent record and a learning tool (Parks & Harris, 2002). Habanek (2005) observed that a syllabus defines learning outcomes for students and the methods by which those outcomes will be realized. It models the accountability agreement between professor and student by the information it provides. Sulik and Keys (2014) added that a syllabus serves the important functions of documenting pedagogical practices, promoting student success, shaping class climate, and stipulating expectations and obligations. The syllabus also explains how the course has been designed by the professor to facilitate learning and what the professor will do to help all students achieve the course goals (Habanek, 2005, p. 62). A syllabus not only communicates course objectives and the means for achieving them but also serves as a vital socializing mechanism as it spells out an instructor’s expectations. It establishes student-teacher roles and norms and sets the tone for classroom interactions (Sulik & Keys, 2014). Other scholars have discussed how to design an effective syllabus while paying attention to the purposes served by a syllabus, such as syllabus serving as a contract, a communication device, a plan, and a cognitive map (Matejka & Kurke, 1994). While all the above operational norms (see Fornaciari & Lund Dean, 2014) of a syllabus are important, the question of preparing and delivering a just and inclusive syllabus is crucial to us. We draw on the ideas of Toohey (1999) who emphasized mindfulness in designing courses and being open to different perspectives. Toohey calls on educators to revisit and rethink the work they do. We believe course design and transformative education are connected. There are relationships built and maintained between the learner and the teacher when course design reflects multiple knowledges and ways of understanding, as well as interpreting the worlds the students bring into their learning environment. As educators working in postsecondary settings in Canada, we work with graduate and undergraduate students. We share our experiences of syllabus design as a way of sharing our thoughts about creating, sharing, and disseminating just and inclusive knowledge. We use a combination of self-study and autobiography to examine syllabus construction and subsequently meaningful learning and education. As we examine syllabus design and its connections to knowledge production and dissemination, we draw on our everyday lived, work, and educational experiences to enrich the discussion. We look at ways in which Western conceptions of syllabus design are at times used to sieve, separate, and further sideline other knowledges in the academy and, consequently, in the broader society. Over the years, we have observed that, often times in higher education, the burden is on some faculty and courses in certain departments to question and challenge the dominant narrative in syllabus and curriculum design. This is not an individual job; it is important to note that such tasks are enormous and exhausting physically, mentally, socially, psychologically, and spiritually. As such, it is not easy for junior and racialized faculty alone to break down the existing dominant narrative in syllabus design and curriculum. They may be made to stand out as the “whiners” and “troublemakers,” while in a real sense the goal of creating accessible and inclusive education is an institution wide and collective endeavor that ought to be undertaken by everyone. In spite of

 Instructional Design and Pedagogy 247 this disclaimer and the existing institutional struggles, barriers, and resistance, the commitment to engaging in critical questioning of the taken-for-granted knowledge systems and moving toward transformative and meaningful teaching and learning and curriculum in the academy and society at large remains a vital cause worth pursuing. Critical education theorists such as bell hooks, Marie Battiste, Annette Henry, Carl James, George Dei, Henry Giroux, Lisa Delpit, and Paulo Freire talk about the key roles schools and teachers could play as agents of systemic and social change for better societies. Such changes could be fostered by, among many other things, reconsideration of syllabus and curriculum design in K-12 and postsecondary education settings. Bringing about change requires questioning the curriculum versions and systems that have been in use for years and drawing on diverse critical theories and epistemologies when preparing and delivering syllabus and curriculum at all levels of education. What follows are our stories relating to syllabus design.

Erica’s Narrative: A Wholistic Framework Over many years, I have taught in interdisciplinary and multifaceted areas of scholarship, at both graduate and undergraduate levels. As a result, I have developed and used many course syllabi. Some postsecondary institutions allow for more instructor flexibility in terms of whose knowledge can be included and who gets to do the including. However, instructors do not always have full autonomy in designing syllabi. Some syllabi use a standard layout, which I refer to as the “one size fits all” kind of syllabus. The instructor has very little control over its design. O’Brien, Millis and Cohen (2008) call for developing a syllabus that is focused on student learning. However, the authors see this as a challenge that requires “substantial reflection and analysis” (p. xiv). Whenever I reflect on the process of designing a course syllabus, questions come to mind such as, who this is being done for and why. While it may seem obvious that this is for students in a postsecondary learning environment, I am constantly reminded of limitations and how to address them. For example, to make the syllabus work to provide truly transformative learning, it must be critical, but flexible enough to allow for changes to be made based on students’ needs. As we as instructors teach, we learn and experience what works for students and for the ways in which they engage in the process. As an educator who works in the field of Indigenous scholarship, I have found it necessary to design and incorporate Indigenous thought systems in the process of syllabus design. This field of study is comprehensive and multifaceted, and is informed by Indigenous people’s knowledge systems locally, nationally, and globally. Diamond (2008) explains the importance of course design and adds that few activities will have as large an impact on students as their involvement in the design of their course or curriculum. As someone whose teaching and research interests are in Indigenous education, I find that designing an effective syllabus that deeply and meaningfully reflects Indigenous systems of knowledge is challenging and often tenuous in colonial academic spaces that often thrive on consuming the other rather than exercising a willingness to criticize systems of power structures within. As Henry,

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Dua, James, Kobayashi, Li, Ramos, and Smith (2017) note, the university is a racialized site that further “marginalizes nonwhite people” in subtle, complex, sophisticated, and ironic ways, from everyday interactions with colleagues to institutionalized practices (p. 3). Despite best efforts, many systems of dominance remain. Existing research shows—and as an instructor in Indigenous scholarship, I have also observed and experienced—this area of study continues to be treated as an add-on, or an “add-it-in,” and stir just a little but not enough to truly transform. Even in an era when most postsecondary institutions appear to be well intentioned and progressive, reflecting a time of Indigenization, systemic barriers remain. A recent study by Indspire (2018) found that Indigenous students want to belong not only to their families, people, and their communities but also to the postsecondary spaces which they enter. However, the study also states that many Indigenous students do not see evidence that postsecondary institutions have taken the time to create learning environments where they see themselves, their history, and their culture embedded in courses, systems, processes, and supports (p. 4). What responsibilities do postsecondary institutions have to Indigenous students given that these institutions are situated on Indigenous ancestral lands, and in these current times, Indigenizing is occurring, or seems to be occurring, in postsecondary institutions? The fact that Indigenous students do not always see themselves reflected in the curriculum speaks to the continued nexus of power relations yielded against Indigenous peoples, relegating them to the periphery. Kuokkanen (2007) reinforces this point, emphasizing the fact that universities have been established to support the historical processes of colonization, and that they were founded on the very denial of the existence of Indigenous peoples. This denial that Kuokkanen discusses is also reflected in the everyday, normalized practices within many academic settings. Bopp, Brown, and Robb (2017) also examine the denial that Kuokkanen discusses, and they assert that, with some exceptions within the academy, the historical and contemporary impact of colonialism on Indigenous peoples is invisible to most. However, Bopp et al. (2017) further assert that Indigenization is not solely about students doing well and completing work, but that in order to “succeed” it must also be about reframing knowledge production and transmission within the academy from an Indigenous perspective (p. 2). The authors further state that this means that “European institutional frameworks, philosophy, historical assumptions, paradigms of scholarship and ways of knowing have not only dominated these institutions, but completely boxed out Indigenous knowledge, wisdom teachings, science and worldviews” (p. 2). This is evident in course design at times, even when the course is Indigenous-focused. For example, I think about the ways in which Indigenous oral knowledges are often discredited in academic settings. How possible would it be to design a course that is fully orally based without experiencing challenges, conflict, and tensions in the academy? As Harris (2002) expresses it, the Western education system is hierarchical. Everyone and everything is ranked: school disciplines, departments, teachers and students. Those individuals and institutions that are most successful at reproducing Western ideologies are rewarded (p. 191) and ranked as the best. Harris (2002) emphasizes that “hierarchy goes hand in hand with authority and exclusiveness” (p. 191). Indigenous scholarship does not need to correspond to Western thought for legitimacy and validity. Rather,

 Instructional Design and Pedagogy 249 Indigenous scholarship is multifaceted. It is purely from an Indigenous lens and must be rooted in Indigenous terms. Therefore, in designing syllabi for universities, which are colonial institutions and that are most often implicated in the systemic oppression and repression of Indigenous knowledges and peoples, it is challenging in some ways to avoid reproducing and maintaining the dominant Western understanding of the world. While some space is made for the Other, the structures still remain in place and this is, or can be, reflected in course/syllabus design, including the many everyday taken-for-granted experiences that guide the academy. Indigenous frameworks and paradigms are undermined and made to fit into the standard framework of the everyday Western ways of thinking and learning through which most postsecondary institutions operate. There is power in operating from a Western lens that universalizes peoples’ worldviews. The fact that postsecondary spaces and places of learning are built on Indigenous lands implicate them in many ways. While there is ongoing talk about reconciliation, and many postsecondary institutions may engage in dialogue on Indigenizing and reconciliation, power is often still maintained and reproduced in these spaces and are embedded in their systems. As Mihesuah and Wilson (2004) emphasize, the academy has much invested in maintaining control over who defines knowledge, who has access to knowledge, and who produces knowledge. Since every academic institution sits on Indigenous land, that oppression was and still is first corporeal; ultimately, the institutions exist because Indigenous peoples were first dispossessed (p. 5)—similar to the ways in which Indigenous people were often forced off their lands, resulting in mass displacement and destruction in Canada (see Daschuk, 2013). Elsewhere, Harris (2002) examines how experiential and wholistic learning techniques are often used in Indigenous communities, and in doing so points to the fact that courses/disciplines are labeled as not academic vis-à-vis others that are (p. 187). Although Harris wrote this work in 2002, this is a consistent theme throughout my experience and one that I have witnessed as being constant. Toohey (1999) reminds us that much of the creativity and power in teaching lies in the design of the curriculum; the choice of texts and ideas which become the focus of study; the planning of experiences for students; and the means by which achievement is assessed (p. 1). As an educator, I am constantly seeking ways to open up spaces in which students can truly have meaningful experiences. As Rodriquez (2017) suggests, it is crucial to continually scrutinize the logic of power that is encapsulated and also is behind our syllabi.

Bathseba’s Narrative: Syllabus Design to Transgress When I recall the syllabi I have come across either as a student or an educator, the majority would often have a series of things laid out for the students to follow; what Fornaciari and Lund Dean (2014) have described as an operational road map. This includes the course title, number, and level; meeting place/room; name of instructor and contact information (plus the teaching assistant’s information, if the course has one); course learning objectives; course expectations and policies; assignments and due dates; grading procedures; topics to be covered; and reading list, among other

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items. Although all this information is valuable, the larger and more fundamental question is how well thought out is the material and topics to be covered. Who gets to decide what is to be taught and why? Whose literature is included in those teachings and whose are not, and why? There is a tendency to critique Eurocentric curriculum, but little is offered in the existing literature on how to deconstruct and rupture this grand narrative and prepare learners to enact change in their everyday lives and practices. How much power do instructors have in pursuing such a crucial goal in their syllabus design and classroom delivery? To what degree is the concept of academic freedom realistic when it comes to syllabus design without feeling that your thoughts and input are suppressed either knowingly or unknowingly? This is a reality in postsecondary settings where sometimes instructors have to work with a prescribed template for a given subject area or course. Even though there is some degree of freedom to change the contents of that template, one can only go so far without being questioned. I have been fortunate to learn, live, and work in different spaces that have enriched my experiences and outlook on the world. Specifically, going through the education system in North America has shown me what it means to experience discrimination, racism, ableism, inequity, and oppression as a racialized person. These experiences have very much shaped my teaching approaches, which are largely informed by critical race, critical disability, and critical anti-racism theories. As such, my perspectives on course design and teaching aim at delving into a critical analysis of power relations and privilege in the learning process. I largely work with teacher candidates as well as practicing teachers already in the field. When working with teachers and future teachers, I am not only interested in fulfilling the university and teacher certification requirements so that the practicing teachers can get their leadership qualifications and the teacher candidates their certification but also considering how the conversations we will have based on the syllabus and beyond would help these educators to think outside the box. I think of ways of getting the course participants to seriously consider power relations in education and society in general and commit to changing behaviors and policies, and thus promote social change (Dei, 1996; Gillborn, 2006); to critically analyze assumptions of ability, academic success, neutrality, objectivity, color blindness, and meritocracy in education and how such assumptions continue to advantage white and able-bodied people while disadvantaging Indigenous, racialized and disabled people; and to commit to work toward addressing racial oppression and injustice in their lived and work experiences (see Matsuda, Lawrence, Delgado, & Crenshaw, 1993). As I prepare my course syllabi, I ask myself, how might the topics, readings, and discussions encourage the students to become genuinely caring educators in the classroom, the department, school district, province, and nation at large? What might be useful in, for instance, getting the teachers to not only look beyond the prescribed K-12 text and curriculum but also think about the many aspects that make us unique and the knowledges that come with this uniqueness no matter who we are and the contexts in which we are working? These questions are inspired by hooks’s (2003) observation that, in as much as I endeavor to bring, as a teacher, passion, skill, and

 Instructional Design and Pedagogy 251 absolute grace to the art of teaching (p. x), I also have to ask myself, what am I really doing? What is a good syllabus? What is a good curriculum? What effect do the duo have on student learning? Is the syllabus I am designing and its subsequent delivery about access to leaning for all and meaningful student engagement? Is it about students’ ability to retain what is learned or their ability to apply the knowledge learned to allow for alternate understandings of learning abilities (Ware, 2005) in addition to understanding and addressing societal inequities and, in the process, to contribute toward solving societal problems and complexities? What benefits/richness would I bring to this course/planning? Whose knowledge and ways of learning has been erased and how would I bring back these erased knowledges to the syllabus? (see Ellerbrock, Cruz, Vásquez, & Howes, 2016; Ware, 2005). How might I move from assumptions of disability as one of the many long lists of diversity categories to a moment where the students in my classes and I see, understand, and engage with disability as intersecting with other identities and have implications on education? (Pugach, 2005). Asking these questions is useful in finding ways to invite the learners to take part in an organized and meaningful journey (see Sulik & Keys, 2014) of troubling ableism, power, and privilege in education. As Edwards and del Guadalupe Davidson (2017) remark, all students benefit when course syllabi and curriculum speak to the diverse bodies, experiences, learning styles, and needs of students in the classroom. Re-examining syllabus design helps to revive and activate sidelined knowledges, skills, literatures, and practices. It also helps cross-examine the assumption that there is one single and objective way of knowing. Scholars Au, Brown, and Calderon (2016) argue that for a long time, curriculum has done a good job centering white males in higher education. The few curricula that have tried to incorporate other knowledges have done so by selecting a few nonwhite contributors or silencing discussions about race and, in the process, rendering racialized peoples invisible (Au et al., 2016). Paraskeva (2011) also add that when considering the broader field of curriculum studies, white supremacist and colonial legacies are so deeply imbued in the field of curriculum studies that the field itself needs to be both interrupted and reconceived to attend to these issues (as cited in Au et al., 2016, p. 4). This is no accident. According to Au et al. (2016), there are two ways racialized peoples have been made invisible, at least in the US context, and this is no different from what is happening in Canada: (i) the invisible narrative where the ideas, histories, and theories pertinent to the construction of curriculum history is excluded while Eurocentric ideologies and theories are given voice; and (ii) the visibility narrative in which certain selected narratives of racialized groups are included—such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington—what is referred to as the additive nature of inclusion, and at the same time those narratives are presented as being outside of the Western normalized debates and trajectories of curriculum. When considering such invisibilities, I often ask myself, what happens when we continue reinforcing Eurocentrism in the curriculum? How might I introduce critical race and anti-racism, critical disability, and Indigenous pedagogy to the existing syllabus and curriculum? I am well aware of the fact that it is one thing to plan a syllabus and it is another to deliver it; delivery comes with its own challenges, particularly how the learners will

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respond to the knowledge. My experience as an instructor has been that either the learners are receptive, or the learners project resistance openly or through subtle forms of microaggressions, and the latter is often the case when deconstructing Eurocentric knowledges. The microaggressions appear in the form of actions and questions such as, what qualifications do you have teaching this course or denying existence of privilege by arguing that my parents are white and poor, and I do not see how I benefit from privilege or through teaching evaluations (see Daniel, 2019; Pittman, 2012.) As a racialized person, these questions remind me of the findings from a study by the Turner Consulting Group (2015) that examined the experiences of Black educators in Ontario. The study revealed African Canadian educators face racial micro insults (see Sue et al., 2007) as people assume that these educators are not very qualified to be teachers and so they might have been hired because of affirmative action. Black educators’ skills and competencies are constantly questioned; their right to be hired and be in schools is constantly questioned (Turner Consulting Group, 2015, pp. 24–25; see also Daniel, 2019; Hamermesh & Parker, 2005; Vargas, 2002). When students question one’s qualifications directly or indirectly, it is not only concerning but also discomforting (Ladson-Billings, 1996). These experiences bring more questions to my mind when designing a syllabus and when I walk into the classroom to teach: Should I always be going above and beyond to explain my educational qualifications and work experience in order for the students to believe that I am fit to be a professor? How do I challenge the students to reconsider their biased thinking about certain people as being qualified professors? As I design my course syllabi, I am conscious of the fact the current working conditions in higher education are highly racialized. The work and worth of many racialized faculty is widely overlooked or invalidated (Sue, Capodilupo, Torino, Bucceri, Holder, Nadal, & Esquilin, 2007). At best, if racialized faculty are listened to, when they come up with ideas to advance teaching, learning, and research in the academy, those from the dominant group appropriate the ideas, make them their own, and thus take the credit—a practice that is not only exhausting but also enormously disrespectful. I also take into account Ladson-Billings’s (1996) observations about the challenges of racialized faculty teaching predominantly white students/Eurocentric institutions. Ladson-Billings found that most white students withheld comments or observations when they encountered discussions of race, class, and gender brought to them from the perspective of a person whose race, class, and gender placed her in the lower levels of a hierarchical social structure (p. 80). Kochaman (1981) indicated that often when white students disagreed or were angry about these discussions, they became quiet and withdrew from the discussion. They consider racialized students who speak out about the issues as being too emotional, confrontational, and argumentative (as cited in Ladson-Billings, 1996, p. 80). These silences could be acts of resistance or a sign of lack of knowledge on the subject (LadsonBillings, 1996). Tatum (1992) noted that some students express denial, anger, guilt, and shame when discussing race and racism. Moreover, it is possible that in the class, some of the students may have limited exposure and experience with racialized people and non-Western knowledges. At the same time, many racialized students may feel burdened with the responsibility of teaching their classmates (Ladson-Billings, 1996). It is important to design activities that will help mitigate such silences. Ladson-Billings

 Instructional Design and Pedagogy 253 has suggested the use of activities such as index cards where students are encouraged to write their anonymous comments and questions about an issue or reading without feeling judged by their peers. She has also recommended using small group discussions to encourage sharing of ideas in a safe manner. It should not be assumed that resistance toward material in the syllabus will only come from students from the dominant culture. In fact, Alemán and Gaytán (2017) pointed out that some racialized peoples may also display resistance to social justice discussions. Often students show discomfort when discussing race and racism but are quick and comfortable to talk about social class/poverty. This shows how long-lasting practices in the education system, both K-12 and postsecondary, that “neglect, deny, or malign the histories, needs, and racialized experiences lay ground for resistance to curriculum that does not fit within the Eurocentric frame—i.e. entrenchment of dominant ideas” (Alemán and Gaytán, 2017, p. 129). Efforts to destabilize mainstream ideologies about race and racism thus cause discomfort and resistance from students. Depending on what is in the syllabus and the discussions that evolve during the syllabus implementation process, student reactions are important to consider as well. In teaching using critical race, anti-racism, and disability lens, I do not expect to get an easy “pass” or good student evaluations, since I am challenging students to think critically about ableism, “color-blindness, whiteness, meritocracy, assimilation, and conformity in K-12 schools,” as well as to critique deficit thinking about some people in the education system (see Alemán and Gaytán, 2017, p. 130). Challenging students to recognize that racism and ableism are a reality today is not easy. Overall, syllabus design is one of the many avenues educators in higher education could use to deconstruct privileging of Western dominant knowledges. Marginalization of non-European knowledges is so deep in the systems that it needs both white and nonwhite faculty and administrators to have an honest and critical discussion about syllabus design. Leaving it to a few racialized faculties and their allies to address this challenge may not do much in terms of disrupting the status quo aimed at changing the education system and society in general.

Conclusion As racialized faculty, with our experiences being tied up in doing contract and temporary instructor work for many years before getting into tenure-track positions, we continue to lack autonomy in fully engaging in the process of decolonization in the university, one example being syllabus design itself. Syllabi are largely owned and dictated by institutions that we work in and students become uncomfortable with the contents and challenge it. What we have also noticed, and as Henry (2015) found, is that there are significant inconsistencies between what the social justice, equity, and diversity statements presented in many university/postsecondary mission statements say and the reality of translating this into syllabi/curriculum. At best, one can have these statements and documents, but facilitating the conversations and actions to actualize their implementation is an arduous experience. We are seen as being racially hypersensitive (Pittman, 2012; Sue et al., 2007) or having a chip on our shoulders; that

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these knowledges we are advocating for are not objective enough and therefore are irrelevant. In spite of the resistance, we are always reminded by the Kiswahili proverb that Kelele za chura hazimkatazi ng’ombe kunywa maji (“the noise of the frog does not stop the cow from drinking water”). That is, resistance to other knowledges is not going to stop us from engaging in a critical analysis and commitment to deconstruct the grand narrative. As educators, we believe that not only must space be opened up for multiple ways of knowing but also the dominant salient structures that continue to permeate syllabus design must be examined systematically and as a process, not a one-off or as a trend. What’s more, given the sometimes subtle ways in which systems of Western dominance operate, these dominant institutionalized approaches should be an ongoing process. Referencing the experiences of Indigenous people, Ottmann (2017) observed that the goals of Indigenous peoples can be realized by having institutions that prepare and provide education that is grounded in the epistemologies, ecologies, and geographies of Indigenous peoples (p. 354). The curriculum, pedagogies, theory, and practice should therefore emulate Indigenous ways of knowing, culture, and understanding. In order to retain students, universities must adapt a wholistic conception of students. It is crucial that postsecondary education administrators revisit, reflect, and be willing to move beyond rhetoric and show commitment and responsibility to uproot the many layered structures within these spaces that limit syllabus design and eventual teaching and learning experiences of faculty and students. We offer some recommendations to foster further reflections on syllabi and curriculum design that is whole and that includes many different perspectives and ideas beyond a homogenous, standardized curriculum: 1. Acknowledge that Eurocentrism, racism, and ableism are pervasive in syllabus and curriculum design. Educators should not be silent or ignore this reality and reinforce complicity in reinforcing the same in the education system, both K-12 and postsecondary. 2. Continue to reimagine syllabus design, what it can look like in terms of it meaning representation and impact for learners requires self-reflection. We urge educators to take critical reflective action before engaging in these processes and commit to changing the philosophy, structure, and content of their syllabi as recommended by Ladson-Billings (1999) not just adding something small about diversity in the syllabus. 3. We challenge educators to reexamine their own ways of thinking about curriculum and to create curriculum that exemplifies multiple ways of learning and contested knowledge to promote further inquiry and learning. 4. In thinking about our own experiences with course curricula and the erasure of multiple voices we did not hear about as learners in formalized settings, we challenge educators to also reimagine what a disruptive syllabus might look like and work toward dismantling whose voices are heard. 5. We echo Appleton’s (2019) suggestions when the author asserts: do not decolonize if you are not decolonizing and call on educators to “digress from the cannon” (p. 7).

 Instructional Design and Pedagogy 255 In summary, when considering different ways of reconceptualizing, creating, and designing syllabus, it is important to consider the power relations in knowledge production and its implications for learners. With that in mind, we believe all educators must use their privilege within the colonial academic space to engage in breaking down the privileges, power structures, and power relations in designing syllabi and curricula.

References Alemán, S., & Gaytán, S. (2017). It doesn’t speak to me: Understanding student of color resistance to critical race pedagogy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 30(2), 128–46. doi: 10.1080/09518398.2016.1242801 Appleton, N. S. (2019, February 4). Do not decolonize . . . If you are not decolonizing: Progressive language and beyond a hollow academic rebranding (Blog Post). Critical Ethnic Studies. Retrieved from http:​//www​.crit​icale​thnic​studi​esjou​rnal.​org/b​log/2​019/ 1​/21/d​o-not​-deco​loniz​e-if-​you-a​re-no​t-dec​oloni​zing-​alter​nate-​langu​age-t​o-nav​igate​desi​res-f​or-pr​ogres​sive-​acade​mia-6​y5sg.​ Au, W., Brown, A. L., & Calderón, D. (2016). Reclaiming the multicultural roots of U.S. curriculum: Communities of color and official knowledge in education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Bopp, M. L., Brown, R. J., & Robb, J. (2017). Reconciliation within the academy: Why is Indigenization so difficult? Four Worlds Centre for Development. Retrieved from https​://te​achin​gcomm​ons.l​akehe​adu.c​a/sit​es/de​fault​/file​s/inl​ine-f​i les/​bopp%​20 bro​wn%20​robb_​Recon​cilia​tion_​withi​n_the​_Acad​emy_F​inal.​pdf Daniel, B. J. (2019). Teaching while Black: Racial dynamics, evaluations, and the role of white females in the Canadian academy in carrying the racism torch. Race Ethnicity and Education, 22(1), 21–37. Daschuk, J. (2013). Clearing the plains: Disease, politics of starvation, and the loss of Aboriginal life. Regina: University of New Brunswick Press. Dei, J. S. G. (1996). The role of Afrocentricity in the inclusive curriculum in Canadian schools. Canadian Journal of Education, 21(2), 170–86. Diamond, R. (2008). Designing and assessing courses and curricula: A practical guide (3rd ed.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers. Edwards, K. T., & del Guadalupe Davidson, M. (Eds.). (2017). College curriculum at the crossroads: Women of color reflect and resist. New York: Routledge. Ellerbrock, C.R., Cruz, B.C., Vásquez, A., & Howes, E.V. (2016). Preparing culturally responsive teachers: Effective practices in teacher education. Action in Teacher Education, 38(3), 226–39. Fornaciari, C. J., & Lund Dean, K. (2014). The 21st-century syllabus: From pedagogy to andragogy. Journal of Management Education, 38(5), 701–23. Gillborn, D. (2006). Rethinking white supremacy: Who counts in White world. Ethnicities, 6(3), 318–40. doi: 10.1177/1468796806068323. Habanek, D. V. (2005). An examination of the integrity of the syllabus. College Teaching, 53(2), 62–64. Hamermesh, D. S., & Parker, A. M. (2005). Beauty in the classroom: Instructors’ pulchritude and putative pedagogical productivity. Economics of Education Review, 24, 369–76.

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Harris, H. (2002). Coyote goes to school: The paradox of Indigenous higher education. Canadian Journal of Native Education, 26(2), 187–96. Henry, A. (2015). “We especially welcome applications from members of visible minority groups”: Reflections on race, gender and life at three universities. Race Ethnicity and Education, 18(5), 589–610. doi: 10.1080/13613324.2015.1023787 Henry, F., Dua, E., James, C., Kobayashi, A., Li, P., Ramos, H., & Smith, M. (2017). The equity myth racialization and Indigeneity at Canadian universities. Vancouver: UBC Press. hooks, B. (2003). Teaching community: A pedagogy of hope. New York: Routledge. Indspire. (2018, September). Indigenous education Canada’s future. Post-secondary experience of Indigenous students following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission: Summary of survey findings. Retrieved from https​://in​dspir​e.ca/​wp-co​ntent​/uplo​ads/ 2​018/0​9/PSE​-Expe​rienc​e-Ind​igeno​us-St​udent​s-Sur​vey-S​ummar​y-Sep​t2018​.pdf Kuokkanen, R. (2007). Reshaping the university responsibility, Indigenous epistemes, and the logic of the gift. Vancouver: UBC Press. Ladson-Billings, G. (1996). Silences as weapons: Interactions, confrontations, and compromises between a black teacher and white students. In E. Ellsworth & P. Lather (Eds.). Theory into Practice, 35(2), 79–85. Special issue on situated pedagogies. Ladson-Billings, G. (1999). Preparing teachers for diversity. In L. Darling-Hammond & G. Sykes (Eds.), Teaching as the learning profession (pp. 86–123). San Francisco: JosseyBass. Matejka, K., & Kurke, L.B. (1994). Designing a great syllabus. College Teaching, 42(3), 115–17. Matsuda, M., Lawrence, C., Delgado, R., & Crenshaw, K. (Eds.). (1993). Words that wound: Critical race theory, assaultive speech and the first amendment. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Mihesuah, D., & Wilson, C. A. (2004). Introduction. In D. A. Mihesuah & A. C. Wilson (Eds.), Indigenizing the academy: Transforming scholarship and empowering communities (pp. 1–15). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. O’Brien, G. J., Millis, B. J., & Cohen, W. M. (2008). Preface. In J. G. O’Brien, J. B. Millis, & W. M. Cohen (Eds.), The course syllabus: A learning-centered approach (2nd ed.), (pp. xiii–xv). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Ottmann, J. (2017). Canada’s Indigenous peoples’ access to post-secondary education: The spirit of the “New Buffalo.” In J. Frawley, S. Larkin, & J. Smith (Eds.), Indigenous pathways, transitions and participation in higher education (pp. 95–117). Singapore: Springer. Paraskeva, J. M. (2011). Conflicts in curriculum theory: Challenging hegemonic epistemologies. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Parks, J., & Harris, M. B. (2002). The purpose of a syllabus. College Teaching, 50(2), 55–61. Pittman, C. T. (2012). Racial microaggressions: The narratives of African American faculty at a predominantly white university. The Journal of Negro Education, 81(1), 82–92. doi: 10.7709/jnegroeducation.81.1.0082 Pugach, M. (2005). Research on preparing teachers to work with students with disabilities. In M. Cocbran-Smith & K. M. Zeichner (Eds.), Studying teacher education: The report of the AERA panel on research and teacher education (pp. 549–90). Mabwab, NJ: Lawrence Eribaum. Sue, D., Capodilupo, C. M., Torino, G. C., Bucceri, J. M., Holder, A. M. B., Nadal, K. L., & Esquilin, M. (2007). Racial microaggressions in everyday life. American Psychologist, 62, 271–86.

 Instructional Design and Pedagogy 257 Sulik, G., & Keys, J. (2014). Many students really do not yet know how to behave!: The syllabus as a tool for socialization. Teaching Sociology, 42(2), 151–60. Rodríguez, O. C. (2017, April 6). How academia uses poverty, oppression, and pain for intellectual masturbation. RaceBaitr. Retrieved from https​://ra​cebai​tr.co​m/201​7/04/​06/ ho​w-aca​demia​-uses​-pove​rty-o​ppres​sion/​ Tatum, B. D. (1992). Talking about race, learning about racism: The application of racial identity development theory in the classroom. Harvard Educational Review, 62(1), 1–25. Toohey, S. (1999). Designing courses for higher education. Philadelphia: Open University Press. Turner Consulting Group. (2015, May 29). Executive summary: Voices of Ontario Black educators – An experiential report. Retrieved from http:​//ona​bse.o​rg/VO​ICESO​FBLAC​ KEDUC​ATORS​-Exec​utive​_Summ​ary.p​df. Vargas, L. (Ed.). (2002). Women faculty of color in the White classroom: Narratives on the pedagogical implications of teacher diversity. New York: Peter Lang. Ware, J. (2005). Profound and multiple learning difficulties. In A. Lewis & B. Norwich (Eds.), Special teaching for special children: A pedagogies for inclusion (pp. 67–80). New York, NY: Open University Press.

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Toward Provisional Conclusions Intersections, Crossings, and Praxis: Syllabi and the Politics of Educational Articulation Michelle Stack and André Elias Mazawi

The chapters included in this book illustrate a range of lived experiences associated with the development and enactment of course syllabi used within faculties of education and in teacher education programs in select contexts. They offer readers several thematic insights that capture the challenges, tensions, and paradoxes encountered by instructors in teacher education programs. In this chapter, we discuss insights that emerge from reading across the chapters, and in doing so we hope to offer broad analytical comparative comments that position syllabi over the backdrops of the political economies, geopolitics, national and intra-institutional politics, and intersectionalities that shape their design and enactment.

Thematic Insights We start by discussing five major thematic insights that emerge from our readings across chapters. First, the chapters make clear that it would be misleading to consider the syllabus in its confined textual discursive manifestations. Rather, drawing on the work of Elizabeth Ellsworth (1997) on teaching, a syllabus could be approached as both a choreographed “scene” and a “mode of address” that encompass not just the syllabus as text, but also its embodied performance by the instructor and its interactive reception by course participants. Ellsworth explains that a “mode of address” represents a space through which teachers bring together questions of power, knowledge, and desire, putting them in motion in terms of how they address the students within the classroom (Ellsworth, 1997, pp. 6–9). When considering the syllabus, it is crucial to account both for its explicit choreographies of text and visuals and for its implicit enactments through the embodied experiences of students and instructors in the classroom. The syllabus as an artifact becomes a human relational product, a “tool” that involves and invokes particular skills and modes of symbolic representation assembled toward the achievement of particular ends. The chapters in this collection allow the gleaning of a

 Toward Provisional Conclusions 259 range of nuanced perspectives on the contextual dynamics that inform the syllabus as an artifact. In contrast, accounting for the implicit and embodied aspects focuses on the syllabus as performance, and a “fluid” one at that. While the explicit aspects radiate certainty, mastery, and a reasoned sequencing, the implicit aspects remain largely “unpredictable, incorrigible, uncontrollable, unmanageable, disobedient” (pp. 8–9) courses of action that emerge in the hic et nunc of its enactment in the classroom. Thus, the quality and logic of a structured syllabus does not necessarily guarantee the conditions of its expected enactments in the classroom. The gap between the two is both ontological and epistemic, and it is not always bridgeable in conclusive ways. At stake is not only the soundness of pedagogical considerations but also the contested and contradictory aims of education in society. How could or should these aims be reconciled and acted upon within a particular course syllabus and classroom setting? Thus, while the syllabus has a declarative force (e.g., telling students what bodies of knowledge they are expected to learn and how that learning will be assessed), it also encompasses gaps between its design and its enactments. These aporias should be acknowledged. Far from being considered as weaknesses, their identification and discussion could inform sounder and more authentic discussions regarding the contradictions, tensions, and challenges that face articulations of theory and practice in relation to the contradictory aims of teacher education. Secondly, instructors are invested—in mind, emotions, and body—in the design and enactment of their respective syllabi. While the syllabus is expected to provide a reasoned and annotated narrative of a course, its rationale, and its sequencing, it seldom leaves traces of the doubts, uncertainties, and loaded experiences that are part and parcel of its enactment. Far from representing a technical compilation of agreed upon knowledge, the design of a syllabus is deeply immersed in judgments made regarding the selection of reading materials and activities. These judgments reflect the instructor’s interpretations and sense-making of the world they seek to capture. On this point, it is worth invoking Kevin Kumashiro’s (2004) cautionary observation: How we make sense of the world often “makes sense” only within a particular context and we should never feel comfortable that our knowledge will make sense in every context thereafter. The world will always exceed our knowledge of it. (p. 47)

Kumashiro’s cautionary observation has two main implications for the ways in which an instructor makes sense of a field or area of study in their syllabus, and how they conceive of its landscapes and contours in terms of relevant bodies of knowledge. First, Kumashiro’s observation raises the obvious need to read a context in such a way that it makes sense to classroom participants—that is, that it be clear about the audience that the syllabus aims to engage. Yet, remaining focused on this first point would entail leaving course participants, as audiences, largely un-challenged in their zones of comfort. This is where the second implication of Kumashiro’s observation is worth reflecting on: it raises the specter of the role of the instructor in making sense of a particular syllabus and engaging students as active participants. How should instructors design a syllabus to make sense of the world(s) it seeks to transform, in such a way that its enactments move classroom participants from being audiences into representing active publics

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concerned by the issues at stake (Roman, 2015)? Ultimately, as teacher educators we hope to translate such “teachable moments” into attributes of consciousness that lead students to recognize, in the words of Antonia Darder, “that our personal histories are always tied to the larger social, political and economic realities of the time. None of us lives in a vacuum” (as interviewed by Borg & Mayo, 2011, p. 443). Thirdly, and as a corollary of the previous point, a syllabus can be metaphorically likened to a tri-way intersection, which it seeks to cross, with all that such a crossing carries with it in terms of risks, tensions, and aporias. Reminiscent of the Greek goddess Hecate, “whose unique powers cut across natural boundaries of earth, sea and sky” when intervening in human affairs (Marquardt, 1981, p. 243), a syllabus stands at a so-called Hecatic tri-way intersection where the ethical, the social-political, and the personal meet. Crossing the intersection, as a praxeology, compels us to ask, not whether a course has a syllabus, or how its contents are organized as signposts of knowledge to be digested, or still, whether its contractual terms are clearly explained, as important as these aspects are. Rather, as Samuel Rocha’s chapter suggests, the main concern lies in the praxeological and existential questions the design of a syllabus raises regarding the conditions under which the crossing is likely to be optimal, in terms of direction, its ethical considerations, and its pedagogic finalities. If the syllabus is to be likened to an intersection map, it is clearly insufficient, in itself, to secure a successful and safe crossing, despite a fully fledged legend and precise cartographic representations. The following question remains to be addressed: how ought a syllabus be performed, as a crossing, in relation to the finalities, not recorded on the map, which the crossing seeks to achieve? Fourthly, the syllabus represents a space that is always already in the making, a work in progress. Its pertinence and vitality lie precisely in its perennial metamorphosis, as the chapter by Heidi Janz and Michelle Stack indicates with regard to the design of syllabi regarding the intersection of technology and disability. How a syllabus engages intersectional junctions, both for instructors and for students, represents a central point to consider. The chapter coauthored by Hartej Gill and Meena Uppal and the chapter authored by Stephanie Glick are indicative of the dynamics that play out in the classroom, and how these determine how participants experience a course. Hence, a syllabus bears witness to the embodied ways in which histories, and their concomitant injustices and frustrations, are present and operate in the classroom. The chapters teach us that no syllabus is locked in a present as an exclusive point of reference. Rather, as Jo-ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem’s chapter, the chapter coauthored by Matthew Thomas, Janet Serenje-Chipindi, and Ferdinand Mwaka Chipindi, and that authored by André Elias Mazawi show, teacher education curricula and syllabi straddle constructions of time and being, seeking to translate them into social and political aspirations and forms of subjectivity projected into emancipatory modes of being. Fifthly, accreditation requirements placed on the contents of syllabi by regulatory organizations operating both within and outside postsecondary institutions seek to technicize the role of instructors in teacher education, grounding them in neoliberal notions of accountability, efficiency, and knowledge transmission (Hargreaves, 2003). The question emerges with an equal force when considering syllabi prepared for online course delivery, in which electronic exchanges largely replace face-to-face interactions

 Toward Provisional Conclusions 261 among participants (Clark-Ibáñez & Scott, 2007). On that point, the syllabus straddles boundaries of time, place, and institutionalized modes of delivery. How a syllabus engages these straddled boundaries, and the subjectivities they seek to condition, is not limited to what plays out within the classroom. Rather, as Esraa Al-Muftah and Hadeel AlKhateeb’s chapter and Amani Hamdan’s chapter teach us, instructors struggle on several fronts concurrently, whether those located within the institution, or those seated in social and cultural practices at large. Over this backdrop, understanding how syllabi promote a critical “excavation” into and “mining” of the cultural and historical arbitraries imposed by power, habits, mindsets, and unexamined modes of institutional organization is crucial. Yet, as these chapters further indicate, space for such inquiry is not equally distributed within and across contexts of practice. To accept the illusion of an a-contextual syllabus—detached from the political and social conditions under which it was produced, choreographed, and performed—means leaving unquestioned the configurations of power that shape classroom dynamics and the reproductive roles of education and schooling in society.

Syllabic Constructions, Deconstructions, and Configurations The syllabus represents a situated cultural artifact, contingent on context and its concomitant struggles. Understanding how different cultural, national, institutional, and social-political contexts condition the design and classroom enactment of a syllabus still awaits systematic research and examination. Notwithstanding, what the chapters in this book already signal is that human, land, water, and knowledge bodies are represented within syllabi, as relevant or irrelevant, based on geopolitics, the positionality of the educator, patriarchy, casteism, ableism, classicism, racism, geopolitics, and heteronormativity. The contributors to this volume demonstrate that syllabi are political, contested (even if not openly, for fear of reprisal), and living documents that can be subverted in various ways. The contributors also point to the need for an existential and contextualized literacy capacities in reading comparatively across different types of syllabi. What may seem a “radical” approach in one context may be deemed “conservative” in another. On the one hand, there is a global pressure through international bodies, such as the Organisation for Economic, Co-operation and Development (OECD), the World Bank, and considerable monopoly of publishing corporations (Schultz, Elfert, and Karsgaard, in this volume), for education systems around the world to homogenize and standardize the contents taught in teacher education and through K-12 and postsecondary systems (Hardy, 2018). On this very point, Emma Rowe and Andrew Skourdoumbis (2019) concluded that these processes lead to “a contraction in scope for progressive or experiential teacher education, and moreover, the ongoing de-professionalism of teachers and teacher educators, whom are subjected to constant surveillance” (p. 44). On the other hand, as indicated in the various chapters included in the present book, one can note the sometimes vocal and, at other times, infrapolitically (Scott, 1998) subversive counter-narratives,

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and the reclaiming of memory, represent powerful tools of resistance based in the particularities of organizational and social-political contexts. The contributors to this volume demonstrate the need for instructors and teachers to sustain a diversity of life-forms and modes of communication by keeping their syllabi, and their classroom enactments, open on contexts and their histories. What stands out is the complex and multifaceted interactions between the manifest aspects of the syllabus and what may be perhaps best called “subterranean world of political conflict which hardly left scarcely a trace in the public record” (Scott, 2012, p. 113). For researchers, the tension between both dynamics—that is, the standardization, on the one hand, and the “subterranean world” of conflict and resistance, on the other—clearly suggests that syllabi are underpinned by a much richer ethnographic and political ecology than the one that focuses on efficiency, organizational processes, and approaches to learning. The contributions contained in the four parts of this book could serve as productive foci for further research into the worlds of syllabi and their enactment.

“Geopolitics of Knowledge” Syllabi have become central in the emergence and expansion of globalized dynamics that surround education and its marketization. As Allan Luke (2013) contends, the push for a homogeneous, global education is often based in Global North interests: The transportation process is conducted through aid programs, research fellowships, through UNESCO, the World Bank and the Asia Development Bank, through international journal publication, citation and ranking systems and through the training of international graduate students. It may also be conducted through the shipping of in-service programs or exportation of textbooks, tests or performance indicators. The upshot is that there has been much educational expertise and commodities parachuted in to “other” contexts without substantive engagement with local histories, cultures and difference. (p. 147)

Often, pressures toward isomorphism are cushioned in a language of neutrality, universality, and common sense education that frequently aims to de-professionalize teachers through highly prescriptive syllabi, limiting their ability to exert professional judgment and bring their deep knowledge of the context to bear on their work. In relation to that, the chapter by Lynette Shultz, Maren Elfert, and Carrie Karsgaard calls on institutions to make room for a decolonizing pluriversalism by including diverse epistemological positions and challenges that allow students to look at their own ancestral homes and histories. However, teacher education can also be a space of disruption. Notwithstanding, understanding the ways instructors resist and insert criticality into the syllabi depends on geopolitics and also on their position within the society in which they are teaching. Golnar Mehran and Fariba Adli describe the Islamization of education curricula and syllabi in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Their chapter points to the propensity of state sponsored knowledge systems to narrow

 Toward Provisional Conclusions 263 down and infiltrate teacher education in ways that may complicate the articulation of contextualized bodies of knowledge, despite efforts to the contrary. Matthew A. M. Thomas, Janet Serenje-Chipindi, and Ferdinand Mwaka Chipindi also point to the global influence of neoliberal approaches that place a greater focus on the technical side of education. What is clear is that the contributors point to contextual specific forms of engagement, disruption, or subversion through the development of syllabi. For some, the disruption comes in bringing to class readings that are not part of the required syllabus and might not meet with approval by supervisors; for others, they bring in the work of scholars that are from within the context rather than relying on American and Eurocentric focused knowledge; and for others, still, by building on moments of discomfort as “teachable moments” or by introducing activities that reframe the official curriculum and its mandated syllabi (e.g., chapters by Al-Muftah & AlKhateeb; Gill & Uppal; Glick; Mazawi; Hamdan). What emerges from these chapters is a wide range of engagement strategies instructors draw on to expand the breadth and scope of human solidarities, grounded in notions of justice, equity, and emancipation. Ethnographic studies of syllabi would help us to understand how the actions and politics of instructors within classrooms and programs open up potential windows of opportunities for new learning, and under what conditions. Autoethnographic studies of syllabi and their enactment could further contribute to shed light on instructors’ narratives and how these inform the syllabus design and enactment. In that sense, despite top-down pressures on syllabi, teachers and instructors find ways to educate their students about knowledges that are suppressed in official curricula, amplifying voices that are either silenced or excluded.

Building “the House of Life,” Land, and Spirit Our bodies were part of the curriculum, in fact our bodies were the curriculum. Hartej Gill and Meena Uppal (Chapter 7) Teacher education—if and when grounded in those material and spiritual elements that generate meaning, engagement, and action—represents a crucial space of emancipation and self-determination. By the same token, a colonized teacher education negates an emancipated sense of being, to the same extent that settler colonialism appropriates and monopolizes the land and seeks to eliminate Indigenous peoples, thus effecting an erasure of the Indigenous from physical space to the same extent of erasing them from consciousness and memory. It is against this backdrop that Michael Marker (2017) observes, “For Indigenous scholarship, place is the foundational beginning of the conversation about power, culture, history, and knowledge” (p. 11). Seen from this perspective, the efforts to colonize the lifeworld of teacher education become even clearer, not just as a manifestation of neoliberal political economies that subdue education to the ebbs and flows of markets. In addition, as Peter Mayo (2015) reminds us, a neoliberal teacher education (and education policy in general) “seeks to condition the emergence of a particular

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subjectivity centred upon economic self-interest and competition.” As such, it “encroaches on all domains of life, even the most intimate ones” (p. 149). Hence, a colonized and subdued teacher education subverts the very bases of the common house that Indigenous communities inhabit. Not only is an uncritical and colonial teacher education curriculum often an accomplice in such a process of destruction but it also plays a significant role in introducing chasms between teaching and learning, subverting the capacity of the colonized to build a meaningful sense of place and being, grounded in a sense of “realness.” Marker (2017) observes that “realness” references those ways in which “physical and metaphysical identity were maintained in an interlaced/layered reality” (p. 7). We argue that colonized teacher education curricula and syllabi, and their enactments, unwind the very ontological and epistemic foundations of the “normative nucleus that gives sense to this activity” (Tardif, 2014, p. 23) and on which teaching is based. In their respective chapters, Archibald, Mazawi, Gill and Uppal, Opini and Neeganagwedgin provide contrasting, yet complementary, entry points to understand how instructors in teacher education can productively engage the intersections of a colonized and colonizing teacher education and their destructive effects. Jo-ann Archibald’s work provides a way to think about the relations between teacher education and Indigeneity in terms of materiality and attachments to the land: What does it mean to be a teacher in relation to a particular place? How do relationships moor teachers to their physical and spiritual environments and how can storytelling emancipate education from its colonizing effects? Archibald’s points to the power of storytelling not just as crucial to inhabiting a place, but further to link teacher education to community, ancestors, and the environment. In her dialogue with Raven, Archibald is told how a decolonized Indigenous teacher education programs opens up horizons of students to a wider range of realities. Here are Raven’s insights: Above all else, the NITEP students get to address their spiritual natures in whichever way works for them through the help of Elders, cultural knowledge holders, and heroes such as me through traditional stories. Jo-ann says that maybe NITEP is like the Raven instead of the Sun. I don’t know if I like that idea. But I admit that there are some educational lessons that emerge from decades of discontent, struggle, and action.

Archibald’s work, and that of those who came before her, point to the centrality of layering activism and scholarship in a productive and complementary way that helps to reclaim Indigenous knowledges within teaching education programs. The centrality of activism and social movement-led struggles over teacher education is taken up in Mazawi’s chapter which discusses the struggles over the bodies of knowledge that inform teacher education in the Palestinian context and the shifts that characterize them over more than a century. His analysis suggests that in a colonized context, teacher education remains tightly linked to decolonizing struggles on two fronts, both internal and external, as part and parcel of a wider struggle over self-determination. Mazawi shows that a dialectic process is necessary that engages a critique of internal

 Toward Provisional Conclusions 265 oppression within a society while at the same time fighting against foreign domination for decolonization to be complete. Such a dialectic process is not without its contradictions. For example, as a number of the contributors note, national sovereignty also requires an internal critique of intersectionalities at play that maintain oppression of groups within a society (e.g., women, LGBTQ+). Quite differently, Hartej Gill and Meena Uppal remind us that the syllabus plays out as a tool of struggle within the wider context of the racialized bodies of educators. Their chapter sensitizes us to the necessity that a decolonized syllabus is not limited to the list of readings shared with students. Nor is it just about adopting an emancipatory stance, as important as these aspects are. It further requires a critical consideration of the epistemic authority instructors bring to the conversation. Gill and Uppal’s experiences are indicative of the chasms that separate discourses on the Indigenizing and decolonizing of syllabi, and how their enactment is further challenged by racism and deeply seated prejudices. The minute instructors walk into the classroom they realize that they do not have the body that is expected by students, and that this often leads to resistance and dismissal of their knowledge and professional authority. Gill and Uppal caution that the “invitation” to examine hegemonic values can be one of violence for marginalized communities when their experience is ignored or minimized by those from dominant positions in society. On their part, Bathseba Opini and Erica Neeganagwedgin engage the possibilities and challenges facing decolonizing epistemologies in articulating syllabi from a social justice perspective. They bring to their scholarship the “African maxim Mtu ni watu, translated as a person is people, meaning a person lives because of others.” Despite the significant differences between the contexts studied, the above chapters emphasize the importance of decolonizing teacher education. They argue that an uncritical teacher education, which objectifies standardized bodies of knowledge disconnected from their experiential and existential articulations, remains deeply immersed in colonizing logics of practice. Yet, decolonizing teacher education, and its concomitant curricula and syllabi, represents a rather complex lifelong and ongoing political struggle, fluid in its articulations. A lifelong struggle is also deeply embedded within capacities associated with social movements, rather than being exclusively seated within institutionally initiated reforms. The learning that occurs within social movements enables the leveraging of new political discourses and new forms of solidarities (Holst, 2018). The authors have taken this challenge seriously and for that reason they have focused on questions of identity, positioning, and embodied experiences as part of challenging racism and prejudice that are often absent from official syllabi.

Intersectionalities in Context The majority of the world’s population belongs to groups that face structural oppression—stateless peoples, unregistered migrants, disabled, racialized, poor, LGBTQ+, women, Indigenous peoples and communities. A central challenge for teacher education is preparing future teachers to provide equitable education to

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students who have experiences of oppression that teachers may not necessarily themselves have had. However, teaching about different forms of oppression can appear to be a disconnected list that fails to help teacher candidates look at intersections of oppression and what this means for how they teach. Intersectionality is an important way to think through solidarities. The authors ask whether syllabi can serve as tools to raise uncomfortable aspects of diversity that are often relegated to the margins in official teacher education curricula. More specifically, they ask how we might develop curricula and syllabi that expand teacher education’s capacity for thinking through discomfort by attending to oppressed bodies and explore ways of being together that are more sustainable for humans and other species. The focus on diversity can often take a depoliticized, neoliberal stance that is based on erasure of past and present oppression. Understanding intersectionality as defined by critical race scholars offers a way of understanding the layering of multiple identities and how they affect the teaching-learning nexus. Hill Collins and Bilje argue: Rather than downplaying or dismissing differences, an intersectional methodology requires negotiating differences that exist within discrete scholarly and political traditions of race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, nationality, ethnicity, colonialism, religion, and immigration. This dialogical methodology assumes no preformatted connection between them. The goal is to make those connections within specific social contexts. (Hill Collins & Bilje, 2016, p. 125)

In their chapter, Esraa Al-Muftah and Hadeel AlKhateeb offer a compelling perspective on these questions. They examine how the power of modernity and coloniality affects the education of teachers in Qatar who teach based on Global North accredited syllabi and curricula. In these curricula, instructors’ bodies are ranked based on the gender and nationality of the instructors, in that echoing concerns by Gill and Uppal. Pressures on teacher educators are further exacerbated within corporatized universities that are presented as providing a professionally recognized universal knowledge. At the intersections of gender, nationality, and institutional hierarchies, the capacities of teacher education instructors to maneuver are significantly affected. Nidhi Sabharwal provides additional insights into how these intersectionalities play out in an education system in which caste, class, and gender affiliations produce a highly inequitable opportunity structure. While legislation provides spaces for Dalit students and students from scheduled caste, Sabharwal explains that students from scheduled castes face discrimination, exclusion, and nonrecognition in higher education curricula more generally. Dalit women are particularly affected within such a hierarchical structure. They face students and colleagues from powerful/privileged castes who do not acknowledge the caste system as a form of oppression, and men who do not see patriarchy as oppression. In this chapter, too, Sabharwal raises issues concerning the role of teacher education in expanding the ability of students to engage uncomfortable knowledges. Sabharwal also points how internal oppression amplifies the effect

 Toward Provisional Conclusions 267 of the intersection of caste and gender on access to equitable opportunities. The chapter by Heidi Janz and Michelle Stack shifts attention to intersections between constructions of ability and educational technology. It provides an analysis of how bodies are expected to move in space and how technology is seen as the way “to fix” bodies and minds seen as deviant from a norm and/or inferior. So embedded is ableism in postsecondary education that it often challenges TAB (temporarily ablebodied) educators who seek all too often “to fix” a disabled student, regardless of the students’ needs and aspirations.

Challenging Relations Central to syllabi in teacher education stands the question of professional judgment, an aspect which has been consistently reconfigured and confined within the expansion of a managerial approach to education in a “knowledge society” (Hargreaves, 2003; Peters, 2006). Moreover, pressures toward conformity push many teachers to avoid controversial discussions. On this very point, Kelly and Minnes-Brandes (2001) interviewed beginning teachers with a commitment to social justice. They found that many teachers were worried about appearing biased and spoke about the importance of appearing neutral. Kelly and Minnes-Brandes argue that the concern about bias and neutrality needs to be challenged. Instead, they propose a language of inclusive and situated engagement: Our preferred teacher role is one of inclusive and situated engagement: “inclusive” to signal a concern to attend to the perspectives of excluded minorities; “situated” to signal that all teachers (or knowers) are located within a particular landscape of identities, values, and social situations from which they view the world; and “engagement” to signal the need to make their viewpoints open to critique as well as to model reasoned inquiry and action. (Kelly & Minnes-Brandes, 2001, pp. 451–52)

In a recent article, Susan Robertson (2017) shows that “new” calls to standardize teaching are not, in fact, new. How teacher education engages professional judgment in a managerially oriented system raises wider questions regarding how teacher candidates come to think “about issues of culture, race, poverty, and social justice” in terms of their relations with their students. Zygmunt and Clark (2016) observe: Candidates need support in developing a lens through which to view and experience culturally responsive pedagogy. They may struggle in applying their knowledge of culturally responsive pedagogy in their work with their students . . . and need scaffolding to reflect critically on their thoughts and processes. (p. 69)

The chapters by Rocha, Hamdan, Glick, and by Neeganagwedgin and Opini are particularly compelling in addressing Zygmunt and Clark’s concern. True, these chapters explore the role of the syllabus and its classroom enactment in terms

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of how it can scaffold teacher educators’ strategies to expose teacher candidates to culturally responsive pedagogies. Notwithstanding, they do so from what we believe are significantly different approaches. Samuel Rocha starts by unpacking the notion of the syllabus from a phenomenological stance, offering different lenses for teacher educators to reflect on when thinking through the organization of a syllabus. Viewing the syllabus as a “correspondence” between teacher and student, rather than a predetermined plan of action, Rocha is keen to capture the dynamic relationships between teacher educators and teacher candidates. For him, the syllabus offers an “existential dimension” that underpins the fostering of a dialogic relationship between them, as a world of possibilities, meanings, and action they jointly come to build. Rocha considers the syllabus, not as a space of authoritative knowledge, but rather as the sublimation of a lived experience that avoids “any kinds of best practices or model behavior,” leaving the articulation of the syllabus to the teacher educator’s “intelligence and judgment.” Taking this position, Rocha does not expect—nor does he seem to be seeking—any particular coherent unity to be reflected in a course’s syllabus. Rather, he seems to be opting for an emergent (or “immanentist”) approach which considers the syllabus as inherent and innate to teacher-student relationships, their intentions, desires, logics, practices, and eventually, their articulation (see Rocha, 2019). The syllabus represents a manifestation of their encounter and a container of their emerging relationships, rather than a predetermined template that casts teacherstudent relationships and shapes them from the outside. Opting for an “intrinsic” view of the syllabus, Rocha posits that the syllabus cannot precede the relationships. It rather needs to emerge into a space of creativity and freedom, which Rocha considers germane to teacher education and the shaping of teachers’ subjectivities. In contrast, having studied in Canada, and currently teaching female students in a Saudi Arabian university, Amani Hamdan is primarily concerned with the multilayered complexities that shape gender inequality and inequity within the Saudi Arabian context. She ponders how to leverage the syllabus and its enactment in ways that could productively engage the contingencies of context—religious, social (patriarchal), and political—in which women’s struggles play out in Saudi Arabia. For her, the syllabus and its articulations make sense in relation to these specific contextual concerns, as a tool of social change and, eventually, transformation. The main challenge therefore is how to promote a syllabus enactment that opens up wider social-political and cultural horizons of opportunity. As such, articulating an empowering syllabus reflects a “commitment to writing ever-more progressive course syllabi—to replace traditional syllabi that have been handed down from above” (italics added), adding that this commitment “stems from the sister commitment to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of both my students’ learning and my own teaching.” In many ways, Hamdan seems to be looking at the syllabus as a space of personal investment and a pledge she is taking upon herself—commitment, in her words—to positively promote a different configuration of the power relations that underpin social relations within Saudi Arabian society. Stephanie Glick provides a significant corrective to the discourse on “mindfulness” that seems to have become dominant in many teacher education settings. In her critique

 Toward Provisional Conclusions 269 of the term, Arthington (2016) considers mindfulness as an approach that “reinforces neoliberal ideology by promoting the concept of the responsible, autonomous, choosing individual who dedicates themselves to a lifelong project of self-improvement and self-discipline” (p. 87). Glick counterargues that teacher education curricula and syllabi need to attend to the role of the body, and its concomitant experiences of pain, suffering, and violence, as a way to help students, become more aware of—and ready to counter—the bases that underpin structural oppression. Glick’s chapter raises questions regarding how teacher education programs should engage issues of mindfulness in relation to intersectionality at play and structural oppression. Clarifying this aspect would help teacher education programs engage the notion of mindfulness in relation to different expertise. In her approach, Glick attempts a synthesis between an emerging vision of the syllabus and a social-political commitment for change and social justice. As do Gill and Uppal, Glick, too, calls for the integration of the body as part and parcel of teaching and learning. She points out that the integration of embodied experiences as part of the syllabus and its enactment in the classroom could take the form of practicing “swaying, stretching, dancing, meditating, and even giggling together in a shared space” with the purpose of easing the development of relationships “on a level that includes and goes beyond words, beyond teacher-student binaries.” These activities help address conflict in constructive ways. They engage the syllabus as a space for thinking about “healing the divisions imparted on us (and taken up by many of us) via colonization, coloniality, racism, sexism, capitalism, and others.” In their final chapter, Erica Neeganagwedgin and Bathseba Opini cogently capture the main challenges facing syllabus design. They emphatically note that over the years, we have observed that, often times in higher education, the burden is on some faculty and courses in certain departments to question and challenge the dominant narrative in syllabus and curriculum design. This is not an individual job; it is important that to note that such tasks are enormous and exhausting physically, mentally, socially, psychologically and spiritually. As such, it is not easy for junior and racialized faculty alone to break down the existing dominant narrative in syllabus design and curriculum. They may be made to stand out as the “whiners” and “troublemakers,” while in a real sense the goal of creating accessible and inclusive education is an institution-wide and collective endeavour that ought to be undertaken by everyone. In spite of this disclaimer and the existing institutional struggles, barriers and resistance, the commitment to engaging in critical questioning of the taken-for-granted knowledge systems and moving toward transformative and meaningful teaching and learning and curriculum in the academy and society at large remains a vital cause worth pursuing.

The call to support a more responsive teacher education often falls to teachers and teacher educators who already must fight to find and maintain a place in

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environments that often see their bodies and knowledge as not belonging in the space, as Gill’s and Uppal’s experience shows. A central issue for teacher education is developing solidarities within and across the vast majority of the world’s socialcultural groups who do not benefit from current ways of organizing society. More specifically, what does it mean for a Canadian teacher to observe how their choices and life is interconnected with the child who mines the cadmium that is used to make cheap mobile phones? Or a lesbian couple waiting in a refugee camp to be granted asylum? Struggles for survival are interconnected. In that sense, there is nothing neutral about the syllabus and the spaces it offers. It can be used in an attempt to lock down how and what is taught and become something teachers and students are expected to perform in a homogenizing manner across diverse contexts. In contrast, thinking through the different approaches the chapters in this section suggest would open new horizons of possibility in thinking not just about a more responsive teacher education, but further to approach the syllabus in relational ways which link it to an engagement with humanity’s wounds and sufferings.

The Syllabus as a Space of Educational Articulations The question of human solidarities emerges as a central concern in the examination of the role of the syllabus in faculties of education and teacher education programs. What role should teacher education play to support future teachers create equitable classrooms that takes as their point of departure the chasms between theory and practice and between idealist rhetoric and the inequitable distribution of material and social resources? Reclaiming and redeeming the role of the syllabus in teacher education is needed to create or maintain authentic spaces that allow students and teachers to think through the ontological and epistemic foundations that give sense to teaching (Tardif, 2014, p. 23). Standardizing and regulating the syllabi to sameness negates the very participatory dynamics and social movement learning capabilities, which students and teachers need to render their teachings viable and pertinent for our time. Given the perilous time we live in—at the light of geopolitical, economic, environmental, and pandemic outbreaks—more research is obviously needed to explore new ways in which the syllabus can be reclaimed as a relational and pedagogically pertinent and responsive space. At the heart of the reclaiming of the syllabus stand notions of participation, the co-construction of knowledge and the building of solidarities that would mitigate the nefarious effects of neoliberal political economies on the aims of education and teacher education. Such a process in teacher education could provide a key opportunity for future teachers to become sensitive to ways of moving through spaces of learning, within and across differences, opening up conversations—both face-to-face and digitally—about the aims of education and what education for freedom means in contemporary societies.

 Toward Provisional Conclusions 271

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Contributors Fariba Adli is Assistant Professor of Education at Alzahra University, Tehran, Iran. Her research interests include knowledge management, quality of higher education, female university experience, and organizational culture in Iranian universities. She is the author of Knowledge Management (2005) and The Development of Knowledge and Knowledge Creation in the Organization: Moving Towards the Knowledge-Creating University (2018) (in Persian) and her contributed articles include “A Comparative Study of the Intangible Assets of Higher Education in Iranian Industry”; “Care: Moral Strategy in Management”; “The Role of University Culture in the Creation of Knowledge in Iranian Higher Education”; “Glass Ceiling in Iran: The Narratives of Female Faculty Members”; “Women in Leadership Positions at Higher Education Institutions in Iran”; and “Female Education in the Islamic Republic of Iran” (2019) (in English). Hadeel AlKhateeb is Assistant Professor in the College of Education at Qatar University. She received her master’s in Translation Studies in the Arab Israeli conflict from Salford University. Her doctorate degree is from University College London where she researched the impact of neoliberalism on Qatar’s language policy and language planning. Her research interests include language policy and language planning, language imperialism, and bilingualism in higher education. Esraa Al-Muftah is a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia in the Department of Educational Studies. She is currently on study leave from her teaching position at Qatar University. Her research interests include transnational feminism, academic mobility, and higher education policy in Arab Gulf states. Jo-ann Archibald, Q’um Q’um Xiiem, from the Stó:lō and St’at’imc First Nations in British Columbia, Canada, is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Educational Studies at the Faculty of Education, University of British Columba (UBC). She has held faculty and leadership positions at UBC. Jo-ann received a bachelor of education degree from UBC, and a master of education degree and a doctor of philosophy (PhD) from Simon Fraser University. Her scholarship relates to Indigenous knowledge systems, storywork/oral tradition, transformative education at all levels, Indigenous educational history, teacher and graduate education, and Indigenous methodologies. Ferdinand Mwaka Chipindi is Lecturer at the University of Zambia, where he also received an M.Ed. and a B.A.Ed. He holds a PhD from the University of Minnesota. His research interests are in higher education, faculty identities, educational policy, and teacher education.

274

Contributors

Maren Elfert, is Lecturer in Education and Society at the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London, and is a 2018 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellow. Her research focuses on global governance of education and the influence of international organizations on the globalization of educational ideas and policies. She is the author of the book UNESCO’s Utopia of Lifelong Learning: An Intellectual History, published in 2018 with Routledge. Hartej Gill was born in India in the state of Punjab, where she began her elementary education. She is the daughter of Mohinder and Jiri Gill and the grand-daughter of Kishan and Naranjan Gill and Balwant and Pritam Sull, who all come from a tradition of rice, sugarcane, date, wheat, and vegetable farming in their respective villages of Fatehpur, Moranwali, Jindowal, and Palahi. She taught in French-English Immersion Programs and served as vice-principal at Sherwood Park Elementary School before joining the Department of Educational Studies at UBC in 2006. Working from anti-colonial and decolonizing frameworks, Hartej is interested in leadership for social justice and transformative education and in bridging the gap between theory, practice, and social activism. As a scholar-practitioner, she uses her praxis to co-create transformative and reciprocal relationships between universities, public schools, and the community. Stephanie Glick is a PhD candidate in Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. Her scholarship explores dominant societal groups’ complicity and co-creation of systemic violences as well as possibilities for societal healing. Stephanie has worked with refugees, cancer survivors and caregivers, women experiencing homelessness, and runaway and homeless youth. Amani K. Hamdan Alghamdi is an award-winning scholar, and Associate Professor at Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University in Dammam (formerly University of Dammam), Saudi Arabia. Amani is widely published and well known in the field of education in Saudi Arabia and abroad. Her research interest is multifaceted and includes education and curricula in Saudi Arabia; analytical and critical thinking and their infusion in teaching; online education and cultural manifestation; higher education; narrative research; and critical multicultural education. Dr. Amani has over twenty-four years teaching experience in higher education in Saudi Arabia, Canada, and the United States. She has presented papers at various international conferences and has published in American, Canadian, Saudi, and Australian journals. Heidi Janz is Adjunct Professor with the John Dossetor Health Ethics Centre at the University of Alberta, specializing in the field of disability ethics. Her PhD dissertation was nominated for a Governor General’s Award, and she is the winner of the 2010 Tanis Doe Award for Canadian Disability Study and Culture. She is also a playwright and filmmaker. Her creative work focuses on making the experiences of people with disabilities accessible to both people with disabilities and people who are temporarily able bodied. To date, she has written and produced four stage plays, and co-written and co-directed two short documentaries. Heidi Janz also has cerebral palsy.

 Contributors 275 Carrie Karsgaard is a doctoral student in policy studies at the University of Alberta, specializing in Theoretical, Cultural, and International Studies in Education. She has been awarded the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship and the President’s Doctoral Prize of Distinction. Her research interests include critical and anti-colonial studies in international, intercultural, and environmental education. André Elias Mazawi serves as Professor, sociologist of education, in the Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver (BC). He is interested in comparative political and sociological aspects of educational and higher education policies and in the political economy of teachers’ work. Golnar Mehran is Professor of Education at Alzahra University in Tehran, Iran. She has acted as an education consultant to UNICEF, UNESCO, and the World Bank. Golnar obtained her master’s degree in education at Harvard University and her PhD in comparative and international education from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she has also taught as a visiting professor. Her research interests include female education in Iran, socialization of Iranian schoolchildren, girls’ education in the Middle East and North Africa, ideology and education in the Islamic Republic, and the Islamization and politicization of education in postrevolutionary Iran. Erica Neeganagwedgin (Taino) is Assistant Professor in Critical Policy, Equity, and Leadership Studies at Western University (Ontario). Her areas of teaching and research interests include Indigenous intellectual systems; Indigenous epistemologies; Indigenous history and educational policies; history of Indigenous education in North American contexts, identity and comparative historical race/cultural relations; and Indigenous research methodologies. Bathseba Opini is an instructor in the Department of Educational Studies, Faculty of Education, University of British Columbia. Her research interests include critical race and anti-racism education, critical disability, international education, and teacher education. Samuel D. Rocha is Associate Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of British Columbia. His next book is titled The Syllabus as Curriculum: A Reconceptualist Approach (Routledge, 2020). Nidhi S. Sabharwal is currently Associate Professor at the Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi. She has a PhD in Geography from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Dr. Sabharwal has previously served as the director at the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi. She has studied intergroup inequalities across human development indicators, focusing on the role of caste- and gender-based discrimination in market and nonmarket institutions, and the impact of social protection policies. She has also studied excluded groups in other countries, such as the Burakumin in Japan.

276

Contributors

Her current research focuses on issues of college readiness, student diversity, inclusive excellence, and equity in higher education. Janet Serenje-Chipindi is Lecturer of Sociology of Education at the University of Zambia. She holds an M.Ed. in Sociology of Education from the University of Zambia. Janet’s research focuses on teacher preparation, sociology of education, and literacy in early childhood education. Lynette Shultz, is Professor and Director of the Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research at the University of Alberta. Her research is focused on how global issues and processes impact the well-being of people and other species on the planet. She has researched and published widely on the topics of global citizenship and education; ethical internationalization; youth participation and citizenship; and global governance and education. Michelle Stack is Associate Professor, public commentator on education, and former senior policy advisor. Her research interests include university rankings and the role of media in the policy-making process. She is the author of Global University Ranking and the Mediatization of Higher Education and is currently editing a second book on rankings, journal impact factors, and inequity in higher education. Michelle has led numerous courses and workshops focused on building the capacity of scholars to engage media in expanding research-informed policy debates. Matthew A. M. Thomas is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Education and Sociology of Education at the University of Sydney. He holds a PhD from the University of Minnesota and a master’s degree from Columbia University, Teachers College. His research examines educational policies, pedagogical practices, and higher and teacher education. Meena Uppal is an educator and a mother of a vibrant, inquisitive young girl. For over fifteen years she has worked for the Richmond School District (British Columbia) in the Integrated Academics Program, helping disenfranchised marginalized youth re-appear in the curriculum and all other facets of their lives by building secure attachment and a sense of self. Her social justice lens and activism embodies her various roles and is of utmost importance in her pedagogical practices.

Index Abdi, Ali  135–6 ableism  187–8 definition  188 in education of teachers  16, 188–93 embodied experience and  188–93 Aboriginal  40, 45–8, 125, 132 n.1, 143 education  77–8 knowledge  26 Abu-Saad, Ismail  107 academic accreditation in Qatar University (QU) autobiographical narratives  157–9 decolonial  154–5 faculty members’ location  155 hierarchies and classification  156–7 modernity/coloniality  155 universal truth  155 personalities and experiences with  158–9 teaching standardized courses  160 bodies of knowledge  161–2 lack of agency  160–1 negotiation and resistance  162–3 self-estrangement  162 academic publishers, in teacher education syllabi  29–33 Adli, Fariba  14 African Americans  238 African Canadian educators  252 Ahmed, S.  139 al-Dabbagh, Mustafa Murad  95–6 n.9 Alemán, S.  253 Al-faz’a  159 Alfred, R. L.  162 Alhazza, Salwa  218 al-Huseini, Ishak Musa  95–6 n.9 al-Husri, Sāti’  92 Ali, Nijmeh  100 al-Khalidi, Ahmad Samih  95 n.9 al Kuraya, Khawla  218 Almawrid (The Resource) Teacher Development Center  104

Alnassar, S. A.  226 al-Qasim, Ahmad  95–6 n.9 Al-Ru’a  105 al-Sakakini, Khalil  93, 95 n.8 al-Salih, Muhammad Suleiman  92 al-Sifri, ‘Issa  95–6 n.9 AlSuwaidi, Khalifa  165 Andreotti, V. de Oliveira  27, 33 Antonius, George  92 Anzaldua, Gloria  119 Apple, Michael  42 Arab College of Jerusalem  93–5, 94 n.7, 96 Arab Education in Israel (Mar’i)  110 Arab Education in Mandatory Palestine (Tibawi)  97 Archibald, Q’um Q’um Xiiem Jo-ann  14–15, 119 Association of Canadian Deans of Education  27 Au, W.  251 Australia, SFE courses in assessment  46 concerns  47–8 contents  42–6 contexts  40–2 proposed pedagogy  43–4 sociological topics  44–6 structure and administration  43 teacher educators in  40 autonomy  109 The Awakening of the Arabs: The Story of the National Arab Movement (George)  92 Balfour Declaration of 1917  90, 90 n.4, 94 n.7 Ballantine, Jeanne  45 Bannerji, Himani  119 Basic Law  91, 91 n.6 Battiste, M.  136 Bauman, Zygmunt  10 Beydas, Khalil  95 n.9

278 Bilge, Sirma  11–12 Block, L. A.  132 bodies of knowledge  7 academic accreditation in QU  161–2 alternative  8–9 within Global South societies  8 instructors experience/struggles  2 body as pedagogical tool  238–9 violence and  238–9 body-centered teaching  231 Boler, M.  123–5 Bopp, M. L.  248 Borden, L. L.  137 border thinking  157 Boullata, Kamal  93 British Columbia (B.C.)  139 British-Zionist collusion  90 Britzman, Deborah  216 Brown, A. L.  251 Brown, R. J.  248 Brown, Yvonne  119 Bruce, J.  27 Calderón, D.  251 Canada, teachers education in  24–6 Aboriginal education  26 colonization  73–4, 135–6 curriculum  26 decolonization  132–46 educators  133–4 foundations course  134–5 pedagogy  135–41 process of  136–7 reflective practice as approach  137–8 teacher candidates’ engagement  141–4 educators  133–4 Indigenous people/curriculum  25–6, 73–81, 132–46 liberal multiculturalism  24–5 programs  25–6 social cartography approach  28–9 syllabi academic publishers and epistemic traditions in  29–33 decolonization of  33–4, 134–5 durability  33–4

Index universities, internationalization of  26–8 capitalism  235 Cartesian knowledge  229 Castagno, A. E.  139, 141 caste system, in India  175 Centre for Global Citizenship Education and Research (CGCER)  21 certification agencies  2 challenging relations  16, 267–70 Chipindi, Ferdinand Mwaka  14 Chisholm, Linda  1–2 Cho, Sumi  12 Choudhury, Shakil  238 Christensen, Carol  119 Chronicle of Higher Education (Wasley)  6 civic-learning approach, to education  172–4 community engagement  173 in Indian context  174 service learning  173 for South Africa  173 for United States  173 classrooms  128–30 disability issues in  233–4 emotion in  123–4 marginalization issues in  234 pedagogy of discomfort in  123–4, 126–7 tensions in  122–3 wellness into  231–4 Cloete, N.  173 cognitive imperialism  136, 140 cognitive injustice  23–44 cognitive justice, geopolitics of knowledge in education and  23–44 Cohen, W. M.  247 College of Education at Qatar University (QU)  153, 164–5 academic accreditation, decolonial  154–5 faculty members’ location  155 hierarchies and classification  156–7 modernity/coloniality  155 universal truth  155 autobiographical narratives  157–9 educational accreditation, personalities and experiences with  158–9

 Index 279 teaching standardized courses  160 bodies of knowledge  161–2 lack of agency  160–1 negotiation and resistance  162–3 self-estrangement  162 colonialism  24, 28, 47–8, 74, 86, 90, 112, 124, 135–6, 138, 140 and education system  142–3 understanding and acknowledging  141–2 coloniality  235, 235 n.4 colonial thinking, legacies of  235–6 Color  237 common good  172 Comparative Study of Family in Islam and the West  59 Comprehensive Scientific Plan of the Country  54–5 Connell, R.  24, 29–30, 47 Cooper, Afua  119 course instructors  2 Crampton, J. W.  29 Crenshaw, Kimberle Williams  12 Critique of the Trend in Rising Mysticisms  61 Cultural Revolution (enqelab-e farhangi)  51–3 curriculum; see also syllabi Eurocentric  121–30 in Indian higher education  172–3, 177 Indigenous  25–6, 73–81, 132–46 non-Eurocentric  123 standardized  254 teachers education in Canada  26 Dagdukee, Jamal  91 Dangor, S.  54 Daniell, L.  39 Davis, Rochelle  95 n.8 decoloniality  154 “Decolonizing Pedagogies Teacher Reference Booklet” (McGregor)  140 decolonizing pedagogy, Canada  132–46 conceptualization  139–40 co-teaching on  138 education foundations course on  134–5

educators and  133–4 engagements with  138–41 literature on  135–7 planning  138 process of  136–7 reflective practice as approach  137–8 teacher candidates’ engagement  133–4 colonialism, understanding and acknowledging  141–2 colonialism and education system  142–3 decolonization, process of  143–4 teachers as colonizers  143–4 Deep Diversity (Choudhury)  238 Dei, George Sefa  119, 136 del Guadalupe Davidson, M.  251 The Democratic Constitution  108 de Montaigne, Michel  206 Designing A Motivational Syllabus: Creating a Learning Path for Student Engagement (Harrington and Thomas)  3 de Sousa Santos, Boaventura  7–8, 23 Developmental Psychology with a Glance at Islamic Sources  59 Dewey, John  95 Diamond, R.  247 digital mapping, in teacher education syllabi  28–33 disability  233–4 Disabled Student Services (DSS)  189 diversity  28, 175–6 Dow, K. L.  226 Dow, Martha  119 Dragon System  189–90 Dua, E.  248 Du Bois, W. E. B.  251 Dussel, Enrique  34 education  34 civic-learning approach to  172–4 cognitive justice and geopolitics of knowledge in  23–44 globalization of  21 inclusive  26 sociology of  43, 44–6 educational technology  187–8, 193–5 ableism and  188–93

280

Index

disability, geographies of  188, 195–200 Dragon System  189–90 education building  193–4 personalization  195–200 standardization  195–200 educational transformation, Faculties of Education  58 Education in Islam (Motahari)  59 educators  133–4 Edwards, K. T.  251 Ekong, D.  173 Elfert, Maren  14, 21–2 Ellsworth, E.  33, 258 embodiment  230–1 epidermalization of inferiority  99 epistemic traditions, in teacher education syllabi  29–33 Esraa Al-Muftah  15 Ezewu, Edward  45 Faculties of Education  1–2 educational transformation in Iran  58 Indigenization  62–3 Islamization  58–62 proletarianization of teaching force in  6–7 Family in Islam  59 Fanon, Franz  99, 154 feminism  218–19 Fine, Michelle  119 first philosophy  206 Fook, J.  137 Fornaciari, C. J.  245, 249 Foucault, Michel  4 Friedman, Michelle  1–2 Fundamentals and Principles of Islamic Administration: A New Approach to Management in the Third Millenium and (the) Globalization (Era)  60 Fundamentals of Education in the Qur’an  59 Fundamentals of Islamic Humanities  60 Fundamentals of Sociology of Education: With Special Reference to Africa (Kibera and Kimokoti)  45 A Future Vision of the Palestinian Arabs in Israel  108, 109–10

Gaytán, S.  253 Gaza Strip  86 n.2, 87–92, 100–6, 113–14 GCC; see Gulf Cooperation Council General Union of Teachers in Palestine  99 geopolitics of knowledge  9, 14, 262–3 cognitive justice and  23–44 teacher education syllabi and  21–34 Ghaith, Nasser bin  163 Ghanem, As’ad  111 Gill, Hartej  15, 260 Giroux, Henry  88 Glick, Stephanie  16, 260 global citizenship  21, 27–8 global coloniality  154–5 globalization of education  21 Graham, M.  23 Great Muslim Educators  59 Greenberg, Ela  93 Greene, Maxine  216 Grosfoguel, R.  155 Guba, E. G.  137 Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)  153 Habanek, Darlene  5 Habashi, Janette  112 Hadeel AlKhateeb  15 The Haifa Declaration  108 Hajj, Samir  94 Hale, S. A.  23 Hall, L.  138 Hamdan, Amani  16 Hammack, Floyd  45 Hamraie, Aimi  196 The Hanging of Angelique (Cooper)  119 Harding, Sandra  2, 8 Hare, J.  145 Harrington, Christine  3 Harris, H.  248–9 Harris, Mary  4–5 Hebrew University of Jerusalem  94 n.7 Heikkinen, Anja  1 Henry, F.  247–8 High Council of Cultural Revolution (HCCR)  52 Higher Education Revolutions in The Gulf: Globalization and Institutional Viability (Badry and Willoughby)  156

 Index 281 Hill Collins, Patricia  11–12 Hogan, V.  39 homeland minority  108 hooks, bell  216, 220, 250 Hoppers, Odora  24 Hua, L.U.  230 human bonds  11 humanities, embodiment in  230–1 Icaza, R.  157–8 ideal Muslim  51 The Ideas of Great Muslim Educators on Child Development  60 The Ideas of Muslim Thinkers on Education  59 Imam Khomeini’s Leadership Strategy  60 Incheon Declaration for Education 2030  172 inclusive education  26 Indian Control of Indian Education Policy (Kirkness)  74, 75 Indian higher education  170–2, 182–3 campuses  170–1 civic learning as analytical approach to education  172–4 concerns  174–80 caste system  175 curricular transactions, syllabus, and readings, exclusion from  176–7 curriculum development, centralized process of  177 diversity, teachers negative conceptions of  175–6 pedagogical exclusions  177 social identity  175 socially excluded groups, attitudes and beliefs of students toward  177–80 curricular interventions for challenges of diverse students  181–2 curriculum transformation  172–3 discrimination in  174–80 expansion  170 gender justice in  182–3 intergroup relations  171 isolation in  174–80 massification in  182 reservation policies  170–1, 178–80

student diversity in  171 unequal treatment in  174–80 women in  170, 179–80 Indigenization (boomi sazi)  55–6, 62–3 Indigenous course material; see also Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP) authorship  32 University, Country, and Authorship  32 Indigenous knowledge  27–8, 32–3, 80, 139–40 Indigenous peoples  15, 132 n.1 of Canada  25–6, 73–81, 132–46 curriculum for  26 Palestinians in Israel  108 Indigenous teacher education programs (ITEPs)  78–9 institutional racism  143 international development organizations (IDOs)  156 internationalization of Canadian universities  26–8 definition  26 in global mobility  27 in teacher education in Canada  28 intersectionality  11–12, 15–16, 260, 265–7 engagement with  12 as modality of knowledge production  12–13 scholarship  12 An Introduction to Real and False Mysticisms,  61 Ireland, B.  144 Islamic Administration  60 Islamic educational revolution  52–3 Islamic identity (hoviyat-e eslami)  55 Islamic Morality  60 Islamic Republic of Iran, education in Cultural Revolution  52–3 educational transformation at Faculties of Education  58 Indigenization  62–3 Islamization  58–62 higher education  51–2, 56–8 Indigenization  55–6 Islamization  53–5 overview  51–2, 56–8

282

Index

Islamic Thoughts in Administration  60 Islamization (eslami sazi)  53–5, 58–62 of educational and research institutions  53–5 goal of  54–5 of humanities  55 of master’s program in Educational Technology  61 Israel, teacher education  87–8, 90, 106–11 Palestinian educational system in  109–11 Palestinians in  106–11 self-administered education system  109–10 Israel’s Colonial Project in Palestine: Brutal Pursuit (Zureik)  89–90 issue mapping  28 ITEPs; see Indigenous teacher education programs Jamal, Amal  108 James, C.  248 Janz, Heidi  16, 187–200, 260 Jenkins, R.  175 Journal of Education Policy and Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education  29 Jungen, Brian  119 Kapoor, Dip  112 Karsgaard, Carrie  14, 21–2 Kazem, Mohammad  164 Keys, J.  246 Khalaf, Salah  97–8 Khaldi, Musa  103–4 Khaldoun, Ibn  161 n.2 Khaled, Leila  98–9 Khatibi, Abdel  162 Khawaja  159 Khomeini, Ayatollah  54 Kibera, Lucy  45 Kimokoti, Agnes  45 King, Ruth  238 Kipling, Rudyard  94 Kirkness, Verna J.  74, 76 Knight, J.  26 Kobayashi, A.  248 Kumashiro, Kevin  119, 259

Kuokkanen, R.  248 Kurdi, Wasim  105 Kymlicka, Will  108 Lacan, Jacques  10 Ladson-Billings, G.  252 Large, D.  143 Larrivee, B.  137–8 Latour, Bruno  28 Learning Management System (LMS)  217 Letters to a Young Poet (Rilke)  213–14 Li, P.  248 liberal multiculturalism  24–5 Lincoln, Y. S.  137 Liquid Modernity (Bauman)  10, 11 literacy  10 Little Bear, L.  141, 143 LMS; see Learning Management System Lucas, T.  132 Lund Dean, K.  245, 249 Makkawi, Ibrahim  113 Malish, C. M.  171 Management in Islam  60 mapping  28 marginalization  234 Mar’i, Sami Khalil  110 Marxist-Leninist Palestinian movement  98 Mathur, Ashok  119 Mazawi, André Elias  15, 27 Mazrui, Ali  8 McCall, Leslie  12 McGregor, H.  136, 140 McIntosh, Peggy  119 Meader, J.  137 Meekosha, Helen  195 Mehran, Golnar  14 Mental Health in Islam  60 Methodology in the Humanities from the Viewpoint of Muslim Thinkers  60 microaggressions definition  239 reflections and suggestions on  240–2 students’  239–40 Mignolo, W. D.  24, 157 Mihesuah, D.  249

 Index 283 Millis, B. J.  247 mindfulness  232 mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)  232 Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology (MSRT), Islamic Republic of Iran  52 modern global imaginary  27 modernization  156 Montani, Adrienne  119 Monture-Angus, Patricia  119 Mootoo, Shani  119 Morgan, C.  154 Motahari, Ayatollah Morteza  59 Moughrabi, Fouad  105 multiculturalism  15, 24–5, 28 Munroe, E. A.  137 Muqaddimah (Khaldoun)  161 n.2 Muslim  51 Nakba  96–9 “narratives of rescue”  191–2 National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE)  155 National Service Scheme (NSS)  174 Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP)  15, 71–2, 71 n.2 challenges  80–1 commitment  80 continuity  80 cooperation  80 Indigenous education courses  74–8 EDCP 143  77 EDCP 244  77–8 EDCP 362  77 EDUC 140  76 EDUC 141  76–7 EDUC 240  77 Indigenous knowledge  80 lessons  78–9 logo  72 success  79–80 wholistic model  79 Neeganagwedgin, Erica  15, 16 New South Wales (NSW) Education Standards Authority  41 NGOs; see nongovernmental organizations

Nilson, Linda  3 Non-Aligned Movement  99 n.10 non-Eurocentric pedagogy  123 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)  87 activism  100–1 n.12, 100–11 educational  101–2 non-Western knowledges  23, 33 Obaid, Thuraya  218 objects of knowledge  2 O’Brien, G. J.  247 Once upon an Elephant: A Down to Earth Tale of Ganesh and What Happens When Worlds Collide (Mathur)  119 Oolbekkink-Marchand, Helma  4 Opini, Bathseba  15, 16, 195 oppression  120, 123–30, 135, 138, 141, 143–5 Organizational Ethics in the Words of Imam Ali  60 Orr, A. M.  137 Other  229 n.1 “other backward classes” (OBCs) - per India’s Constitutional provisions  170–1, 170 n.1 Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)  90, 99–100 Palestinian Authority  102–3 Palestinian NGO activism  100–11 Palestinians: From Peasants to Revolutionaries (Sayigh)  97 Palestinians, teacher education struggles  86–114 in cities  94 colonial context  89–92 curricula and syllabi, chasms between rhetoric and practice in  92–6 embodiments  97–100 in Gaza Strip  101–6 indigeneity  108, 107 n.18 in Israel  106–11 reflections  111–14 in rural communities  93–4 steadfastness  100–11 in West Bank  101–6 Palestinian teachers  86–8

284

Index

Parks, Jay  4–5 Patari, Jenni  1 “patch-work” pedagogy  133 pedagogy decolonization  133 of discomfort in classrooms  123–4, 126–30 patch-work  133 Pepe, Alessandro  91 personalized learning  26, 196 Phillips, J.  140 Pillow, W.  138 pluriversalism  34 political economy  22, 26 Politics and Administration from the Viewpoint of Imam Ali  60 Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)  98 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)  235 Practice Makes Practice (Britzman)  216 pre-service teachers (PSTs)  38 SFE courses for  39–40 Principles and Fundamentals of Administration from the Viewpoint of Islam  60 Professional Ethics in Islam  60 professional space  4 progressive education  215 proletarianized instructors  6 Prophet Mohammad, teachings of  53–5, 59–60 The Psychological Viewpoint of Ayatollah Mesbah-e Yazdi  60 public education, in Canadian provinces  26 public knowledge  23 purposeful teaching  132–3 Qaddoumi, Farouk  100 Qaimari, Bihan  104 Qattan Centre for Educational Research and Development (QCERD)  104 QCERD; see Qattan Centre for Educational Research and Development Quijano, Aníbal  156 Qur’an, teachings of  54–5, 59–62, 217–18

racism  235; see also institutional racism Ramos, H.  248 Rawdat al-ma’arif al-wataniya  93 Razack, Sherene  119 religious jurisprudent (vali-ye faqih)  51 Research on Islamic Educational Issues  60 Research on the Training of Shi’i Clerics  60 Responsible Child Rearing in Islam  59–60 right of self-determination  91 Rights of People With Disabilities  196 Right to Education Act (2009)  170 Rilke, Rainer Maria  213–14 Robb, J.  248 Rocha, Sam  16, 260 Roulstone, A.  191 Routledge  29 Sabharwal, Nidhi  15–16, 171 Sa’di, Ahmad  107 Said, Edward  8 Sakakini, Khalil  95 n.9 Saudi Arabia, course syllabi in  215–19 administrative approach  222–3 assessment, methods of  222 challenges  217–18 development of  225–6 grading schemes  222 higher education system  222–3 implications for pedagogical practices  226 pedagogical aspects  219–20 references  216–17 teaching philosophy  220–2 theoretical aspects  219–20 women education  218–19 Sayigh, Rosemary  97 scheduled castes (SCs)  170–1, 170 n.1 scheduled tribes (ST)  170–1, 170 n.1 Schneider, C. G.  172 self-administered education system  109–10 self-care  236 self-estrangement  162 Serenji-Chipindi, Janet  14, 42 sexism  235 SFE; see social foundations of education Shahjahan, R. A.  154 Shinn, Chris  103

 Index 285 The Shocking Truth about Indians  75 Shor, I.  133 Shreve, B.  144 Shultz, Lynette  14, 21–2, 24 Silencing Aboriginal curricular content and perspectives through multiculturalism: There are other children here (St. Denis)  140 Simpson, Leanne Betasamosake  136 Sindoh, Queenta Anyele  1–2 Sixth Economic, Social, and Cultural Development Plan of the Islamic Republic of Iran  55 Smith, Linda Tuhiwai  8, 119 Smith, M.  248 Smolewski, M.  135 social  28 cartography  28–9 disintegration  11 identities  175 justice  10 social foundations of education (SFE), syllabi of  38–40 Australia vs. Zambia, comparative analysis of assessment  46 contents  42–6 contexts  40–2 proposed pedagogy  43–4 sociological topics  44–6 structure and administration  43 concerns  47–8 courses  39–46 scholars/educators  39 social sciences, embodiment in  230–1 sociology of education  43, 44–6 The Sociology of Education: A Systematic Analysis (Ballantine and Hammack)  45 The Sociology of Education (Ezewu)  45 soft power  8 Spivak, Gayatri  33, 113 Stack, Michelle  16, 187–200, 260 steadfastness  100–11; see also Sumūd, Palestinian educational activism Stein, S.  27, 33 Stephens, M.  23 Sterling, Robert  79 strong objectivity  2

Sue, D. W.  239 Sulik, G.  246 Sumūd, Palestinian educational activism  100–12 Suša, R.  27 Swanson, Jean  119 syllabi  2–7, 22, 119–21, 245–55 as accountability agreement  5 body of instructor and  9 in Canada for teachers education  29–34 as communication tool  3 competing practices  6–7 as contractual status  5, 245–6 creation  4 decolonization  8 design and enactment  7, 245–55, 259–60 importance of  247–8 for Indigenization  247–8 Kumashiro’s observation on  259–60 for transformative learning  247 to transgress  249–53 for Western education system  248–9 for wholistic learning techniques  249 disclaimers  6 disclosures  6 distribution to students  6 as embodied literacy  10 enactments  9–13 Eurocentric  121–30 in faculties of education  5 higher education  6, 245–55 institutional body and  9 Iranian faculties of education  58 Iranian higher education  54–5, 57–8 knowledge and power, intersections of  4 legal stipulations  6 in life of teacher  205–14 body of knowledge  210–11 as correspondence  213 as essay  213 existential dimension  208–9 forness  212 fromness  212

286

Index

as outline  213 pedagogical offering  210–11 personhood  209–10 material  5 as motivational and supportive tool  3 as planning tool/road map  3 and politics of educational articulation  258–61, 270 power effects of  7–8 practices with  4 as professional spaces  10 purposes of  3 in Saudi Arabia  215–27 as scholarship  3 SFE  38–48 students’ bodies and  9 and teaching  3 theoretical approach  7–13 tri-way intersection (see intersectionality) Talpade-Mohanty, Chandra  119 The Tamer Institute for Community Education  103 Tatum, B. D.  142, 252 Tawil, Sobhi  102 Taylor and Francis  29 Teacher as Stranger (Greene)  216 teacher education programs ableism in  16 in Canadian context  24–34 digital mapping in  28–33 knowledge production in  16 in Palestinian society  86–114 Raven’s knowledge in Indigenous  71–83 Teaching to Transgress (hooks)  216 Temporarily AbleBodied people (TABs)  188, 192–3, 197, 200 Terasahde, Sini  1 Thomas, Matthew  14 Thomas, Melissa  3 Thompson, B.  231 Thorndike, Edward  95 Tibawi, Abdul Latif  92, 94, 96 Toney, D.  137 Toohey, S.  246, 249 Totah, Khalil  95, 95 n.8 Toulouse, P.  145

tricksters  71 Trudeau, Justin  24–5 Tukan, Kadri Hafez  95–6 n.9 Twenty-Year Outlook of the Islamic Republic of Iran  54 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples  144–5 Universal Design (UD)  196 universal knowledge  155 University of British Columbia (UBC)  121 University of Sydney (USYD), SFE courses in  41–2 concerns  47–8 proposed pedagogies  43–4 sociological topics  44–6 syllabi assessment  46 syllabus  43 University of Zambia (UNZA), SFE courses in  41–2 concerns  47–8 proposed pedagogies  43–4 sociological topics  44–6 syllabi assessment  46 syllabus  43 UNZA; see University of Zambia Uppal, Meena  15, 260 ‘uqdat al-khawaja  159 USYD; see University of Sydney Vázquez, R.  157–8 Veronese, Guido  91 Villegas, A. M.  132 violence, body and  238–9 Visvanathan, S.  23 Vora, N.  156–7 Wahbeh, Nader  103–5 Washington, Booker T.  251 Wasley, Paula  6 Waziyatawin, A. W.  135 wellness  230, 233–4 into classroom  231–4 mindfulness-based interventions  236 paradoxes of  236–7 resistance colonial thinking, legacies of  235–6

 Index 287 in higher education institution  234–5 in paradoxes of wellness  236–7 in teacher candidates  237 for teacher educators  232–3 Wesley-Esquimaux, C.  135 West Bank  86 n.2, 87–92, 100–6, 113–14 Western education system  248–9 Western knowledge  154, 154 n.1 Westoxicated (gharbzadeh)  51 Whatman, S. L.  140 White, Vincent  119 Wilkes, M.  138 Wilson, C. A.  249 xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm (Musqueam)  71, 71 n.1

Yaghi, Shaher  91 YellowBird, M.  135 Zambia, SFE courses in assessment  46 concerns  47–8 contents  42–6 contexts  40–2 proposed pedagogy  43–4 sociological topics  44–6 structure and administration  43 teacher educators in  40 Zembylas, M.  123–5 Zionist movement  94 n.7, 96 Zionist project  90 Zureik, Elia  90

288