Decolonising pedagogy: A critical engagement with debates in the university in South Africa

• Published in: Journal of education (Durban) Vol. 2024; no. 94; pp. 146 - 160
• Main Author: Hardman, Joanne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of KwaZulu-Natal 01.01.2024; University of KwaZulu-Natal on behalf of the South African Education Research Association
• Subjects: decolonial pedagogy; Education & Educational Research; Education, Scientific Disciplines; Education, Special; Learning; Teaching; Vygotsky; decolonial pedagogy; teaching; learning; Vygotsky
• ISSN: 0259-479X; 2520-9868
• DOI: 10.17159/2520-9868/i94a09

In 2015, universities around South Africa ground to a standstill while students called first for the fall of Rhodes and then for the fall of fees. For educational theorists such as Vygotsky (1962/1986) it is in moments of crisis that contradictions within a system become visible, forcing change in it. For Roy & Hanacek (2023) crises are portals through which we travel and effect change. Change, of course, can be progressive in the sense that one moves forward to overcome a crisis, but it can also be regressive. With the call for fees to fall, students went further and articulated a need to transform the material and epistemic foundations of the academy to reflect previously marginalised voices. In this largely theoretical paper, I develop an argument for what decolonial pedagogy could look like in context. Drawing on the work of Vygotsky (1986), Freire & Ramos (1970) and Derrida (2016) I engage with what decolonial education is, as a broad concept, before narrowing my gaze to focus specifically on pedagogy and how one can develop a decolonial pedagogy, drawing very largely on the work of Vygotsky whose transformative approach to cognitive development speaks to a transformative pedagogy.