How to Decolonise the STEM Curriculum: A Practical Guide

This is a concise guide to decolonising the curriculum in STEM subjects. Recognising that this topic is not commonly discussed among STEM academics, the guide seeks to emphasise the primary theories originating from the social sciences, while offering practical guidance for classroom implementation.

What is Decolonising the Curriculum?

3 boxes containing text "Who created foundational knowledge?", "Who has access to it and why?", a"How do we use this knowledge today?"

Decolonising the Curriculum aims to illuminate how historical and contemporary injustices have influenced core elements of modern thought, disciplinary identities, and persistent inequalities. It provides a way to open conversations and improve the relevance and accessibility of curriculum content. The objective is to create disciplines that are inclusive and accessible to everyone, while actively addressing the significant challenges that current and future generations will face.

Decolonising curricula doesn't entail eliminating or disregarding well-established scientific knowledge or renowned scientific figures. Rather, it involves recognizing that science/technology hasn't evolved in a so-called 'neutral' a-political, a-historical landscape. It aims to contextualise and provide better intellectual insight into knowledge creation, both past and present. It seeks to acknowledge the scientists and ideas that have traditionally been marginalized as a result of colonialism and socio-political power structures.

It's valuable to acknowledge that STEM curricula across various parts of the world often reflect a predominantly Eurocentric perspective. This tendency is rooted in historical power dynamics shaped by colonisation and the ways knowledge has been formalized in European settings. For instance, although the Pythagorean theorem was independently discovered in multiple cultures, it is traditionally attributed to one person, highlighting how certain perspectives can dominate. Enhancing contextual awareness and diversifying content, could stimulate student engagement, while increasing the relevance of courses for the wide array of students we teach.

Short, informative videos

AdvancedHE Decolonising the Curriculum (2 min summary)

Black Student Voices: What Does It Mean To Decolonise the Curriculum? (4 min summary)

What does your science curriculum mean to you? Student and Staff voices (15 mins)

This interview with Angela Saini introduces ideas around why STEM subjects are colonised and need decolonising (5 mins)

Three Steps to an Inclusive Curriculum¹

1 - Ensure all students can access the curriculum

Check that all content uses inclusive language and provides a glossary of new and complex terms (where necessary). Make sure the curriculum avoids any use of derogatory language and does not promote perceived notions of superiority or inferiority among any groups of people.

Identify racist and gendered terminology, which is prevalent in some STEM subjects. For example, instead of employing "master" or "slave" terminology to depict computing agents, can we adopt the terms "coordinator" and "workers," as proposed by colleagues in Informatics involved in decolonisation work². Other examples are: black/white list, male/female connectors and developed/underdeveloped countries; alternatives being: deny/allow list, plug/socket, Global-North/Global-South (or high/low-income) countries. Try to think of problematic terms in your discipline and look for appropriate replacements.

2 - Ensure all students see themselves reflected

For your subject, are there alternative canons of knowledge which have been dismissed because of colonial history? Can these be integrated into the curriculum?

Evaluate the achievements of historical figures in STEM, which are often over-emphasised without any critical contextualization regarding the circumstances that enabled their achievements.

Provide students with opportunities to discuss the historical legacy of colonization for each specific subject area. For example, why are Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibnitz often attributed with discovering calculus at the end of the 17th century when the Kerala School of Indian Scholars were exploring this 250 years prior?

Diversify the reading list. Make sure an array of voices and perspectives are represented in textbook, examples, resources. Since reading lists serve as tools for representation, many individuals from under-represented groups have identified this as key to improving their learning experience. This 2021 article by Binuraj Menon of the University of Warwick³ “The missing colours of chemistry”, gives a useful summary of why it is important to ensure our teaching materials are diverse but also why we need to pay attention to issues of representation.

3 - Ensure students are equipped to participate in a global and diverse world

Check course content exposes students to a range of culturally challenging views, opinions and contexts.

Encourage thinking about how scientific research is funded today, what is considered important, by whom, and whether it impacts the lives of people whose voices are seldom heard.

Incorporate best-practice that allows students to use their diverse experiences and backgrounds to contribute to the learning and assessment activities.

Checklists

The checklists below provide a user-friendly guide to changes you can make to decolonise your course and adhere to inclusive learning practices. They have been adapted from the “Decolonising Your Course Toolkit” created in collaboration with The Black Curriculum⁴.

Decolonising Checklist

Below is a list of things you can do as practical strategies to decolonise your course.

TASK	WHAT YOU CAN DO
Check the language and terminology	Ensure the language used is inclusive and accessible to non-native English speakers. Ensure the terminology used does not have negative connotations for some.
Check that you have included a variety of voices	If your course provides multiple research articles, you can make sure it includes a variety of voices, not just those who are traditionally represented.
Provide students with some context of how we got to where we are now with this research	Add “See the World from Where They Stand” prompts that actively highlight the positionality of the thinkers on the course. Encourage students to take an empathetic approach and to use their critical thinking to imagine how different perspectives and identities might intersect.
If your course provides historical context: i. check whose version of events is told; ii. make sure you are aware of how this relates to an intersectional understanding of the research topic and of coloniality.	Think about how you approach material that privileges particular colonial groups and perspectives. Can you engage students in dialogue about this and cultivate critical discussions? Provide students with a range material that considers parallel narratives or approaches.
Use assessment to broaden understanding of the historical context	Students could research someone who made considerable contributions to the research, but didn’t have the work attributed to them at the time. OR You could set a task where students must research the historical context of the content. For example, “We know this now, but where did this knowledge come from?” This would enable students to find the silenced voices. You may need to provide some articles to support this activity.
Reflect on how colonial legacy impacts science today	Provide examples of colonial legacies and neo-colonialism, e.g. impact of climate change on the global south, the dependence of multi-national companies on cheap labour.
Provide students with the opportunity to be active collaborators	Student could be involved in the co-creation of knowledge utilising their own lived experiences.

ⁱIntersectional: interconnected social categorizations such as race, class, and gender.

Common Obstructions Checklist

Inclusive teaching is not just adhering to certain guidelines or principles, it is an active mindset and approach that considers accessibility, inclusivity, and equity. The following checklist provides useful prompts to avoid common obstructions to inclusive teaching.

PROMPT	Obstructions and suggested remedies
Avoid stereotype generalisations for certain “groups”⁵	Obstruction example: Asian students are better at computational work. Suggestion: Draw on student experiences can greatly enrich the class discussion.
Do not assume a student belongs to a particular demographic group based on their appearance⁶	Obstruction example: Inferring that a student grew up in Asia because the student looks Asian. Suggestion: Ask whether anyone with experience in a particular area would like to share it with the class.
Do not ask a student to speak for an entire demographic group⁶	Obstruction example: calling on a Black student to speak on behalf of all students with African ethnicity. Suggestion: Include in the conversation students from both within and outside of the demographic group under discussion.
Do not challenge students differentially based on their Demographic Group	Obstruction example: Disproportionately calling on male students to perform quantitative analyses or female students to discuss shopping or work-life balance. Suggestion: Pose questions to all students, irrespective of race, gender, ESL (English as a second language) status, etc.., to provide equal opportunity for development.
Avoid phrases that link negativity with blackness (3)	Obstruction example: Phrases/ words that link negativity with blackness and positivity with whiteness e.g. “black mood”, “dark times” or “whiter than white” reinforce racist connotations. Suggestion: ensure language does not reinforce harmful tropes that risks alienating already minoritized groups.
Do not mispronounce student names	Obstruction example: Mispronouncing or avoiding the use of students’ names when calling on them to participate or when referring to their comments. Suggestion: review name pronunciations before course starts. Announce on the first day of class that you want to make sure to pronounce everyone’s name correctly and encourage students to let you know if you are mispronouncing their name.

References

Subject Specific Resources

Engineering

This article written by Dr Srinjoy Mitra and colleagues in the School of Engineering, examines the call for decolonising academic disciplines, and the extent which this applies to engineering. They argue that anticolonial endeavours should systematically recognise colonial legacy in contemporary science and technology, and reframe technological innovation in light of neo-colonial extraction and exploitation.

Srinjoy Mitra, Suvobrata Sarkar & Agomoni Ganguli-Mitra On the need for an anticolonial perspective in engineering education and practice.

Nature Communications volume 14, Article number: 8453 (2023).

Nature article - On the need for an anticolonial perspective in engineering education and practice