An investigation of students’ views on decolonising the science curriculum

Abstract

Decolonising the curriculum in higher education has attracted a lot of recent attention. However, most of the work done on this topic has been within the arts and social science disciplines. By means of a questionnaire, this paper explores science students’ understanding of decolonisation of the curriculum and their views on a range of potential actions to help achieve that, based on Swartz’s theses for the process. The results indicate that, although understanding of decolonisation was low, a high proportion of students was supportive of actions linked to the agenda for decolonisation of the curriculum. Of particular note was the result that Black African/Caribbean students were more supportive of actions to decolonise the curriculum, particularly for actions focused on the content of the science being taught, than the rest of the student population. The results support the call to decolonise the science curriculum, in order to reflect the diverse student population