Decolonial dreams: the unmarked scholar reimagines the purpose of post-16 education

The inaugural lecture of Carol Azumah Dennis, Professor of Education, Policy and Practice in The Open University's Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies, will look at decolonising education, offering a manifesto which envisions an alternative vision of what the sector might be.

Abstract

This inaugural lecture is based on Professor Dennis’s recent research, which looks at decolonisation and suggests a manifesto for post-16 Education.

Out of 24,000 professors in the UK, Professor Dennis is one of 74 Black women to hold this title. Black women are not meant to profess.

“Like a raisin in a bowl of rice pudding (Jones 2024) - in the ivory tower Black women are simultaneously invisible and hyper visible.”

Starting with a reflexive account of who she is and the stance from which she speaks, a necessary (though insufficient) part of a decolonial repertoire, Professor Dennis uses a series of “what if” speculations to develop a vision of an alternative future for post-16 education:

What if:

• The accepted purpose of post-16 education was to cultivate the ethical imagination?
• We placed the disciplinary founding fathers of philosophy and social sciences in their place; contextualising them and their ideas as emergent from a specific time and place, rather than universal?
• We refused a single authoritative voice, perspective or approach? Choosing instead to remain within indeterminacy, accepting all conclusions as tentative, all settlements as temporary – including this one?
• We located unheard, silenced or trivialised voices relevant to our disciplines – exemplified and amplified them, placing them alongside orthodox voices in an implicit motion of critique?
• We enacted a post-16 education in which the voices of policy makers, professionals and students engaged in mutually productive dialogue?

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Event programme