Decolonising University Curricula – reforming the colonised spaces within which we operate

Abstract

This paper reflects a long journey of collaborative policy and curriculum reform; the reform of many of the colonised spaces within which we work in higher education. The inclusion of Indigenous knowledges in higher education for many years has been positioned as an equity/ social justice issue, or as “study about” Indigenous peoples within unchallenged, colonial disciplinary spaces. To embrace, centralise and embed Indigenous knowledges as a core feature of the curriculum at QUT, and particularly in the education of pre-service teachers, a strategic, unique Indigenous pedagogy needed to be recognised and justified at a policy level, promoted and embraced at the teaching staff level, and implemented in the pre-service teacher education classroom through a compulsory unit called ‘Culture Studies: Indigenous Education’. As such, this reform may be described as a continuing series of dialogues at many cultural interfaces (Nakata, 2002).