Decolonising the curriculum: An exploration of academics' perceptions, motivations and approaches in UK universities

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Calls to decolonise the curriculum have gained significant traction in UK higher education in recentyears, particularly following the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in 2020. Thisis evident in recent global anti-racism protests and student campaigns like Rhodes Must Fall inOxford (RMFO) and 'Why is My Curriculum White?', as well as the emergence of university wideinitiatives, such DecoloniseUKC (University of Kent) and Decolonising DMU (De Montfort University).These examples do not capture the extent to which calls to decolonise the curriculum haveproliferated within the academy, through various institutional working groups, staff and studentnetworks, events, conferences, open letters and publications. Bhambra et al. (2018) argues thatgiven the 'prominence' of the term in student and staff movements, it is essential for us to 'thinkmore carefully about what this means - as both a theory and a praxis' (2). However, despiteincreasing use of the term, there has been limited research into academics' conceptions, motivationsand approaches to decolonising the curriculum in UK universities. The project proposes toinvestigate the aforementioned areas using qualitative methods and Charmaz' (2006) constructivistgrounded theory.