Decolonizing Education Through Critical Consciousness

Decolonizing Education Through Critical Consciousness
To understand the context in which minoritized college students in the United States
exist, it is necessary to acknowledge the effects of colonialism on their daily lives. It is also
important for educators and students to develop a critical consciousness to begin the work of
decolonizing education and to consider culturally responsive, relevant, and sustaining pedagogies
as practices that promote educational equity and help accelerate the process of decolonizing
education. Wildcat et al. (2014) elucidated, “If colonization is fundamentally about dispossessing
Indigenous peoples from land, decolonization must involve forms of education that reconnect
Indigenous peoples to land and the social relations, knowledges and languages that arise from the
land” (p. 1). Although there is an Indigenous resurgence movement for which land-based
decolonization is particularly relevant (Gaudry & Lorenz, 2018; Wildcat et al., 2014), there is a
wider spectrum of scholars calling for a wider array of culturally relevant, responsive, and
sustaining practices in online education (Hunt & Oyarzun, 2020; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2004,
2021; Mize & Glover, 2021; Vogel, 2020) to promote critical consciousness and decolonize
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education. It is not far-fetched to expect that good online practices should by extension serve as
good HyFlex practices generally.
Mize and Glover (2021) pointed out a cultural imbalance in schools. Even in districts
with highly diverse student bodies, the tendency is largely to hire White teachers. The authors
pointed out educational scholars (Gay, 2002, 2010; Ladson-Billings, 1995, 2004; Paris, 2012;
Paris & Alim, 2017) have responded to this cultural mismatch with calls for culturally relevant,
responsive, and sustaining teaching practices. Mize and Glover offered recommendations for
practices highlighting culturally relevant, responsive, and sustaining pedagogy to promote
cultural competence in educational environments to reframe and advance the academic success
of minoritized students while striving to create more instructional equity. Mize and Glover’s
recommendations were grounded on three areas of educational research: (a) culturally relevant,
responsive, and sustaining pedagogies; (b) cultural competence; and (c) curriculum reframing.
Highlighting the resurgence of long-held biases that discount the value of the lives of
Black, Indigenous, and people of color during COVID-19 global pandemic, Mize and Glover
(2021) called for educators to acknowledge the role of bias, prejudice, and racism. They pointed
out bigotry that cannot be ignored has resurfaced in the form of assault and racial abuse and hate
crimes against people of color in the United States. Mize and Glover cautioned there may yet be
undiscovered effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic affecting the educational outcomes of
minoritized students and call on educators to sustain focus on culturally sound practices rejecting
bias, bigotry, and racism to move closer toward equitable education.
Professional development plays a role in preparing educators to perform culturally sound
practices to decolonize education and create equitable learning experiences for all students.
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Fernández (2019) discussed an action research project seeking to decolonize professional
development through a process of rehumanization. This process requires self-love, she explained.
The process of decolonizing messages that have been directed at folx of color entails learning to
love oneself, and that act of learning to love oneself must result in acts of freedom (Fernández,
2019; Freire, 1970). The Xicanx Institute for Teaching and Organizing (XITO) emerged in direct
response to the elimination of the Mexican American Studies program in Tucson, Arizona
(Fernández, 2019). Operating as a grassroots collective, XITO has developed a decolonizing and
rehumanizing professional development model for faculty. To meet the need for teacher training,
XITO’s professional development model was grounded on ethnic studies, infused with critical
identity work consisting of critical analysis of race, power, and systems of oppression.
Started in Arizona and growing nationally, XITO’s professional development model was
focused on reindigenizing education through a culturally sustaining pedagogy (Fernández, 2019;
McCarty & Lee, 2014; Paris & Alim, 2017). This action research professional development
project aimed at countering existing deficit models in professional development by using an
Indigenous epistemological framework previously used with success in the Mexican American
Studies program. According to Fernández (2019), XITO’s professional development model used
research-based Xicanx Indigenous epistemology rooted in the Mexican Indigenous epistemology
of Nahui Ollin (four movements). These four movements or principles are represented at the
center of the Mexica Sun Stone, commonly referred to as the Aztec calendar (Fernández, 2019).
The four principles are: Tezcatlipoca, Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopchtli, and Xipe Totec (Arce, 2016,
as cited in Fernández, 2019).
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XITO’s decolonizing and rehumanizing professional development used testimonios, a
form of counter-storytelling derived from critical race theory, Latinx critical race theory, and
Latinx literature as a method to harness the power of collective memory (Fernández, 2019; Pérez
Huber, 2010) to emphasize voices often excluded in scholarly texts or devalued as legitimate
ways of knowing (Fernández, 2019). Although XITO’s approach was rooted in Indigenous
epistemology and critical consciousness, the collective has sought to build solidarity by
supporting all radical educators and organizers, regardless of their background. XITO’s
collective belief is anyone working with minoritized students can benefit from the collective’s
professional development to help the cause of liberation.
Wildcat et al. (2014) proposed an Indigenous land-based approach to decolonization.
They argued one reason settler colonialism has worked is Western institutions work to
undermine Indigenous intellectual development. Wildcat et al. explained this happens through
cultural assimilation and violent separation of Indigenous peoples from the source of their
strength and knowledge: the land. Advocates of land-based education and Indigenous resurgence
contend a serious effort to decolonize education and educating people within frameworks of
Indigenous knowledge requires educational leaders and practitioners to engage in educational
practices that reinsert the people into relationships with and on the land (Simpson & Coulthard,
2014; Wildcat et al., 2014). Although land-based decolonizing education is relatively young,
Wildcat et al. have seen its potential in reconnecting people to Indigenous culture and ways of
knowing. They have admitted there is a need for longitudinal studies and publications to
determine the long-term outcomes of this approach and advise for Indigenous peoples to build
self-determining futures, they must figure out how to practice governance in ways that center
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love for the land and for each other as the foundation for the courage it will take to see it come to
fruition.
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