Inclusive Reading List Toolkit
Introduction to Inclusive Education
Inclusion is about everyone being able to bring their whole self to King's, without having to downplay or change elements of their identity. Our commitment to inclusion means that we will create an environment where differences are not just respected, but valued and celebrated. Our policies, practices and processes should empower everyone. Inclusivity in education is fundamental and central to the success of all students to ensure that everyone can participate fully and fulfill their potential. Creating an inclusive learning environment through reading lists involves including resources from multiple voices and on multiple topics, creating space for alternative perspectives without bias towards one particular voice or focus. This should allow students to discover different narratives through their studies, which result in a feeling of belonging to both their course and to the university as a whole.
The Awarding Gap
Nationally in the UK, there remains a significant awarding gap between 'white students and BAME students awarded a First or a 2:1 for their degree... standing at 8.8% for 2021 graduates.' This gap is larger between White and Black students specifically, growing to 18.4% [Universities UK].
While the picture at King’s (Universities UK, n.d) is slightly better than the national average, the awarding gap remains and the college has ‘set an ambitious target to eliminate the gap in attainment between White and BME students by 2024-25 and, as part of that, a specific target to close the gap for Black students, where the gap is largest.’[King's College London 2023 & Allen et al 2021]
One pillar of the institution-wide work to tackle the gap at King’s is our commitment to embedding an inclusive education experience into the curriculum, as outlined in Strategy 2026.
Reading lists are the backbone of any curriculum; directing areas of study, essays choices and canonising leading voices in any field. Including one text over another- or labelling one as ‘core’ and another as ‘additional’- can unintentionally signify which voices are valued.
Sustainability
Further reading
Decolonizing the University by
"A must-read for anyone interested in enhancing a historical understanding of our present through a consideration of what it means to decolonize."--Priyamvada Gopal, University of Cambridge In 2015, students at the University of Cape Town demanded the removal of a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the imperialist, racist business magnate, from their campus. Their battle cry, #RhodesMustFall, sparked an international movement calling for the decolonization of universities all over the world. Today, as the movement develops beyond the picket line, how might it go on to radically transform the terms upon which universities exist? In this book, students, activists, and scholars discuss the possibilities and the pitfalls of doing decolonial work in the heart of the establishment. Subverting curricula, demanding diversity, and destroying old boundaries, this is a radical call for a new era of education. Chapters include: *Rhodes Must Fall: Oxford and Movements for Change (Dalia Febrial) *Race and the Neoliberal University ((John Holmwood) *Black/Academia (Robbie Shilliam) *The Challenge for Black Studies in the Neoliberal University (Kehinde Andrews) *Open Initiatives for Decolonising the Curriculum (Pat Lockley) *Decolonising Education: A Pedagogic Intervention (Carol Azumah Dennis) *Understanding Eurocentrism as a Structural Problem of Undone Science (William Jamal Richardson) As the book's insightful Introduction states, "Taking colonialism as a global project as a starting point, it becomes difficult to turn away from the Western university as a key site through which colonialism--and colonial knowledge in particular--is produced, consecrated, institutionalized and naturalized." Offering resources for students and academics to challenge and resist colonialism inside and outside the classroom, Decolonizing the University provides the tools for radical change in educational disciplines, pedagogies, and institutions.
ISBN: 9780745338200Publication Date: 2018-08-15
Decolonizing University Teaching and Learning: An Entry Model for Grappling with Complexities by
Decolonizing University Teaching and Learning considers apprehensions around decolonizing and offers a summary of key arguments within critical discussion around its meaning and value through engagement with a growing body of literature. The contextually based and complex discussions concerning decolonization means one cannot be guided through the process in a particular way. Therefore, the text is not intended to be read as a handbook for decolonizing teaching and learning, nor is it an anthropologically oriented text. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, the book highlights the benefits of decolonizing teaching and learning for all students and staff. This book offers up the TRAAC model as an entry point for challenging conversations. By bringing together questions raised within existing scholarly discussions, the TRAAC model provides prompts to instigate deeper reflections around decolonizing by way of supporting colleagues to start a productive dialogue. Through these critically reflective and reflexive conversations, action-oriented discussions can simultaneously take place. The value of this book lies in the contributions from authors based across a number of universities and disciplines. Reflecting on personal experiences, staff and student relationships, subject specific challenges, and wider issues within HE, the contributions are grounded in the employment of the TRAAC model as a mode of entry into discussing particular issues around decolonizing teaching and learning.
ISBN: 9781350160033Publication Date: 2021
Diversity, Inclusion, and Decolonization by
Despite progress, the Western higher education system is still largely dominated by scholars from the privileged classes of the Global North. This book presents examples of efforts to diversify points of view, include previously excluded people, and decolonize curricula. What has worked? What hasn't? What further visions do we need? How can we bring about a more democratic and just academic life for all? Written by scholars from different disciplines, countries, and backgrounds, this book offers an internationally relevant, practical guide to 'doing diversity' in the social sciences and humanities and decolonising higher education as a whole.
ISBN: 9781529216646Publication Date: 2022-06-28
Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries by
The demand to decolonise the curriculum has moved from a protest movement at the margins to the centre of many institutions, as reflected by its inclusion in policies and strategies, and numerous initiatives in libraries and archives that have responded to the call, and are critically examining their own historic legacies and practices to support institutional and societal change.Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries explores the ways in which academic libraries are working to address the historic legacies of colonialism, in the context of decolonising the curriculum and the university. It acknowledges and explores the tensions and complexities around the use of the term decolonisation, how it relates to other social justice aims and approaches, including critical librarianship, and what makes this work specific to decolonisation. The book is international in scope, and considers the contextual nature of decolonisation, with discussion of the impacts of settler colonialism, and post-colonial contexts with authors from Canada, the United States and Kenya, as well as universities in the UK.Split into two sections, the book first addresses experiential contexts, discussing the environment in which the academic library is enmeshed: legacy knowledge systems, the neo-liberal university, the pervasive Whiteness of the higher education sector, the global publishing industry - how these structures are constitutive of coloniality and how they can be challenged. It then brings together theory and practice featuring case studies interpreting what it means to 'decolonise' in information literacy, collection management, inclusive spaces, LIS education, research methods and knowledge production through the lens of critical pedagogy, critical information literacy and Critical Race Theory (CRT). The book also addresses the impact and implications of the Whiteness of university library staffing. Bringing together the theory and practice of an area of critical concern to the academy, this book is an important reference for academic librarians, educators and researchers in LIS, education and sociology.
ISBN: 1783304995Publication Date: 2022
Thank You - References and Credits
- Universities UK (n.d.) Closing the Gap Three Years OnRetrieved on July 3 2023