Theories on Trial: Deconstructing and Decolonizing Higher and Adult Learning Conceptual and Theoretical Frameworks

Abstract

Decolonizing involves dismantling deeply entrenched colonial systems of knowledge and power by disrupting colonial patterns of thought, questioning how teaching and learning occurs, and critiquing the colonial practices that are merged into the fabric of higher and adult education. Within this process, scholars and practitioners engage in interrogating teaching and learning approaches and developing a critical consciousness regarding what knowledge is valued and how this value is acquired. Within higher and adult education, limited research has explicitly considered the ways in which conceptions of andragogy and its accompanying instructional approaches might be deconstructed within the context of decolonization. The purpose of this chapter is to deconstruct and decolonize foundational higher and adult learning conceptual and theoretical frameworks that are routinely embedded within courses and programs. The conceptual and theoretical frameworks selected and analyzed include self-directed learning, transformative learning, and action learning as conventional examples of individual and collective instructional approaches employed within higher and adult learning settings. Maōri scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith's (2012) nine characteristics of theory that contribute to colonizing discourses and 25 Indigenous projects/principles are employed as the lenses that frame this analysis. These lenses include social science and methodological approaches and strategies that decolonize populations and promote Indigenous epistemologies.

Citation

Arnold, C.H., Badenhorst, C. and Hoben, J. (2021), "Theories on Trial: Deconstructing and Decolonizing Higher and Adult Learning Conceptual and Theoretical Frameworks", Huisman, J. and Tight, M. (Ed.) Theory and Method in Higher Education Research (Theory and Method in Higher Education Research, Vol. 7), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2056-375220210000007001