Abstract:

The UK QAA Computing Subject Benchmark recommends mapping of equitable practices and processes which acknowledge and address how divisions of labour and hierarchies of colonial value are replicated and reinforced within computing. In parallel the attainment gap focus by the UK’s Office for Students on degree outcomes achieved by BAME students compared to non-BAME students, gives leverage to decolonising the curriculum. These are the key drivers for change by helping to recognise, understand and challenge the ways in which our world is shaped by colonialism. As decolonising work is set to question and ultimately transform what we know to be true, then we need to start that transformation now; we need to be thinking differently about ‘facts’. This scholarship project is moving towards creating “new knowledge” that is free from colonial influence as we try to the clear a path to reimagining our curriculum.

Although difficult to pinpoint, often the starting point for this reform is seen as the focus on decolonising the university or decolonising the curriculum in response to the gathering momentum seen in 2015 from the #Rhodes Must Fall Movement first in Cape Town, South Africa and then in Oxford, UK. Yet how to rethink and transform the discipline of Computing and IT is a challenge. Certainly there is more evidence of a decolonising lens in Arts and Social Science compared to STEM. For example in 2018, SOAS University of London, published what is meant by decolonising in their Learning and Teaching Toolkit and a fifth of Universities now say they are committed to decolonising their curriculum. But progress in STEM and specifically computing, is slow and difficult to identify.

This scholarship project is therefore investigating UK higher education institutions (HEI’s) which have begun to transform their curriculum by mapping the terrain of decolonial activity specifically within the discipline of Computing and IT. This investigation has two elements, first desk research to identify decolonising STEM, and specifically computing and IT activity within UK HEI’s by looking at public facing websites for evidence and so to chart or map the terrain. The second phase will be to conduct semi-structured interviews with STEM peers at other HEIs to gauge current decolonising activity, the obstacles and the direction of travel.

By its conclusion this project will aim to provide an overview of current decolonising activities within STEM at HEIs via a case study overview of the emerging trends and will provide suggestions on how to advance decolonising the Computing and IT curriculum at HEI’s. If indeed there is a best practice or benchmark against which we can drive our decolonial agenda, then we need to know what this looks likes.

Keywords:

Decolonising, computing, reimagining, curriculum, equity.