Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

The Centre for Ageing Better has created a small library of freely-usable (under CC) photos which show more realistic and positive images of older people. Avoiding ageist stereotyping in images of older people is one of the aspects of Age-Friendly Media and Information Literacy #AFMIL that Bill Johnston and I have identified. As the Centre for Ageing Better notes "images of wrinkly hands clasped together in consternation is an all too common sight" and they also urge people to avoid images that emphasise frailty "sad eyes, beige sofas etc."

The Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) has published a new report with original testimony and practical guidance for UK universities on decolonising higher education. The report establishes that the decolonisation of UK universities is vital for the improvement of course curricula, pedagogical practice, staff wellbeing and the student experience. 

Miseducation: decolonising curricula, culture and pedagogy in UK universities by Mia Liyanage is based on over 20 hours of interviews with leading figures in academia, student activism and higher education policy. The report’s recommendations include:

• Ensuring a better understanding of decolonisation and ending its conflation with equality, diversity and inclusion initiatives.
• Prioritising decolonisation in order to expand the curriculum and improve both teaching and course content.
• Increasing Government and university funding for BAME research and BAME-only scholarships.
• Tackling discrimination, hostility and unconscious bias against those working on decolonisation.
• Creating departmental roles to work specifically on issues relating to anti-racism and the decolonising of their department.
• Establishing channels for collaboration on these issues between students and faculty.

This blog was kindly contributed by Kalwant Bhopal, who is a Professor of Education and Social Justice, the Director of the Centre for Research in Race & Education (CRRE) and BAME Academic Lead, in the School of Education at the University of Birmingham.Her recent book, ‘White Privilege: the myth of a post-racial society’ was published by Policy Press. 

On Thursday, HEPI will be publishing its first major paper on decolonising curricula.

The protests against the murder of George Floyd by police in the USA have been widely noted as marking a significant ‘moment’ in the history of race relations, not just in the United States but across the globe. The problem of such ‘moments’ is that we have seen so many of them before. #BlackLivesMatter itself was a response to a previous ‘moment’, the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida. In the UK, the racism of police officers to cover-up the murder of Stephen Lawrence was another such ‘moment’.