Decolonising the Criminology curriculum in South Africa: Views and experiences of lecturers and postgraduate students

Transformation in Higher Education

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Decolonising the Criminology curriculum in South Africa: Views and experiences of lecturers and postgraduate students
 
Creator Sadiki, Lufuno Steyn, Francois
 
Subject Criminology Criminology; curriculum; transformation; decolonisation; teaching and learning
Description Background: For many years, the lived experiences, knowledge systems and histories of previously colonised people have been misinterpreted, removed and devalued in university teaching. The present curricula of African universities are predominantly Eurocentric and Criminology is no exception. In the wake of the #RhodesMustFall student protest action, there is a recognition and need to include African epistemology within the discipline of Criminology.Aim: The study investigated the views of lecturers and postgraduate students regarding the content, transformation and decolonisation of Criminology curricula.Setting: South African universities offering Criminology as a degree and/or academic subject.Methods: A total of 87 respondents, 42 lecturers and 45 postgraduate students, voluntarily participated in an online survey. Lecturers were purposively selected whilst postgraduate students were recruited via snowball sampling.Results: Nearly all the respondents had heard of decolonisation before, with the majority of the academic staff members being aware of it prior to #RhodesMustFall. Respondents agreed that the Criminology curriculum needs to be decolonised, with statistically significant differences emanating between black lecturers and white lecturers.Conclusion: Decolonisation and transformation have been debated for many years without meaningful translation in and changes to Criminology curricula.
 
Publisher AOSIS Publishing
 
Contributor National Research Fund
Date 2022-01-27
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — Quantitative; survey
Format text/html application/epub+zip text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/the.v7i0.150
 
Source Transformation in Higher Education; Vol 7 (2022); 9 pages 2519-5638 2415-0991
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/150/433 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/150/434 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/150/435 https://thejournal.org.za/index.php/thejournal/article/view/150/436
 
Coverage — — 20-61; Female; Male; Black (African); White; Coloured; Indian
Rights Copyright (c) 2022 Lufuno Sadiki, Francois Steyn https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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