It's Time to Decolonize the Curriculum: A Case Study of Primary Schooling Textbooks
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.53103/cjess.v4i5.266Keywords:
Textbooks, Primary Schooling, Post-Colonial Theory, AngolaAbstract
The Angolan Government has introduced two significant educational reforms which, among other goals, sought to liberate the education system from the colonial epistemologies and Eurocentrism. Though allegedly progress has been made in some sectors such as building school infrastructure and reducing illiteracy, the same cannot be claimed with regard to the curriculum, and in turn the textbooks, which seem unaltered. This paper examines one potent source of cultural politics, namely Portuguese language teaching, that is a compulsory subject at primary schooling level. The article traces semiotic representations in four randomly selected primary schooling textbooks by focusing on anthroponomy, ethnicity/race and occupation, using the postcolonial theory as a theoretical framework. In terms of methodology, the paper makes use of qualitative content analysis.
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