Abstract
Inclusive classrooms are at the heart of an inclusive school culture and positively impact the wider community. Western Eurocentric curricula and pedagogies were founded on colonial ideologies and principles that continue to center Western Eurocentric knowledge as superior. Through opening to decolonizing ways of knowing and being, educators can help create classrooms that strengthen student voice, choice, creativity, and agency; such spaces foster innovation and trust, allowing both students and educators to flourish. Arts-based pedagogies, which are accessible to all educators, help decolonize praxis by fostering attention, discovery, and connection; the interplay of these interconnected domains leads to the creation of more inclusive social environments, which support individual and collective well-being. Employing arts-based pedagogies does not require educators to teach arts-specific skills but encourages a shift towards open-hearted and open-minded practices that widen perspectives and cultivate a deeper sense of belonging.
TopDecolonizing Education Through Inclusive, Relational Practices
Inclusive education (IE) is a relational process that encourages people to share knowledge and engage in compassionate, cooperative strategies. It recognizes and honors the diversity of the learning community and actively works to remove barriers to authentic and empathic expressions of appreciation (Morgan & Houghton, 2011). As an essential decolonizing approach, IE encompasses all learners, including students and educators. It positions learning as a non-hierarchical process of co-inquiry and co-discovery (Freire, 2018), inviting every community member to share their diverse knowledge, ways of being, and lived experiences. These lived experiences can be considered funds of knowledge, referring to the “historically accumulated and culturally developed bodies of knowledge and skills essential for…individual functioning and well-being” (Moll et al., 1992, p. 133). In IE, people can openly share their social, cultural, familial, and linguistic practices within the school community (Rios-Aguilar & Kiyama, 2017). Students’ stories intertwine with educators’ to create connections that go beyond prescribed curricular content, and such connections extend beyond Western-Eurocentric classroom experiences to produce a sense of inclusion and belonging. Creating intergenerational connections encompasses the cultural, emotional, relational, and spiritual dimensions of learning; deepens awareness, reciprocity, and responsibility; and contributes to a more purposeful, balanced, and joyful life (First Nations Education Steering Committee, 2022). Educators must engage in respectful and non-judgmental practices, understand the impact of their underlying intentions and actions, engage students with reciprocity and respect, and position themselves as co-learners and co-unlearners alongside their students (Cull et al., 2018).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Embodied Learning: Is a holistic process that expands awareness to include the heart, mind, and body so that learners can access their mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical selves, understanding these as interconnected, interdependent, and interrelated. Embodied learning cultivates collaborative environments of reciprocal engagement, care, and compassionate understanding.
Mindfulness: Brings a kind and non-judgmental attention to the present moment, allowing an awareness of present thoughts, sensations, feelings, emotions, and the surrounding environment.
Decolonizing Pedagogies: Help learners understand how the underlying beliefs of imperialism and colonialism led to the violent domination of Indigenous Peoples and how this epistemological and ontological violence continues through deeply embedded racist ideologies and actions. Decolonizing pedagogies disrupt the supremacy of Western Eurocentric knowledge systems, center Indigenous ways of knowing and being, and support Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination.
Co-Creation: Is a process of mutual, active, and reciprocal engagement in which students and educators contribute to the learning process. Co-creative processes allow each participant to have equal voice and choice in how they would like to participate, and all participants’ knowledge and efforts are valued.
Neurodecolonization: Extends and deepens mindfulness practices to include an understanding of the importance of examining and unraveling colonial mindsets, which create fear, harm, and disconnection. Neurodecolonization transforms neural systems to strengthen healthy and trusting relationships. This serves to cultivate cultural responsiveness and humility so that people can strengthen their individual and collective resilience and challenge systems that create socioecological harm.
Ethical Mindfulness: Extends individual-based mindfulness practices to include a compassionate and caring stance towards other living beings. It is an embodied, skillful, active practice that is culturally and ecologically responsive, with an intention to be in ethical relationships with others.
Compassionate Collaboration: Is a process of co-creation and co-discovery that deepens awareness of self and others and inspires people to act in the service of collective well-being.
Arts-Based Pedagogies: Are inclusive, enriching, and nourishing cross-disciplinary approaches that strengthen the capacity to learn and engage; spark curiosity, creativity, and innovation; develop new ways of knowing and being; strengthen compassionate awareness of self and community; and inspire people to take action.
Decolonial Praxis: Challenges the dominance of Western Eurocentric ways of knowing and being. It is a critically reflective and reflexive approach to teaching and learning that unearths colonial biases, assumptions, worldviews, perspectives, habits, approaches, and actions in the service of actively working to eradicate ongoing systems of colonial violence.