Against Decolonisation
Jim Butcher reviews Against Decolonisation: Taking African Agency Seriously by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò.
Author Archive for: ddu-admin
Entries by ddu-admin
Book review: ‘Beyond Grievance: What the left gets wrong about ethnic minorities’
Graeme Kemp proclaims Rakib Ehsan’s book as an invaluable contribution to the debate about race and identity politics in the UK today.
Media coverage for DDU’s report, ‘Who are the experts?’
DDU’s second report, Who Are the Experts? An investigation into anti-racist third-party organisations in schools received wide coverage, both for the report itself and for specific findings within it. (You can read the report here.) Contested racial views taught as fact, says pressure groupThe Times, 11 July 2023 Pupils are being subjected to a “radical […]
Review: Imperial Heartland by David Holland, Cambridge University Press
Hardeep Singh explores a fascinating history that offers complex human realities instead of reductive moralising fables.
Once more unto the breach: arguments against decolonisation
Richard Norrie argues that decolonising universities will produce a poorer curriculum and ever-greater bureaucratic interference. Those who have really put themselves on the line to fight racism, like Nelson Mandela (aged 19, above), were inspired by the very philosophy and literature today’s radicals reject. We often find ourselves having to get to grips with new […]
Responses to Tate Britain’s rehang
On 23 May 2023, Tate Britain revealed a major reorganisation of the way its collection is displayed. The new galleries, says Tate, ‘explore art in its social context, revealing how artists responded to the cultural, political, economic and technological changes they lived through’. Here, Hana Abdulati and Rudra Simitri, two sixth-form students interested in art, […]
Coronation balcony scene was ‘terribly white’, says Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh
DDU director Alka Sehgal Cuthbert is quoted in this article from the Telegraph, 7 May 2023. Bridgerton star Adjoa Andoh called the Royal family’s balcony appearance during the Coronation “terribly white”. The actress, who plays a Regency duchess in the Netflix series Bridgerton, offered her opinions during ITV’s coverage of the Coronation of King Charles […]
Challenging contentious race content as a school governor
A London school governor decided he couldn’t ignore his unease with the school’s anti-racist training (presented by an external third-party anti-racist trainer). He offered his considered objections, and found others agreed. The trainer’s recommendations are not being adopted wholesale. We hope more governors will follow! The local authority’s schools improvement partner enquired about ‘racial justice’ […]
The Student Who Disagreed (and was brave enough to speak out)
Lest we think all young people agree with identitarian political ideas, Peter Hosangady, a 17-year-old college student, writes about what can happen in a classroom when a teacher confesses apologetically that he is the bearer of ‘white privilege’ and may not be able to teach ‘Black History’ very well. The effect is not liberatory or reassuring […]
Education policy – Let’s restore teachers’ sense of agency
The past five decades in education has seen a steady diminishing of teachers’ agency and autonomy, observes Dr Shirley Lawes. Could it be the reduction of teachers to curriculum deliverers/technicians that, in part, explains why a radically moralistic Critical Social Justice ideology appeals to some? When I started teaching in the early 1970s, there was […]
