Policy Press

This book provides a decolonial critique of dominant global agendas concerning teacher professionalism and proposes a new understanding based on UNESCO-funded research with teachers based in Colombia, Ethiopia (Tigray), India, Rwanda and Tanzania.

Outlining from a teacher’s perspective how teacher professionalism may be conceptualized, this book critiques dominant global narratives and conceptions based on deficit discourses. The authors argue that a decolonial lens can help to contextualize the perspectives, experiences and material conditions of teachers in the global South, and the value of such a framework for informing global debates and decision-making in education.

“This excellent book offers a refreshing and well-informed decolonial perspective. Grounded in teachers’ own views and situated in their lived realities, it challenges dominant assumptions and foregrounds social justice.” Michele Schweisfurth, University of Glasgow

Leon Tikly, University of Bristol

Rafael Mitchell, University of Bristol

Angeline M. Barrett, University of Bristol

Poonam Batra, Delhi University

Alexandra Bernal Pardo, Rodeemos el Diálogo

Leanne Cameron, Education Development Trust

Alf Coles, University of Bristol

Zawadi Richard Juma, St. John’s University of Tanzania

Nidia Aviles Nunez, University of the West of Scotland

Julia Paulson, University of Saskatchewan

Nigusse Weldemariam Reda, Mekelle University

Jennifer Rowsell, University of Sheffield

Michael Tusiime, University of Rwanda

Beatriz Vejarano Villaveces, Rodeemos el Diálogo

1. Introduction: The Case for Decolonising Teacher Professionalism

2. Study Design

3. Teacher Professionalism: A Global Literature Review

4. Teacher Professionalism and the Coloniality of Power

5. Teacher Professionalism and the Coloniality of Knowledge

6. Teacher Professionalism and the Coloniality of Being

7. Towards a Practitioner-Led Understanding of Teacher Professionalism

8. Conflict in Tigray: Teachers’ Experiences and the Implications for Post-Conflict Reconstruction by Nigusse Weldemariam Reda & Rafael Mitchell