Riyad A. Shahjahan

Spirituality in the academy: reclaiming from the margins and evoking a transformative way of knowing the world

In this paper, the authors first and foremost objective is to render the answer to the following question: Why is spirituality marginalized in the academy? The author searches for the answer to this question in the terrain of knowledge production and worldviews that permeate the Western academy. The author examines the landscape of the neo‐colonial academy and delineates the conditions that restrict the spaces for spirituality. The authors second objective is to explore possible answers to the following question: How would centering spirituality transform our ways of knowing? The author attempts to answer this question by providing some preliminary ideas on the question of epistemology, methodology and methods in a spiritually based inquiry. The author concludes that this journey is endless and this paper is just a stepping stone to the discussion revolving around the integration and centering of spirituality within the academy.

Beyond the “National Container” Addressing Methodological Nationalism in Higher Education Research

This essay argues that there is a need for higher education researchers to become aware of methodological nationalism (MN) and take steps to reframe their scholarship in new ways. It illuminates two characteristics of MN prevalent in higher education research and suggests that although a few researchers have attempted to move beyond MN in the higher education globalization literature, most remain encapsulated in a view of nation-state equates society. The authors address this gap by arguing for the expansion of analytic approach to some of the common phenomena studied within U.S. higher education (such as college student experience, diversity, and governance) and highlight how these typical objects of study would transform once we overcome MN.

Decolonizing the evidence-based education and policy movement: revealing the colonial vestiges in educational policy, research, and neoliberal reform

There is a growing body of literature discussing evidence‐based education, practice, policy, and decision‐making from a critical perspective. In this article, drawing on the literature and policy documents related to evidence‐based education in the USA, Britain, and Canada, I join this critique and offer an anticolonial perspective. I argue that proponents of evidence‐based education unknowingly promote a colonial discourse and material relations of power that continue from the American‐European colonial era. I posit that this colonial discourse is evident in at least three ways: (1) the discourse of civilizing the profession of education, (2) the promotion of colonial hierarchies of knowledge and monocultures of the mind, and (3) the interconnection between neoliberal educational policies and global exploitation of colonized labor. I conclude with the decolonizing implications of revealing some of the colonial vestiges in educational policy, research, and neoliberal reform.

Centering Spirituality in the Academy Toward a Transformative Way of Teaching and Learning

In this article, the author’s foremost objective is to render the answer to the following question: How would centering spirituality transform our ways of teaching and learning? The author explores the terrain of the answer to this question by discussing some of his personal reflections and experiences as a teacher and a student of the academy, especially in the context of how spirituality can inform teaching about equity and social justice issues. Some of the issues raised are teaching to inspire, facilitating student spirituality, creating an inclusive curricula for the sacred, embodying the spirit of equity, and the perils of drawing on spirituality in the higher education classroom. Finally, the author discusses the relevance of centering spirituality in transformative education and concludes that this journey is endless and this article is just a stepping-stone to the discussion on centering spirituality within the academy.

Coloniality and a Global Testing Regime in Higher Education: Unpacking the OECD's AHELO Initiative.

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is currently engaging in a worldwide feasibility study entitled International Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO). This feasibility study seeks to develop measures that would assess student learning outcomes that would be valid across different languages, cultures, and higher education institutions. Drawing on anticolonial perspectives, this article provides a critical policy analysis of the AHELO project. Based on a review of the AHELO texts, it presents two themes: (1) crisis and imperial logic in policy production and (2) Anglo-Eurocentrism as global designs and colonial relationships. It argues that, through AHELO, OECD is striving to construct a global space of equivalence for teaching and learning in higher education, and in so doing, perpetuates coloniality in global higher education. It concludes by noting some comparative observations between AHELO and Programme for International Student Achievement in terms of the increasing role of global knowledge for policy tools in educational policy.

Being "Lazy" and Slowing Down: Toward Decolonizing Time, Our Body, and Pedagogy.

Abstract In recent years, scholars have critiqued norms of neoliberal higher education (HE) by calling for embodied and anti-oppressive teaching and learning. Implicit in these accounts, but lacking elaboration, is a concern with reformulating the notion of ‘time’ and temporalities of academic life. Employing a coloniality perspective, this article argues that in order to reconnect our minds to our bodies and center embodied pedagogy in the classroom, we should disrupt Eurocentric notions of time that colonize our academic lives. I show how this entails slowing down and ‘being lazy’.

Centering Social Justice in the Study of Higher Education: The Challenges and Possibilities for Institutional Change.

In this article, we illustrate and grapple with the challenges of doing social justice work in a neoliberal academic environment. Specifically, we consider our experiences of creating a social justice concentration in a graduate program where higher education serves as the focus of study. In so doing, we draw on information from a number of sources to explore three key considerations: (1) the institutional context within which we developed the social justice concentration, (2) the forms of mobilization we engaged in leading to implementation, and (3) the challenges and opportunities we faced during this process. Although we suggest that the challenges match and in some cases far outweigh the opportunities, we argue that there is no acceptable alternative to not doing this work. We believe we must continue to strive to center subjugated knowledges in the academy, to honor different ways of knowing, and to work for progressive social change by engaging in projects that create an academy that is truly inclusive.

From 'no' to 'yes': Postcolonial perspectives on resistance to neoliberal higher education

Various scholars have suggested ways to resist neoliberal conditions in higher education (HE). In analysing current neoliberal policies and practices in HE, I suggest that postcolonial theories of resistance can enhance our ability as faculty and administrators to understand and ‘resist’ these policies and practices. In this article, I review four modes of postcolonial resistance as described by David Jeffress (2008), mobilizing a critique of resistance as writing and cultural practice and challenging the reactionary nature of subversion and opposition. I argue that we need to place emphasis on transformational resistance, or the creation of new ways of being, knowing and doing in HE in order to transform the academy.

Toward a Spiritual Praxis: The Role of Spirituality among Faculty of Color Teaching for Social Justice

There is scant research literature on the interconnection between spirituality and the practices of faculty of color teaching social justice in the higher education classroom. This paper is based on a qualitative study that examined 15 spiritually minded activist scholars (who are all racially minoritized) in Canadian universities. The analysis focuses on how such scholars integrate spirituality into their teaching practices. This paper presents three themes: (a) responding to students in the classroom, (b) centering spirituality in the curriculum, and (c) the perils of incorporating a spiritually based pedagogy.

Global competition, coloniality, and the geopolitics of knowledge in higher education

While scholars have analyzed global higher education (HE) competition, they have largely failed to address how global spaces of equivalence are tied both to coloniality and to competition. Using the OECD’s International Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) as a case study and drawing on concepts from coloniality including Fanon’s zone of being/non-being and Mignolo’s geopolitics of knowledge, we reveal how coloniality underpins the desire for global spaces of equivalence through: the desire for opportunity and belonging; and the desire for recognition and pride. We illuminate how the nature of global competition is not simply tied to market-based economic or political rationalities, but also operates under psychosocial dimensions interlinked with belonging in the international community. We argue that AHELO represents the mediation and internalization of a HE competition focused on teaching and learning, which reproduces coloniality by valuing characteristics of the enterprising, globally competitive institution.