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MINI REVIEW article

Front. Educ.
Sec. STEM Education
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1480199
This article is part of the Research Topic Decolonizing the STEM Higher Education View all 5 articles

Addressing Colonial and Militarised Themes in STEM Education

Provisionally accepted
Sean Porter Sean Porter *YUSRA SIDDIQUI YUSRA SIDDIQUI *
  • University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    In response to longstanding inequities and injustices within STEM, this review addresses the pressing need to decolonise STEM education and redefine the purpose of its disciplinary fields. Focusing on the influence of entrenched power structures, particularly the military-industrial complex, this review examines the relatively under-theorised impact of these forces on shaping the goals and scope of certain bodies of STEM education within UK higher education. The first section offers an overview of militarised STEM education and its connections to the challenges of decolonisation. The second section explores strategies and interventions for decolonial pedagogy aimed at challenging discourses and practices that reinforce colonial and militarised narratives within curriculum and teaching. This review highlights how critical pedagogy and Indigenous Knowledge Systems offer educators’ methods to cultivate criticality and humanity in their teaching practices. Ultimately, the review attempts to highlight how STEM education can be re-envisioned to serve broader, more emancipatory, and just purposes. Here the review advocates for a transformative educational paradigm that integrates inclusive pedagogical interventions with critical engagement in the ethical and moral dimensions of STEM practice, with the overarching goal of advancing social justice in teaching practices.

    Keywords: decolonisation, Demilitarisation, critical pedagogy, Indigenous knoweldge, decolonising pedagogy

    Received: 13 Aug 2024; Accepted: 16 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Porter and SIDDIQUI. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Sean Porter, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom
    YUSRA SIDDIQUI, University of Exeter, Exeter, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.