This document provides an overview of a keynote presentation on the contested nature of curriculum in higher education. The presentation explores how different stakeholders vie to include or exclude certain voices and perspectives in curriculum in order to advance their visions of the future. It discusses examples of curriculum being contested through student movements like #RhodesMustFall and #ScienceMustFall in South Africa. The presentation argues that curriculum has always been gendered, raced, and classed as a way for those in power to define and protect their power and vision. It maps some of the different claims on curriculum, such as from disciplines, individuals, university rankings, and national development goals.

1. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/battle-blur-board-game-challenge-1846807/
The curriculum as contested space
Keynote on 6 June 2017 @ the 7th Teaching & Learning Conference
Theme: Going Places: Let’s Invent the Future
Hosted by North-West University, Vanderbijlpark, South Africa
Paul Prinsloo
University of South Africa (Unisa)
@14prinsp
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2. Acknowledgement
I do not own the copyright of any of the images in this
presentation. I hereby acknowledge the original
copyright and licensing regime of every image used. All
the images used in this presentation have been sourced
from a variety of sources on the internet and were
labeled for non-commercial reuse.
This work (excluding the images governed by their
original licencing) is licensed under a Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
2

3. By Paul Prinsloo (University of South Africa)
@14prinsp
Image credit first slide: http://connect.citizen.co.za/wp-content/uploads/sites/25/2015/10/C2.jpg?81cf05
In the South African context, when we consider the
‘curriculum as contested space’, the following may
come to mind - #RhodesMustFall #ScienceMustFall
#DecoloniseThe Curriculum
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4. Page credit: http://ewn.co.za/2015/04/10/Rhodes-statue-removal-only-the-beginning
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5. #ScienceMustFall
Page credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9SiRNibD14
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6. Images credits: https://www.amazon.com/Fees-Must-Fall-Decolonisation-Governance/dp/1868149854/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1496575760&sr=8-
8&keywords=south+africa%2C+higher+education
https://www.amazon.com/Free-Fall-African-Universities-Against/dp/1928257275/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1496575760&sr=8-
15&keywords=south+africa%2C+higher+education
https://www.amazon.com/As-Fire-South-African-University-ebook/dp/B072353MFV/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1496575999&sr=8-
1&keywords=as+by+fire%2C+the+end+of+the+south+african+university+jansen
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7. Retrieved from
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316736379_Trepidation_longing_and_belonging_Liberating_the_curriculum_at_universities_in_So
uth_Africa
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8. In this presentation I would like to take a
broader perspective on the curriculum as
‘contested space.’ I would like to explore how
different stakeholders jostle to include (and
exclude) selected voices in the curriculum in
service of their own visions of the future
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/chess-game-strategy-intelligence-424556/
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9. Imagecredit:https://pixabay.com/en/binary-code-man-display-dummy-face-1327512/
A social cartography of student data:
Moving beyond #StudentsAsDataObjects
Presentation at the 23rd Conference of the South African Association for
Institutional Research (SAAIR), Potchefstroom, South Africa
Paul Prinsloo
University of South Africa (Unisa)
@14prinsp
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/anarchy-graffiti-berlin-graffiti-8265/
The purpose of this presentation is to (1) provide an
understanding of the different claims on the curriculum; (2)
raise awareness of the voices we include and exclude and
the criteria for their in/exclusion; and (3) provide some
alternative considerations for the curriculum in service of a
more just and sustainable future
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10. The curriculum has always been a “contested space”
(Prinsloo, 2007), a “place of turmoil” (Slattery & Daigle, 1994)
and “an arena of struggle” (Shay, 2015)
Image credit: Canadian Gunners in the Mud, Passchendaele by Lieutenant Alfred Bastien, 1917, oil on canvas. Retrieved from,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_art
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11. Image credit: Canadian Gunners in the Mud, Passchendaele by Lieutenant Alfred Bastien, 1917, oil on canvas. Retrieved from,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_art
The curriculum has also, always, been
gendered, raced, and classed. The
curriculum has always been used to include
voices, perspectives and exclude others.
The curriculum has always been used to
define and protect power (whether
determined by e.g. race, gender, class, or
culture) and to ensure that the visions of
those in power are sanctioned as the vision
of the future
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12. Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Egbo_Secret_Society,_Mgbe,_Etuam,_Egbo,_South_Nigeria_Wellcome_M0005360.jpg
Craft associations and guilds, whether comprising mask carvers in Benin or
weavers in India, all had the same basis, namely
(1) the celebration and acknowledgement of expertise;
(2) exercising the monopoly on their craft in a particular geographical area;
(3) regulating and sanctioning access to the specific expertise base
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13. Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_treatise_on_lace-making,_embroidery,_and_needle-work_with_Irish_flax_threads_(1892)_(14595691027).jpg
“Guilds protected their special knowledge; governments prohibited the export
of economically important skills. France, for instance, made exporting lace-
making expertise a capital crime: Anyone caught teaching the skill to
foreigners could be put to death”(Davenport and Prusak, 2000). (Also see
Belfanti, 2004.)
13

14. Therefore in line with the theme of this
conference, Going Places: Let’s Invent the
Future
we have to ask:
Whose visions of the future are
represented in our curricula? Whose
visions are included/excluded?
Whose voices count?
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15. The ‘what’ of the
curriculum is
determined by those
who lay claim to own
the future …
… and they will protect
their claim at all cost
15

16. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/graffiti-artist-graffiti-art-1380108/
Some
examples of
the
‘curriculum as
contested
space’
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17. Page credit: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/apr/07/mba-business-schools-credit-
crunch
7 April 2009
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18. Page credit: http://www.epi.org/publication/the-class-of-2015/
27 May 2015

19. 12 September 2013
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20. 5 June 2013
Page credit: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/salford-culls-courses-to-secure-future/2004425.article
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21. Page credit: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/oct/24/students-post-crash-economics
24 October 2013
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22. Page credit: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/may/04/economics-students-overhaul-subject-teaching
4 May 2014
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23. 14 September 2015
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24. Page credit: https://theconversation.com/decolonising-economics-
more-context-is-needed-not-less-content-56215
15 March 2016
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25. Page credit: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/01/08/university-students-demand-philosophers-including-plato-kant/
8 January 2017
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26. 17 May 2017
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27. Page credit: http://www.news24.com/Columnists/Mondli-Makhanya/stats-of-the-nation-20170602
4 June 2017
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28. Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/missmoon/1918473801
How do we see the role of (higher)
education? And what are the
implications for the curriculum?
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29. Adapted from: de Oliveira Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Pashby, K., & Nicolson,
M. (2016). Social cartographies as performative devices in research on
higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-16.
Scholastic imaginary of higher education
(12th to 16th century)
Classical imaginary of higher education
16th to mid to 19th century
Civic imaginary of higher education
Mid-19th to mid/late 20th century
Corporate imaginary of higher education
1970s up to today
Church/religious and
Hellenic/Islamic philosophies
Universal reason and
secular knowledge –
training of the elites
The modern nation state
Training of professional
labour
The capitalist market
Production of labour for
economic growth
Colonialism
Apartheid
12th century - University of Timbuktu “It was not
a university in the modern sense” - Islam
5th century ACE - Nalanda (Bihar, India) - Hindu
5th century BCE - Taxila (modern-day Pakistan) -
Buddhist
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30. “All four university imaginaries – scholastic,
classical, civic and corporate – co-exist in a dynamic
fashion, manifesting in particular assemblages
depending on the contours of a given context.
However, civic and corporate imaginaries tend to be
the most salient, producing unpredictable and at
times contradictory and incoherent outcomes for
staff, faculty, students and communities” (p. 90)
de Oliveira Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Pashby, K., & Nicolson, M. (2016). Social cartographies as performative
devices in research on higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-16.
30

31. Elite
(0-15%)
Mass
(16-50%)
Universal
(over 50%)
Attitudes
to access
A privilege of
birth or talent
or both
A right for
those with
certain
qualifications
An obligation
for the upper
and middle
classes
Functions
of higher
education
Shaping of
mind and
character of
the ruling
class;
preparation for
elite roles
Transmission
of skills;
preparation for
broader range
of technical
and economic
elite roles
Adaptation of
‘whole
population’ to
rapid and
social and
technological
change
Adapted from a presentation by Soudien, C. (2017, 31 May). Debates in the decolonisation movement and their relevance for
curriculum renewal in South African Higher Education. University of Pretoria. Referring to Trow, M. (2007). Reflections on the
transition from elite to mass to universal access: Forms and phases of higher education in modern societies since WWII. In
International handbook of higher education (pp. 243-280). Springer Netherlands.
Implications for the curriculum?
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Another
perspective

32. Neoliberal
CriticalLiberal
de Oliveira Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Pashby, K., & Nicolson, M. (2016). Social cartographies as performative devices in
research on higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-16.
32

33. Imagecredit:https://pixabay.com/en/binary-code-man-display-dummy-face-1327512/
Liberal
• Serving the public good – defined by those in power
• Increasing equality and access to individual freedoms
• A strong state role in welfare and re-distribution
• Higher education as key in achieving national development goals
• “Research is framed as a form of problem-solving that improves
national indicators of development” (de Andriotti et al., 2016, p. 91)
• Increasing access and the massification of higher education
• Economic growth as driver
• Everyone can be a success – from poverty to riches and the
individual as an autonomous, rational agent
• Let-us-forget-the-past-and-go-on-
with-our-lives-the-future-is-bright-
just-take-off-your-glasses-and-pull-
up-your-socks
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34. Imagecredit:https://pixabay.com/en/binary-code-man-display-dummy-face-1327512/
Neoliberal
• Austerity measures and defunding of higher education
• Commodification of “knowledge, research, teaching and
service, framing the core ‘business’ of the university as a
provider of credentials, expert services and commercial
innovations” (de Andriotti et al, 2016, p. 90)
• Rationalisation of the Program Qualification Mix (PQM)
• Students and industry as customers
• Increasing numbers of administrative, well-paid staff and the
outsourcing of teaching to contract and adjunct faculty
• Institutional prestige and global university rankings
• “In this orientation, the role of the nation-state is to enable and to protect, with
military force if necessary, the rights of capital and the smooth functioning and
expansion of markets” (de Andriotti et al, 2016, p. 91).
• Faculty have become “individualist strivers competing for grants, publications,
promotions, salary increases, better jobs elsewhere according to a set of rules
as market driven as anything dreamed up by administrators” (Jemielniak &
Greenwood, 2015, p. 73).
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35. Imagecredit:https://pixabay.com/en/binary-code-man-display-dummy-face-1327512/
Critical
• It explores and exposes the inherent epistemological power and
patterns of violence in curricula
• “It highlights capitalist exploitation, processes of racialization and
colonialism and other forms of oppression at work in seemingly
benevolent and normalised patterns of thinking and behaviour” (de
Andriotti et al, 2016, p. 91).
• The inclusion of more diverse voices but contrary to the production
of a singular and homogenous narrative of a nation-state, it “aims to
transform, pluralise, or replace these narratives through historical
and systemic analyses of patterns of oppression and unequal
distributions of power, labour and resources” (Andriotti et al, 2016,
p. 91).
• This orientation contests and confronts the
notion of the university as “an elitist space,
and ivory tower” (Andriotti et al, 2016, p. 91)
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36. Liberal Critical
Neoliberal
Commercial
outputs
Research
deliverables
Value for
taxpayer’s
investment
Personal betterment ‘Intercultural education’ Social critique
Community as
businesses
Community
engagement
Community as
disadvantaged
groups
de Oliveira Andreotti, V., Stein, S., Pashby, K., & Nicolson, M. (2016). Social cartographies as performative devices in research on higher
education. Higher Education Research & Development, 1-16.
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37. Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/brianauer/2402882692
Mapping (some)
of the different
claims on the
curriculum*
(*in no particular order
of importance)
37

38. Employers/the
‘market’
(Un)employment
Broader societal
trends
Students
Individual voices in
departments
Higher education
rankings and
reputation
Funding and quality
assurance regimes
and bodies
Disciplines
The role of
publishing
houses/prescribed
books
Open Educational
Resources (OER), the
(Silicon) University
(of Google)
The curriculum
as contested
space
National development
goals
1
2
3
4
5
7
8
9
10
11
6
Institutional
character/vision and
mission
38

39. 1. Disciplines
• Disciplines represent the evolutionary sedimentation of how
we see the world and our place/role in this world (ontology),
and the knowledge needed to make sense of the world and
our agency (epistemology)
• Disciplines, once established, protect their boundaries and
determine access, quality, and determine the criteria for the
acceptability of ‘new’ research
39

40. 2. Individual voices
in the department
• Individuals who see themselves as representatives of a
particular discipline, and who act as gatekeeper, quality
assurer and who validates all new/alternative knowledge
claims
• Members of exclusive and exclusionary networks of
power and validation
• Most probably wrote the book which has been prescribed
over a number of years and found in the nexus of
academic expertise and academic capitalism
40

41. 3. Higher education
rankings and
reputation
• Often symbiotically dependent on the standing/gravitas
of disciplines (point 1) and individual or groups of
individuals (point 2)
• Disciplines that distract from the potential to rise in the
rankings or who impact negatively on the reputation and
commercial sustainability of the institution are ‘culled’
• Often links to and shapes institutional missions and
visions
41

42. 4. National
development goals
• Depending on the context – Global North/Global South
– universities are compelled to contribute to
predetermined development goals or national values
• Funding/subsidy is used as steering mechanism
• Education is seen as the key driver to ‘solve’ societal ills
irrespective of the intergenerational structural
hierachies of inclusion/exclusion
• Often linkes to techo-solutionism where “to save
everything, click here” (Morozov, 2003)
42

43. 5. Funding and
quality assurance
regimes and bodies
• See previous point
• The bureaucratisation of the accreditation of
courses/programmes shapes the responsiveness of
curricula
• Demands constant review of programmes to ensure
quality (according to the market, industry and students)
• The constant threat of de-accreditation steers curriculum
‘renewal’ often in response to dominant ideological
positions
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44. 6. Institutional
character, vision and
mission
• Differences between research intensive, comprehensive and
universities of technology
• Differences between modes (and cost) of delivery
• Impact of institutional vision and mission (often in response to
the latest flavour of the month)
• Understanding of position in the market, market share,
academic expertise and business model
• Impacts on the role of research, teaching, and community
outreach and organisational capacity to support curriculum
development
44

45. 7. Students
• Despite the (empty) rhetoric of student-centeredness and
responsiveness to students’ needs and aspirations, very
few students are involved in curriculum
development/renewal projects
• Students’ prior learning and ‘readiness’ for crossing over
into the epistemological boundaries of a particular
discipline play a crucial role – e.g. extended programmes,
access courses, etc.
• Increasingly little choice re curriculum
45

46. 8. Open Educational
Resources (OER), the
(Silicon) University (of
Google)
• For under-resourced/resource-constrained institutions,
open educational resources (OER) provide a rich potential
source of curriculum content
• To what extent will higher education
institutions engage abdicate/supplement
curriculum development to what can be
found (and hopefully validated) on the
internet?
• Coding as salvation
Image credit: https://www.amazon.co.uk/University-Google-Education-Post-Information/dp/075467097X
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47. 9. Broader societal trends
https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Books/Meaning-21st-Century-Vital-Blueprint-Ensuring-Future/190391986X
1. Global warming
2. Excessive population growth
3. Water shortages
4. Destruction of life in the oceans
5. Mass famine in ill-organised countries
6. The spread of desserts
7. Pandemics
8. Extreme poverty
9. Growth of shanty cities
10. Unstoppable migrations
11. Non-state actors with extreme weapons
12. Violent religious extremism
13. Runaway computer intelligence
14. War that could end civilisation
15. Risks to Homo Sapiens’ existence
16. A new Dark Age
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48. 10. Employers/the
market/
industry/(un)employm
ent
• The most dominant voice in curriculum development, often
to the exclusion of other voices/approaches
• Erroneously based on the assumption that education, on its
own, can address unemployment, as if there is an infinite
number of job opportunities in a contracting labour market
• (Not) everyone can/should be an entrepreneur
• The entrepreneurial university and its discontents…
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49. 11. The role of
publishing houses/
prescribed books
• See Points 1 and 2
• Once the curriculum becomes entangled in academic
capitalism and networks of inclusion/exclusion, there is
often, no way out
• Publishing houses are increasingly much more than just
publishers but have moved to being (accredited)
providers of (higher) education
• The role of publishing houses and pay-for-view regimes in
the dissemination of research findings
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50. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/tree-natur-nightsky-cloud-stars-736887/
(In)conclusion: Some pointers for
consideration
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51. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/birds-swarm-flock-of-birds-sky-2189476/
Universities are no longer the only
producers of knowledge
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52. Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/lisanorwood/1046416640
Knowledge with a capital ‘K’ has been replaced by
“knowledges” (Barnett, 2000), claims of “post-fact”, “fake
news” and independent agents (e.g.) formulating knowledge
claims
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53. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/chess-board-game-play-lose-1742720/
Who will validate the different knowledge claims?
Based on what criteria?
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54. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/purses-doors-antique-old-1558479/
(Some) students have more choices than ever
before
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55. Knowledge - and education - as public
goods are increasingly defunded and
privatised
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56. Barnett, R. (2000). University knowledge in an age of supercomplexity. Higher education, 40(4), 409-422.
Barnett, R. (2004). Learning for an unknown future. Higher Education Research & Development, 23(3), 247-260.
We have moved from complexity to supercomplexity where
the universal claims of Mode 1’s disciplinary knowledge,
and the problem-based approach of Mode 2 knowledge
will fall short.
We see glimpses of the need for a Mode 3 knowledge –
where “knowing produces further uncertainty” (Barnett,
2004, p. 251), where “the world recedes from us, even as
we approach it” (Barnett, 2004, p. 252).
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/path-away-devoured-curves-fog-1468938/
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57. The “curriculum as contested space”
Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/lock-old-door-gloomy-mystery-1973640/
What are the possibilities for curricula to open
spaces for interrogration, questioning,
inclusion, and redefinition of what we already
know or think we do?

58. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/maze-ideas-auto-stop-male-1706852/
What are the possibilities for
curricula to celebrate what we don’t
know (yet)?

59. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/graffiti-artist-graffiti-art-1380108/
What are the possibilities for curricula to
contest historical and current knowledge
claims?
What is the possibility of the curriculum not
only being a contested space but also a
contesting space?
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60. Image credit: https://pixabay.com/en/empty-abandoned-messy-grunge-scene-863118/
THANK YOU
Paul Prinsloo
Research Professor in Open Distance Learning (ODL)
College of Economic and Management Sciences,
Office number 3-15, Club 1, Hazelwood, P O Box 392
Unisa, 0003, Republic of South Africa
T: +27 (0) 12 433 4719 (office)
T: +27 (0) 82 3954 113 (mobile)
prinsp@unisa.ac.za
Skype: paul.prinsloo59
Personal blog: http://opendistanceteachingandlearning.wordpress.com
Twitter profile: @14prinsp
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