Lesson 02
Decolonizing the Curriculum
Global and Local DEI Trends · Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
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Summary, mindmap and highlights
This LSE film follows economic historians and schoolteachers who are rebuilding the way the British Empire is taught. Their starting problem is practical: many teachers avoid the topic because it is politically charged and hard to teach with confidence.
The project uses economic history to widen the evidence base. Quantitative data sits alongside qualitative sources, regions are compared, and local archives help recover actors who are faint or absent in imperial records. The result is a more complicated account of extraction, institutions, trade, labour, resistance and long-run outcomes.
For curriculum work, the method is useful: audit whose questions shape the syllabus, inspect which archives and authors carry authority, add local scholarship, and build enquiries that let students test claims against evidence. A changed reading list has more value when the questions, cases and assessment also change.
This is a focused British-history case from secondary education. Indian higher education will need different archives, languages, disciplines and student perspectives. The film offers a disciplined example whose details need local rebuilding.
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- 01
Teachers need strong evidence and usable materials for politically charged histories.
- 02
Economic history combines quantitative, qualitative and comparative methods.
- 03
Local archives can reveal people and processes missing from official colonial records.
- 04
Curriculum review should examine questions, sources, authors, cases and assessment.
- 05
Students can work with contested claims through structured enquiry.
- 06
Indian adaptation requires local archives, languages, scholarship and student voices.
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Additional resources
Use these readings and tools to check sources, extend the topic or apply it in your teaching.
London School of Economics and Political Science
Decolonising the curriculum: How to teach Empire
The official film page with speaker details and the project's teaching context.
LSE Research for the World
Teaching about colonialism in the classroom
A detailed account of the evidence, local archives and teacher-fellowship resources behind the film.
SOAS University of London
Decolonising SOAS Learning and Teaching Toolkit
A university toolkit for reviewing curriculum content, pedagogy, classroom dynamics and institutional context.
SOAS University of London
Decolonising learning and teaching
A public collection of practical materials and further reading for curriculum teams.