Decolonising education otherwise
Rabindranath Tagore and the spirit of secular criticism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7154841 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Remy Yi Siang Low (0000-0003-3182-251X, The University of Sydney, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue | 5 |
| Pages | 1137-1142 |
| Publication date | 2025-10-20 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Globalisation Societies and Education (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1476-7724 • E-ISSN: 1476-7732 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14767724.2024.2435421 |
| OpenAlex | W4405081355 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 12 |
‘Decolonise education!’ This exhortation has travelled far and wide – in the Global North and Global South, in formally independent former colonies and settler colonial societies. As such voices grow, we might ask: What does decolonising education entail? How should this be undertaken? And, importantly, who decides on the terms by which such an undertaking should be guided and by what authorities?If this line of questioning appears abstract or tentative in the face of a struggle many take to be of utmost urgency, then what this essay hopes to offer is clarity and tangibility to this caution. With present day India as an example, I sketch out ambivalences in the way decolonial theory has travelled. I then counterpose decolonial theory with the decolonial thought of two exemplars: the cultural critic Edward Said, whose work provides a clear argument for ‘secular criticism’ against recourse to any quasi-religious or nativist orthodoxy that purports to stand beyond the complicated entanglements of human history; and the Bengali writer and educational leader Rabindranath Tagore who, under the pall of British imperialism and amidst an ascendant chauvinistic Indian nationalism in the early-twentieth century, embodied such a secular criticism in his approach to decolonising education
Aesthetics · Art · Criticism · Literature · Secular education · Social science · Sociology · African cultural and philosophical studies · Critical and Liberation Pedagogy · Gender Studies · Indian History and Philosophy · Philosophy · Religious studies
The Text, the World, the Critic
Rise of the Political Right in India
A Civilizing Mission? Music and the Cosmopolitan in Edward Said
The debate between secularism and Hindu nationalism – how India’s textbooks have become the government’s medium for political communication
A Herald of Religious Unity
On Decolonisation and the University
Culture and Imperialism
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |