Institute for the Study of Societal Issues

Despite the theoretical elegance and strong explanatory power of decolonial theory, its implications for pedagogy remain to be developed. Oriented by a question posed by Du Bois in 1897, “how does it feel to be a problem?,” I provide the reader with a history of both compulsory education and the juvenile justice system in the United States paying particular attention to the ways in which these systems have helped to (re)produce and re-form the deviant problem. I then examine how European projects of conquest and colonization have informed schooling practices throughout the world that naturalize relationships organized around domination and help to recreate deviant bodies. Finally, I present the reader with what several decolonial theorists have identified as the “decolonial gift,” namely emancipative orientations developed by collectivities positioned as problem people. In thinking through how this gift can serve as an ethical grounding for pedagogy, I offer suggestions as to how instructors can push against alienating and stigmatizing forms of education.