In an era of rapid technological change, artificial intelligence, digital platforms, and data-driven pedagogy, global conversations about the future of education risk skipping a foundational question: what kind of knowledge are our schools actually built on? Across West Africa, education systems continue to operate within fundamentally colonial epistemological frameworks, privileging Western knowledge paradigms while marginalizing indigenous ways of knowing, teaching, and learning. No technological transformation, however sophisticated, can substitute for getting that foundation right.
This panel returns to the foundational question. It interrogates the persistence of colonial epistemological structures in West African education and asks what genuine pedagogical transformation, not merely curricular adjustment or digital upgrading, would actually require.
We are particularly interested in papers that examine how indigenous epistemologies, oral traditions, apprenticeship systems, communal learning practices, proverb-based frameworks, and local knowledge systems can serve not merely as supplementary cultural content but as the epistemological bedrock upon which any meaningful educational transformation must rest.
We welcome papers that engage with (but are not limited to) the following themes:
– Indigenous knowledge systems and formal curriculum reform
– Language, identity, and the politics of instruction in West African schools
– Decolonizing teacher education and pedagogical practice
– Community-based and experiential learning models
– Epistemological hybridity: navigating indigenous and global knowledge systems
– Historical and contemporary encounters between colonial, indigenous, and digital education
– The politics of knowledge production in African universities and schools
The panel welcomes both empirically grounded and theoretically oriented papers. Interdisciplinary perspectives, including history, sociology, anthropology, and educational studies, are encouraged.
We are seeking three additional panelists whose work engages with education, knowledge production, and pedagogy in West Africa or comparable African contexts.
To express interest, please send a paper title, a short abstract (150-200 words), and a brief bio to anancy@email.unc.edu by March 12, 2026.
This panel is co-organized by:
Nancy A. Andoh, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
and
Ebenezer Mintah Danquah, University of Wisconsin, Madison
