ABSTRACT
Schools and classrooms play a pivotal role in mediating sociocultural, economic and political change; they also reflect geopolitical power relations and demographic shifts. The impact of colonialism/imperialism on educational policy and practice provides a historical example of this. During the colonial period education played a major role in mediating the power of the colonial state through both the hidden and overt curriculum in order to secure the social relations of domination and control. The ideology of colonialism, grounded in unequal power relations between rulers and ruled, permeated the educational system. Colonial power relations were implicated in the social construction of knowledge and in demarcating differential levels of access to education for colonized groups in different parts of the world, resulting in the unequal distribution of life chances. Much of this was achieved through, inter alia, the choice of language for teaching and learning, curriculum form and content, the availability of teaching and learning resources – and by regulating who could have access to different forms and levels of education.
