ABSTRACT
We live on the land of the Nyungar Nation in what is now called Western Australia and as teacher educators we have long focused on deconstructing ‘race’ and racism. Within the context of our teaching, it is particularly important to debunk the ideas that Australia is a postcolonial nation-state in which we are equally competing on a level playing field, or that equality of opportunity leads to equitable outcomes. Hence, deconstructing taken-for-granted assumptions means moving from essentialist understandings of ‘race’, class and gender to positions that enable our students to take cognisance of their racialised and gendered positioning if they are to become more effective anti-discriminatory practitioners. Indeed, our attempts as educators to engage future teachers in reflective processes are explicitly designed to provide them with the conceptual tools to decolonise the curriculum.
