The Palgrave Handbook of Decolonising the Educational and Language Sciences

“Walking and working through concepts not observing at a distance, finding decolonial ground and shifting sands, generously offering a way of languaging the academic tasks through multiple edges and pluriversal possibilities, the PADELS Handbook is a potlatch, a smorgasbord, a veritable feast for the intellect. It builds on the decolonial return and prospects of epistemic justice. It is a book for learning afresh and it is an exhilarating prospect for those of us with a great deal still to learn.” (Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair for Refugee Integration through Education, Languages and Art, University of Glasgow, UK)

“This open access handbook is a no-nonsense, exhilarating invitation for readers and authors to co-imagine decolonial futures in education and language. Harnessing the transformative power of multiloguing, it opens pathways to creatively embody the principles of decolonial disobedience. Through its multivocal explorations, the handbook affirms the possibility of pluriversal knowledges, inspiring brave reimaginings of education and language.” (Lourdes Ortega, Professor of Linguistics, Georgetown University, USA)

“This refreshing handbook puts educational and language sciences at the forefront of decolonising scholarship. It not only presents original work from across the world, highlighting especially under-represented areas of the Global South, but also offers a critique of the disciplinary thinking, making a case for alternative ‘undisciplinary’ thinking. Its impact will be felt for a very long time to come.” (Li Wei, Director, Dean and Professor of Applied Linguistics, Institute of Education, University College London, UK)

“This refreshingly diverse handbook is an important contribution to the education and language sciences, in which Bagga-Gupta and colleagues present decolonization through multi/pluriversality. All chapters offer insights through non-mainstream lenses, allowing – and maybe even forcing – the reader to imagine and reimagine multiply layered intersections that cannot be seen when examining the topics from mainstream angles. With our current paradigm shift from uni- to multi- and pluri-, the PaDELS Handbook will bring about broad new ways of thinking and become a necessary read for everyone in multiple fields.” (Sigrid Norris, Director and Professor of the AUT Multimodal Research Centre, Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand)

“This open-access handbook is a compelling, multidisciplinary anthology that confronts hegemony in the educational and language sciences. With contributions from 55 visionary scholars, this 37-chapter volume moves beyond conventional approaches, inviting readers to reconsider entrenched paradigms and embrace global-centric perspectives. The PaDELS Handbook disrupts colonial epistemologies through a blend of historical analyses, innovative methodologies, and Southern vocabularies. It underscores the importance of local knowledge, equity, and multi-perspectival literacies, while challenging established frameworks that exclude diverse voices. PaDELS is an essential resource for those committed to transformative education and inclusivity. Engaging scholars and students across and beyond the fields of education and language, this handbook offers a rigorous exploration of Southern and decolonial perspectives, critical positionality, and the complex politics of knowledge production. Through its nuanced discourse, the PaDELS Handbook provides invaluable insights into reconfiguring traditional frameworks and expanding the boundaries of epistemic inquiry.” (Tsitsi Chataika, Director and Assistant Professor Faculty of Education, University of Zimbabwe)

“After decades of ‘globalization’, one is currently flooded by a race for ‘southern’ perspectives and ‘voices from the south’, especially since the shift in what used to see itself simply as ‘The World’ is now forced to see itself as the ‘Global North’. As this collection shows, ‘southern’ voices and thinking have always co-existed with what emanated from the now ‘Global North’. However, these were ignored, invisibilized and seen to be ‘peripheral’. In the PaDELS Handbook they speak from their exteriority. After all, there is no possibility of being outside anything. Those considered to be ‘peripheral’, like those who consider themselves as normative and central, are in fact sturdily located within their own knowledge systems. What was missing previously was the cross-dialogue; not a ‘speaking back’ that maintains the centrality of the self-proclaimed ‘centre’, but an embodiment of a new configuration of knowledge. In this lies the force of this collection.” (Lynn Mario de Souza, Senior Professor, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil)

“This Handbook is a remarkable and timely contribution to the fields of education and language studies. It brings together a diverse collection of global studies that challenge the prevailing universalist paradigms of education and language research. It is a valuable resource for both researchers and students, likely to remain a key reference for years to come. A central contribution of the PaDELS Handbook is that it exemplifies and prefigures a pluralistic and global-centric vision of educational and language sciences. The volume is particularly notable for its focus on the ways in which knowledge production within academia must be transformed in order to support this paradigm shift. It makes a compelling case for revising how research is conducted, edited, and reviewed, advocating for alternative practices that reflect the multiplicity of perspectives necessary for decolonizing these fields.” (Antti Rajala, Professor of Sociocultural Psychology and Education, Institute of Psychology and Education, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland)