Browsing by Author "Butcher-Lashley, Jean"

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    Principles of higher education institutions in postcolonial Barbados: A study using life history as a decolonizing methodology
    (2016-06) Butcher-Lashley, Jean
    Life stories of indigenous or colonized peoples can be located within a decolonizing agenda. Our biographies can influence our professional life. However, if not contextualized or examined against the social, political, cultural or whatever context from which they originate, our biographies and life stories can be disempowering and assist in ‘fortifying patterns of dominance’ (Goodson, 2013, p. 5). I take a decolonizing life history approach to explore the biographies of Barbadian higher education principals working at particular times within the island’s recent history from the period 1987 to the present. This approach allows me to see how the stories of principals are set within a colonial, sociohistorical, political context imbedded with the meta-narratives of a colonial hegemony still in existence within a Barbadian context. In various ways this affected the way principals functioned in the professional sphere. It may therefore be necessary to include in training programmes, space for principals or persons in leadership positions to reflect on their life experiences and to attempt to contextualize those life experiences.