Decoloniality, staff development and the limits of inclusive education in UK higher education: A reflexive case study

Abstract

Inclusive education in higher education is increasingly framed through commitments to equity, diversity, and epistemic justice, yet the enactment of these commitments remains uneven and contested. This qualitative case study examines a cross‐disciplinary staff development initiative at a UK post‐92 university that engaged academic and professional services staff with decolonial approaches to curriculum design. Grounded conceptually in praxis, positionality and pluriversality, the initiative comprised participatory workshops and a practical toolkit intended to support critical reflection on colonial legacies in teaching and learning. Data were generated through workshop feedback, reflective testimonies and follow‐up consultations with 40 self‐selecting participants across education, health, business and professional services. Reflexive thematic analysis indicates that the initiative functioned primarily as a space for conceptual clarification and affective engagement rather than sustained pedagogical or structural transformation. Participants reported increased confidence in articulating decolonial concepts and heightened awareness of epistemic exclusion, alongside persistent constraints linked to assessment practices, institutional regulation and audit cultures. Although framed within inclusive education, issues of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and neurodiversity were largely absent from participant reflections. Rather than treating this as a limitation, the paper interrogates this absence as an empirical finding.