Empowering marginalised students in access programmes: A gendered and Afrocentric approach to a decolonised academic literacy curriculum

Abstract

Reading during academic literacy (AL) courses may improve academic skills and empower marginalised students’ access to education. However, reading curricula might not address the interests, cultural background, and gender context of South African students. Calls for the decolonisation of the curriculum and gender equality remain largely unaddressed. This research aims to address this gap by assessing whether students experience a decolonised, Afro/gender-centric, intensive reading curriculum as beneficial and empowering. Student interest in reading is crucial for acquiring reading skills and from these, AL skills which are key to student success in a multilingual context. A secondary objective is to explore students’ perceptions of reading skills improvement, including reading interest. An interpretivist approach embedded in critical theory was used to guide this research. A mixed-method approach measuring students’ perceptions revealed that exposure to decolonised and gender-inclusive texts was empowering and beneficial for academic skills.