Decolonising audiology education: Epistemic barriers and opportunities for Black African students

Background: In South Africa, the Audiology curriculum remains rooted in Eurocentric epistemologies that do not reflect the lived realities, languages and cultural knowledge systems of Black African First-Language Speaking (BAFLS) students. This study responds to national calls for epistemic transformation in health sciences education, including Audiology. Objectives: This study examined the epistemological challenges encountered by BAFLS Audiology students at the University of Interest (UoI). Our objectives were to explore how the BAFLS students experience accessing and navigating the undergraduate Audiology curriculum and recommend interventions to address the identified challenges. Method: A qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological design informed the methods adopted. Ten purposively selected BAFLS graduates from the UoI participated in in-depth semi-structured interviews. Cowen’s Logical Model of Curriculum Development (LMCD) framed the data generation and analysis. A decolonial perspective emerged naturally in the interpretation of the findings, based on the experiences reported, which the authors incorporated into the discussion of the recommendations for improvements. Results: Thematic analysis revealed a lack of alignment between some of the curriculum content taught and the realities of Audiology practice in African contexts. Assessment practices were experienced as biased and failing to account for the students’ linguistic and cultural diversity. Experienced linguicism, racism and classism contributed to surface learning and graduates feeling underprepared to provide contextually relevant and Afrocentric professional care. Conclusion: The undergraduate Audiology curriculum at the UoI needs a fundamentally transformative redesign towards being more Afrocentric and epistemologically inclusive towards BAFLS students. Contribution: This study provides a pathway towards the decolonisation of the Audiology curriculum by identifying specific challenges to be addressed urgently to improve its epistemic inclusivity towards BAFLS students, who currently feel marginalised.