Learning about Africa and global justice: The contribution of trade justice education in schools and universities

This chapter focuses on trade, a central element in the relations between Africa and Global North but yet a marginalised one in educational discourse and learning about Africa in the North. The chapter further examines how Northern countries have created a dominant narrative about Africa and African people, which portrays the Northern countries as benign actors working and assisting African communities, while at the same time they extract wealth through unfair trade systems and practices created since the era of colonialism. The authors argue that the dominant messages about Africa serve Northern interests and its attempts to justify its ongoing wealth extraction. Those messages are embedded in the dominant culture, and they permeate education and public discourse Therefore, education that uncritically adopts those messages serves to perpetuate them and the injustices they invisibilise. The chapter also looks at efforts by citizens, both in the North and South, to create more just and equal trading relations between Africa and the Global North. It concludes by examining educational interventions, at secondary school and university levels, which have been designed to challenge the dominant discourse, to create a fair perception of Africa and African people, and to teach about the role of trade justice in global sustainable development.