Exploring the Relationship between Knowledge and Power in Transformative Education: A Case Study of African Contexts

Abstract

The accelerating pace of global change, digital innovation, and ecological crisis has prompted growing demands for a rethinking of education’s foundational purposes. This paper explores the complex relationship between knowledge and power in the context of transformative education, emphasizing how power relations shape what counts as legitimate knowledge, whose voices are included, and how educational institutions contribute to (or resist) social transformation. Drawing on critical pedagogy, post-structuralist theory, and decolonial epistemologies, this analysis critiques the traditional university model grounded in linear knowledge transfer and disciplinary silos. It advocates for a reflexive paradigm that repositions educators as co-creators of knowledge, working collaboratively across institutional, disciplinary, and social boundaries. The aim is to critically examine how power is exercised and negotiated within contemporary educational systems, and to explore pathways for constructing more inclusive and future-oriented models of knowledge. Special attention is given to how digital transformation can be used not merely as tools of efficiency, but as instruments for redistributing epistemic authority and cultivating civic agency. Grounded in examples from African higher education systems, this analysis foregrounds tensions between innovation and inequality, and between institutional inertia and foresight. This paper invites a broader conversation about the ethical, political, and pedagogical responsibilities of education in the 21st century and contributes to the evolving discourse on transformative education by offering a vision rooted in epistemic justice, participatory knowledge-making, and socially responsive learning ecosystems.

This article is a part of the special issue “Transforming Education in the 21st Century: Foresight and Sustainable Development”
Guest Editors: Asad Abbas (Writing Lab, Institute for the Future of Education, Tecnologico de Monterrey, Monterrey, Mexico), Ahsan Ali (Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, Hangzhou, China), Jose Luis Martin-Nuñez (Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain), Mehul Mahrishi (Swami Keshvanand Institute of Technology, Management & Gramothan, Jaipur, India)