Privileging an empire state of mind: imperialism in open educational resources

Purpose This study examines how widely used online open educational resources (OERs) present narratives of imperialism from 1789 to 1914, with particular attention to the prevalence of “balance sheet” approaches and the authorial perspectives of primary and secondary sources. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a content analysis approach to examine 46 sets of OERs drawn from four major platforms. Findings OERs overwhelmingly privilege pro-imperial perspectives, with 85.7% of primary sources recorded by colonizers with few sources recorded by colonized peoples. OERs frequently privilege Eurocentric narratives and minimize colonial voices, thus normalizing imperial conquest and perpetuating systemic silences. Originality/value This study extends existing research to analyze commonly used OERs, revealing how these online materials reproduce ahistoric and problematic narratives of imperialism.