Showing papers in "Contemporary Education Dialogue in 2012"
TL;DR: Ivan Illich's Deschooling Society (hereafter DS) was published 40 years ago as discussed by the authors, and it still continues to inspire educational experiments in much of the Third World. But a large part of the discussion on Illich has focused on the details of the proposal outlined in DS, and seems to have missed the point that the book's focus was more on society rather than on only 'deschooling'.
Abstract: Ivan Illich’s book (1971), Deschooling Society (hereafter DS), was published 40 years ago. Of all the books purportedly written on radical educational alternatives that came out in 1960s and 1970s, Illich’s book remains perhaps the most discussed, and it still continues to inspire educational experiments in much of the Third World. But a large part of the discussion on Illich has focused on the details of the proposal outlined in DS, and seems to have missed the point that the book’s focus was more on ‘society’ rather than on only ‘deschooling’. More often than not, Illich’s work, especially DS, is seen as being reflective of a broader countercultural turn towards the end of the 1960s in the United States (Latta, 1989), and is generally located within a larger critique of schooling (Foster, 1971; Keesbury, 1981). Although Illich’s voice was a significant one in this countercultural turn, one needs to see his work beyond this. His work is seen as belonging to a broader group of ‘radical liberals’ such as Dewey and Freire (Lichtenstein, 1985, p. 51). It is also seen as being derivative of earlier sociological works by scholars such as
532 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the interface between Ambedkar's ideologies of liberation and education, on the one hand, and dalit women's thoughts and perspectives on the other hand, seeking to incorporate gender in the understanding of the historical processes of social change.
Abstract: Despite the phenomenal impact that it has had in transforming the lives of dalits and its continuing contemporary relevance, Ambedkar’s social and educational thought remains surprisingly neglected in Indian educational discourse. Education was assigned a revolutionary role in Ambedkar’s conception of social progress and in his vision of a just and equal society. It was identified as a key instrument of liberation from oppressive structures of Hindu caste-patriarchy as well as of reconstruction of a new social order. Women were integral to this visionary egalitarianism and were consciously mobilised as political actors in the dalit liberation movement led by Ambedkar in the early decades of the twentieth century. This article explores the interface between Ambedkar’s ideologies of liberation and education, on the one hand, and dalit women’s thoughts and perspectives, on the other hand. It seeks to incorporate gender in the understanding of the historical processes of social change. It argues that an emanc...
24 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examined national-level data to reveal the complex and elusive forms being currently assumed by gender discrimination in higher education and found that disparities among women from different social groups are greater than those among men of the same groups.
Abstract: The current moment of higher education reforms in India has yet to receive sustained attention from scholars and activists. Historically speaking, women’s education occupied a central place from the nineteenth century to the first decades of India’s independence, but, curiously, lost prominence with the onset of the women’s movement and the introduction of women’s studies in the academy in the 1980s and since then. Although the participation of women in higher education shows steady improvement and a narrowing of the gender gap, the article examines national-level data to reveal the complex and elusive forms being currently assumed by gender discrimination. This includes recognising that disparities among women from different social groups are greater than those among men of the same groups. Secondly, many of the contexts where gender gaps have closed are also characterised by adverse child sex ratios due to practices of sex selection. Taken together, the current era of expansion in higher education deman...
12 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the linkages between women's education and women's development as these have been understood and forged by feminists and argue that education, unless conceptualised in the ways in which Jotiba Phule and Paulo Freire did, is otherwise of little use to women, as it is for all those outside the field of power.
Abstract: This article examines the linkages between women’s education and women’s development as these have been understood and forged by feminists. The rhetoric of empowerment is examined to see what is included among its indices. The article explores questions about the goals of women’s education as understood by policy makers and educationists. These are examined in relation to the feminist commitment to women’s right to autonomy, to fulfilling their own potential as human beings, to thinking for themselves and to changing the structural conditions that obstruct their autonomy. I argue that education, unless conceptualised in the ways in which Jotiba Phule and Paulo Freire did—as a traitiya ratna, or a third eye that opens up a way of understanding the world, and as a pedagogy of the oppressed, respectively—is otherwise of little use to women, as it is for all those outside the field of power.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, a personal and disciplinary journey in, around and between getting more women in science and changing the nature of science education is described, using the framework of Feminist Science Studies, and a suggestion to make it more contextualised and more located in its specific setting.
Abstract: This article describes a personal and disciplinary journey in, around and between getting more women in science and changing the nature of science education. Using the framework of Feminist Science Studies, I explore the gendered nature of science and offer a suggestion to make it more contextualised and more located in its specific setting. This will be beneficial not only for those excluded from science education but also for the provision of a better science education itself.
6 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the role of gender in the Indian state's recent efforts to set up residential elementary schools for girls, the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs), in each district of the country.
Abstract: A recent article I wrote (2010) asked the question ‘Why have state efforts around educating the “girl child” not been subject to greater critical analysis by feminist scholars in India?’ This question had emerged from a specific example that I was using to provocatively interrogate the broader terrain of elementary education around issues concerning the schooling of girls. Over the past two decades, the increased focus on issues of ‘gender and schooling’ in India has produced several undeniable gains. A few of these include more incentive schemes to encourage girls to attend school, greater employment of women teachers and improved efforts to incorporate female protagonists in textbooks. However, a closer reading of this ‘gender’ focus reveals an inordinate concern with numbers, that is, enrolment. When probed a little further, this focus on enrolment usually discloses a double move affected by the existing discourse. The first is to locate the reasons why girls are out of school strictly within a reading of cultural and familial practices, and the second is to therefore fail to recognise normative practices of schooling and state policies as already deeply ‘gendered’. The article—which focused on the Indian state’s recent efforts to set up residential elementary schools for girls, the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas (KGBVs), in each district of the country—was provoked by both the state’s lauding of this initiative as the most effective way of overcoming cultural barriers to girls’ schooling, as well as the startling absence of any critical feminist engagement with what was being actualised through this intervention. Had the state’s
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the issues at stake for publishers and educators interested in furthering reading and in producing books that render the act of reading by children socially and culturally meaningful.
Abstract: Picture books for children presume the prior existence of a set of reading practices and conventions, as well as institutions that promote reading. In the Indian context, however, picture books have to do double duty to meet other needs as well, like enhancing literacy for one, and also satisfying the social and cultural needs of children who are first-generation learners. This article examines the issues at stake for publishers and educators interested in furthering reading and in producing books that render the act of reading by children socially and culturally meaningful.
4 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a study conducted by LABIA (Lesbians and Bisexuals in Action), a queer feminist collective in Mumbai, was conducted to understand the concerns and realities of queer persons assigned gender female at birth across a spectrum of lived gender identities.
Abstract: This article is based on a study undertaken by LABIA (Lesbians and Bisexuals in Action), a queer feminist collective in Mumbai, titled ‘Breaking the binary: Understanding the concerns and realities of queer persons assigned gender female at birth across a spectrum of lived gender identities’. We look at how the queer and gender-transgressive existence of our respondents impacts their access to education, and subsequently their livelihood opportunities. Education, specifically formal education (and educational institutions), has an important role in violently producing a gender-normative world. However, education is also a passport to an independent economic existence. In this article, we look at these varied experiences as well as how our feminisms need to take these concerns into account as we grapple with the issue of engendering a new kind of education. We draw upon the stories of queer PAGFB (persons assigned gender female at birth) within the formal education system to posit critical interventions in...
3 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a sociological perspective on the existing problems and explain that despite several government programmes, initiatives and incentive schemes directed towards the education of girls, their enrolment, access and retention continue to be matters of concern.
Abstract: The report on the status of girls’ education in Madhya Pradesh (MP) makes for interesting reading primarily for two reasons. First, the report is about MP, one of the most underdeveloped states of India. It was ranked 30th in the comprehensive education development index in 2010. It has the largest tribal population in the country and its literacy rate is lower and its gender literacy gap is higher than the national average. Second, the report presents a sociological perspective on the existing problems and explains that despite several government programmes, initiatives and incentive schemes directed towards the education of girls, their enrolment, access and retention continue to be matters of concern. The report is essentially a documentation of a research study undertaken in 2010. It is based on intensive fieldwork conducted in the 14 blocks of MP and on three case studies of marginalised communities: dalit Muslims; Pardhis, a de-notified tribe living in urban slums, and Balmikis, a community of manual scavengers. In addition, it examines the Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya scheme for promoting girls’ education and for providing hostel facilities for Scheduled Caste (SC) and Scheduled Tribe (ST) girls. In consonance with its aim, the methodological framework of the study moves beyond an investigation of pure education-related variables like enrolment and dropout rates, and also examines sociological variables like sex ratio, rural female literacy rate, gender gap in literacy rate, maternal mortality ratio and percentage of
3 citations
TL;DR: This article analyzed the ways in which geography textbooks, in particular, plot the contours of the modern nation and drew on the work of scholar-activists of the women's movement and feminist geographers in the area of poverty, women's work and gender and space.
Abstract: This article draws on a feminist study of school textbooks in four states (West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat) as well as books produced at the national level. Despite the volume of work produced by feminists over the last two decades in different disciplinary domains, the content of school textbooks, especially in the context of India, does not reflect shifts in understanding of various issues. Using this as a premise, and drawing on the work of scholar-activists of the women’s movement and feminist geographers in the area of development, poverty, women’s work and gender and space, this article analyses the ways in which geography textbooks, in particular, plot the contours of the modern nation. The discourse of development, for instance, emerges as a safe realm in which the nation confronts numerous issues and/or groups of concern in the contemporary context—women, tribals, population control, big dams, etc.—while leaving the idea of the nation secure and unchallenged.
2 citations
TL;DR: This article examined the teaching of economics in higher secondary classes in schools along two important dimensions: (a) the ability to link theory meaningfully with descriptive analysis; and (b) the normative premises of the overall framework.
Abstract: The article examines the teaching of economics in the higher secondary classes in schools along two important dimensions: (a) the ability to link theory meaningfully with descriptive analysis; and (b) the normative premises of the overall framework. The major part of the analysis is based on fieldwork in schools, which also provides a glimpse into the institutional factors at work.
TL;DR: In this paper, the impact of pedagogic acts on children's literature has been discussed in the context of the contemporary education dialogue, with a wide canvas of study, encompassing children’s literature, politics, textuality, cultural production, middle-class mores, citizenship and identity formation, as well as right-wing cultural projects.
Abstract: Contemporary Education Dialogue, 9, 2 (2012): 299–318 adequately dwelt with, except in terms of anecdotes. It is not clear whether the readers of the various language editions were homogeneous, or whether they willingly allowed themselves to be ‘sculpted’ despite the larger political climate of revolt seen during the earlier years of ACK’s existence. The book also follows much discussed scholarly writing on the ACK phenomenon and its ideological disposition. Hence, the phrase ‘sculpting a middle class’ raises hopes about learning more about the pedagogic acts and their consequent impact. The backdrop of these pedagogic acts are indeed elaborated upon, apart from providing an analysis of the texts, as in the case of the decoded narratives of Ambedkar and Nehru, but the impact of these pedagogic acts is not quite clear except in a general theoretical way. Nonetheless, the book adds to the increasing critical reflection on indigenous children’s literature. It also offers a wide canvas of study, encompassing children’s literature, politics, textuality, cultural production, middle-class mores, citizenship and identity formation, as well as right-wing cultural projects. Thus, it would be of interest to those engaged in any of these areas.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss and analyse the ubiquity of the marketplace in children's everyday lives and to interpret the ways in which they experience this commercial world and suggest that marketplace literacy should be made a mandatory aspect of public education.
Abstract: Contemporary Education Dialogue, 9, 1 (2012): 105–130 the necessary critical thinking skills, children are more likely to develop materialist values. The second chapter, ‘Children as “Competent” Consumers’, revisits the media panic surrounding the marketing and advertising of food to children. Discussing the complexities of globesity, it suggests that marketplace literacy should be made a mandatory aspect of public education. This book is an interesting attempt to discuss and analyse the ubiquity of the marketplace in children’s everyday lives and to interpret the ways in which they experience this commercial world. By examining advertising, promotions, shopping and branding, the book looks holistically at the consumer experiences of children. The examples are definitely culture specific. Nevertheless, researchers and teachers in different cultural locations may be able to identify with the conceptual issues discussed here, and then find indigenous examples to fit into their own conceptual frameworks.