Showing papers in "Contemporary Education Dialogue in 2015"
TL;DR: The increased participation of women in higher education in India since 1947 has not received the scholarly attention it deserves as mentioned in this paper, and since independence, there have been shifts-dispersal and clusterin...
Abstract: The increased participation of women in higher education in India since 1947 has not received the scholarly attention it deserves. Since independence, there have been shifts–dispersal and clusterin...
18 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines women's studies as a moment that mediates the conflict between the women's movement and the university on the question of knowledge and knowledge-production, and the starting point for our work.
Abstract: The article examines women’s studies as a moment that mediates the conflict between the women’s movement and the university on the question of knowledge and knowledge-production. The starting point...
10 citations
TL;DR: The evaluation of students' learning has been the central focus in Indian schools for a very long time as discussed by the authors and teachers and school administrators in most schools train students from the very beginning to...
Abstract: The evaluation of students’ learning has been the central focus in Indian schools for a very long time. Teachers and school administrators in most schools train students from the very beginning to ...
7 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors describe the outcomes of a systematic effort to develop, implement and theorise D&T education pedagogy along with an emphasis on cognitive and curricular dimensions.
Abstract: Enabling learning through meaningful classroom experiences has always been a challenge for teachers. Bringing about a balance of the ‘conceptual’ and the ‘hands-on’, along with contextual embeddedness in problem-solving situations, broadly characterises the experience of development and trials of three Design and Technology (D&T) education units reported here. D&T education is a novel contribution to the curriculum and is in alignment with the values and ideas put forward in the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) 2005 (NCERT, 2005), particularly the need for making appropriate connections across disciplines and fostering meaningful learning. The article describes the outcomes of a systematic effort to develop, implement and theorise D&T education pedagogy along with an emphasis on cognitive and curricular dimensions.
7 citations
TL;DR: The writings of the Russian philosopher Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (17 November 1895-7 March 1975) have enriched the fields of literary theory, cultural and historical linguistics, ethics, religious criticism and other human sciences (such as psychology, sociology and anthropology).
Abstract: The writings of the Russian philosopher Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (17 November 1895–7 March 1975) have enriched the fields of literary theory, cultural and historical linguistics, ethics, religious criticism and other human sciences (such as psychology, sociology and anthropology). The corpus of his work is so varied and wide ranging in its application that it is hard to collect and classify all his concepts under one domain of study. Coulter (1999) maintains that Bakhtin does not articulate and develop one coherent set of ideas; rather, he develops the same idea many times or many ideas at the same time. Bakhtin’s works and ideas gained popularity after his death. He lived through many tough moments in his professional life in the Soviet Union. In the 1930s and 1940s, when the Stalinist party was at its height in the Soviet Union, it ignored all other voices and enforced a new form of subjugation (Stewart, 1983). Scholars whose work deviated from the Contemporary Education Dialogue 12(1) 87–109 © 2015 Education Dialogue Trust SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/0973184914556867 http://ced.sagepub.com
6 citations
TL;DR: The pre-final text of what was adopted in the Constitution of India as Article 45 originated from four sister clauses that together represented the essence of the Sargent Plan of 1944 with the intention of making only the primary stage of education free and compulsory as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The original constitutional provision for free and compulsory education, granted under Article 45 stated that it was to be available for ‘all children until they complete the age of fourteen years’, but it did not specify the lower age limit nor the stage of education (whether elementary or primary) that would be free and compulsory. This has led to much speculation about the ‘real intentions’ of the founding fathers of the Constitution and even led to ‘policy framing’ in support of various preferred strategies. However, this article, based on recent research that traces the genesis of this clause, shows that the pre-final text of what was adopted in the Constitution of India as Article 45 originated from four sister clauses that together represented the essence of the Sargent Plan of 1944, with the intention of making only the primary stage of education free and compulsory.
6 citations
TL;DR: In the new millennium, the Indian education system has experienced a major shift and the issue of the quality of education has taken centre stage in policy discussion fora as discussed by the authors, where the most debated questions are: What is the purpose of assessment? What type of assessment is the most suitable? Standards-based assessment (SBA), a system of referencing students' achievement against predetermined standards, offers a great opportunity to improve classroom learning.
Abstract: In the new millennium, the Indian education system has experienced a major shift and the issue of the quality of education has taken centre stage in policy discussion fora. Globally, assessment has become an important means of improving the quality of education, both at the systemic level and at the level of individual students. It necessitates innovation, exploration and implementation of world-class assessment standards to augment the efforts aimed at realising quality education and improved learning achievement. School education, being the foundation of the education system of any country, has witnessed the adoption of a number of innovative models of assessment that have the potential to improve the learning levels of students. But the most debated questions are: What is the purpose of assessment? What type of assessment is the most suitable? Standards-based assessment (SBA), a system of referencing students’ achievement against predetermined standards, offers a great opportunity to improve classroom ...
6 citations
3 citations
2 citations
TL;DR: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad as mentioned in this paper was one of the foremost leaders of the Indian freedom struggle and was not a run-of-the-mill politician, but an intellectual and thinker who spent several decades writing and speaking on diverse issues, including education.
Abstract: Maulana Abul Kalam Azad was one of the foremost leaders of the Indian freedom struggle. He was not a run-of-the-mill politician, but an intellectual and thinker who spent several decades writing and speaking on diverse issues, including education. His commitment to the pluralist ethos of the Indian freedom struggle is reflected in his work and career as the first minister for education, science and culture in independent India. He constantly strived as a minister and as an intellectual to synthesize Indian and Western ideas into a single, coherent pattern suitable for the newly independent nation. He was one of the few leaders of the freedom movement who, while steeped in medieval scholarship and classical learning, nevertheless transcended the limits of different classical languages and religion. Azad castigated a narrow outlook of any kind, whether expressed as cultural tradition, as national chauvinism or as religious orthodoxy. Several scholars have written on Azad’s political contributions and on his theological acumen as an Islamic scholar par excellence. However, few have examined in detail and acknowledged his immense contributions to nation building, particularly in the areas of education and culture. The need to do this is even more significant in the context of Islam today, not only in India but also globally. Maulana Azad’s ideas on education are found scattered in his writings, speeches and letters, which run into thousands of pages. He drew inspiration from diverse sources, ranging from religion to philosophy and from history to science. Most of his early engagements with, and Contemporary Education Dialogue 12(2) 238–257 © 2015 Education Dialogue Trust SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/0973184915581920 http://ced.sagepub.com
2 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the relationship between the need to improve services and products and the need for improving the quality of the learning experience (content, learner support and outcomes), and suggest that the former need has acquired primacy over the latter.
Abstract: Most of the DE institutions discussed in this volume seem to be characterised by a conflict between the need to improve services and products, on the one hand, and the need to improve the quality of the learning experience (content, learner support and outcomes), on the other hand. The practices, however, suggest that the former need has acquired primacy over the latter, a view that is also reinforced in the concluding chapter (p. 280). DE institutions are moving in a direction where the metaphor of the student as a ‘client’ or ‘consumer’ is being used increasingly and where ‘consumer perceptions’ rather than academic criteria determine what is perceived to be good quality. The book brings out the complex nature of quality-related issues in DE, and the existing practices point to the need for finding more effective ways of addressing these complexities in order to strengthen the foundation of DE institutions as credible universities.
TL;DR: Chayanika Shah (CS): Actually, this is a postfacto realisation as discussed by the authors, and I and others like me never thought of ourselves as being different from the other students.
Abstract: Chayanika Shah (CS): Actually, this is a post-facto realisation. While I was there, I and others like me never thought of ourselves as being different from the other students. In fact, I think the first feminist struggle that we had on my IIT campus was naming our hostel as Hostel 10. Earlier, it was known as the Ladies Hostel, and we said that since we were ‘students like everybody else’, and since the other hostels were named Hostel 1 through Hostel 9, ours should be called Hostel 10. So back then, it was a continuous claim to the space as a student and as an Contemporary Education Dialogue 12(1) 126–133 © 2015 Education Dialogue Trust SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/0973184914556871 http://ced.sagepub.com
TL;DR: In this article, the authors conclude that schools are complex communities that simultaneously support and limit individual agency and act as both a conservative force (in which society is reproduced) and as a site for social change, not only through what they seek to do but significantly in what participants in them seek to make of them.
Abstract: backgrounds. The chapter concludes that schools are complex communities that simultaneously support and limit individual agency and act as both a conservative force (in which society is reproduced) and as a site for social change, ‘not only through what they seek to do but significantly in what participants in them seek to make of them’ (p. 355). While a couple of chapters could have done with some editing to tighten the argument, overall, the collection is a valuable account of school cultures in neoliberal India that brings into focus many aspects of schooling beyond the more formal transactions of curriculum and classroom pedagogy. Interestingly, the volume editor and all the contributors are women, which is an uncommon occurrence other than in collections on gender and women’s studies. My main quibble is with the title of the volume. ‘Contemporary India’ includes urban, peri-urban and rural communities, but the last category is not included in this collection. I would therefore suggest that at least some of the contributors get together with other ethnographers and sociologists of education to undertake similar ethnographies in rural schools, which could, in time, lead to another volume of studies on contemporary schooling to complement the existing one. That said, this volume is a welcome addition to the small but growing number of qualitative studies on the sociology of schooling in India.