Showing papers in "Contemporary Education Dialogue in 2016"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explored the views and experiences of schooling among parents of children with autism from middle-income families in urban India and found that parents shared a precarious and fragile relationship with the school.
Abstract: This article explores the views and experiences of schooling among parents of children with autism from middle-income families in urban India. A total of 18 parents with children attending private mainstream schools in Kolkata were interviewed about their school choice, interactions with the school and perceptions regarding their child’s schooling. The findings position parents as strategic agents, who actively negotiate a range of obstacles, resolve dilemmas and handle tensions to ensure their child’s admission and continuity in school. It was clear that parents shared a precarious and fragile relationship with the school. While parents were, on the face of it, positive about the school, parental accounts show how the school had not made any significant changes to accommodate the needs of their child. The article concludes by reflecting on the complexities inherent in these findings and questions why these agentic middle-class parents who could be the impetus of greater change seemed rather limited in th...
16 citations
TL;DR: The rise of domestic and international philanthropic engagement in education in India cannot be understood in isolation; rather, it is part of a broader trend of what is termed "new global philanthropy in education" in the Global South as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This article argues that the rise of domestic and international philanthropic engagement in education in India cannot be understood in isolation; rather, it is part of a broader trend of what is termed ‘new global philanthropy in education’ in the Global South. Central to understanding the nature of this engagement is the localised expression of global flows, that is, the movement and connections of ideas and actors that enable philanthropic action and discourse. Based on a global review of the literature, this article contextualises and applies a conceptual framework of philanthropic governance to India given the country’s prominence in the review. It also presents illustrative examples of philanthropic engagement in India.
13 citations
TL;DR: Bourdieu's career trajectory was extraordinary considering the tight, hierarchical and centralised nature of French society, where children from privileged backgrounds are trained from an early age for entry into the elite institutions of higher education as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Pierre Bourdieu had modest, peasant roots. He was born in 1930, in a rural family in the Béarn province of south-western France. He was the first one in his family to finish high school. His father, the son of a sharecropper, was a postal worker. Bourdieu, being a ‘scholarship boy’,1 made his way to the elite École Normale Supérieure. Here, alongside Louis Althusser, he studied philosophy, which was the most esteemed course in post-war French society. While starting his career as a philosopher, his fieldwork in Algeria, and later in his native region Béarn, became his ‘conversion points’, as he moved away from philosophy to anthropology and sociology.2 Rising through the ranks of academia in France, he built his own strong research centre and occupied the prestigious Chair of Sociology at the Collège de France, Paris. His career trajectory was extraordinary considering the tight, hierarchical and centralised nature of French society, where children from privileged backgrounds are trained from an early age for entry into the elite institutions of higher education. His own disadvantaged background led him naturally to champion the rights of the downtrodden. Showing repugnance towards the ‘bourgeoisie intellectuals’ who remained aloof and distanced from the minutiae of everyday life, Bourdieu writes, ‘The intellectual world, which believes itself so profoundly liberated from conformity and convention, has always seemed to me as inhabited by profound conformities, that acted Contemporary Education Dialogue 13(2) 231–250 © 2016 Education Dialogue Trust SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/0973184916640406 http://ced.sagepub.com Classics with Commentary
9 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explored the underlying reasons for the dismal scenario at the secondary level of education by situating it within the larger political economy and livelihood patterns in a rural region.
Abstract: Secondary education has been a relatively neglected area in India, both at the level of policy and research. Statistical data at the secondary level of education reveals a bleak picture in terms of enrolment and completion rates. This article explores the underlying reasons for the dismal scenario at the secondary level of education by situating it within the larger political economy and livelihood patterns in a rural region. The research is based on an ethnographic study of parents and children from labouring households in a village in Odisha in 2008–2009.
4 citations
TL;DR: The discourse around public education in recent times presents an abysmal picture of failing public schools delivering low levels of learning, and the key constituent held responsible for this failure is the permanent teacher of government schools who is supposedly taking undue advantage of "high salaries" paid according to the recommendations of the Pay Commission as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: The discourse around public education in recent times presents an abysmal picture of failing public schools delivering low levels of learning. The key constituent held responsible for this failure is the permanent teacher of government schools who is supposedly taking undue advantage of ‘high salaries’ paid according to the recommendations of the Pay Commission. Is it fair, or even practically useful, to hold teachers responsible for this apparent failure when they are only a part of a system? Could there be a bigger picture, a more complex explanation? We are teachers who have taught for many years in elementary and secondary schools in Delhi. We opted to come into the public system believing that we had something to contribute to it. In this essay, we share some of our experiences and reflections. Contemporary Education Dialogue 13(2) 266–272 © 2016 Education Dialogue Trust SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/0973184916640427 http://ced.sagepub.com End Page
4 citations
TL;DR: This article explored the role of education as an intervening in the failure of the trickle-down theory and showed that micro-level intervention policies that empower individuals have been successful in achieving better results on this count.
Abstract: The prevalence of widespread poverty and the increasing inequality in income distribution across nations point to the failure of the trickle-down theory. The long-held faith in the growth of income as the sole policy instrument to achieve the national objective of growth with equity has been put to the test. The increasing numbers of the poor, accompanied by the widening gap between the upper- and lower-income strata, have prompted researchers to explore the reasons for these shifts so that policies to address the problem can be formulated and implemented. Recent experience shows that micro-level intervention policies that empower individuals have been successful in achieving better results on this count. One such policy intervention is educational expansion, in terms of both quantity and quality. Education is considered to be a significant factor in building better human skills and hence largely affects the earning ability of an individual. This article explores the role of education as an intervening in...
4 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, four aspects specific to Mahatma Phule's work in education were discussed, including his own social and educational background which undoubtedly had a fair degree of influe...
Abstract: This article attempts to dwell on four aspects specific to Mahatma Phule’s work in education: (i) Mahatma Phule’s own social and educational background which undoubtedly had a fair degree of influe...
2 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for the need for a healthy debate in India about the efficacy and relevance of school rankings as a way of improving school accountability and raising standards, and argue that stakeholders are not well informed about the actual academic standards of schools, a situation that strengthens the case for the public provision of information about school results.
Abstract: Many Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries publish school rankings annually, based on the aggregated student performance of different schools in the (high-stakes) board examinations. The literature cites two reasons in favour of the public availability of information on school performance: first, the highly valued imperative of providing parents information that will enable them to make more informed school choices for their children, and, second, the idea that when parents are better informed, poorly performing schools are under greater pressure to be accountable for improving their quality in order to compete to attract students. Detractors fear that rankings reflect not only the schools’ quality but also the family backgrounds of their students. This article examines evidence for the claim that when school rankings are published, school quality increases. It also examines the ways in which countries ensure that school rankings reflect school quality and not the home backgrounds of their students. The article shows how school rankings based on subject performance can help principals diagnose the teaching of which subjects needs strengthening, and reveals how rankings can help parents choose from among all the schools in the neighbourhood of a city. The article also demonstrates that objective school rankings (based on exam results) and subjective school rankings (based on the perceptions of principals and parents of ‘academic reputation’) differ substantially, with a correlation coefficient of only around 0.6–0.7. This suggests that subjective ‘academic reputation’ rankings are not a good substitute for objective rankings, and that stakeholders are not well informed about the actual academic standards of schools, a situation that strengthens the case for the public provision of information about school results. The article argues for the need for a healthy debate in India about the efficacy and relevance of school rankings as a way of improving school accountability and raising standards.
2 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that research attempts to present or propose non-cognitive dialogical models, which focus on the interpersonal aspect, while emphasising relations such as containment and empathy, and while focusing on the emotions of the student, do not necessarily contribute to the realisation of an educational dialogue and might even block the creation of the "sphere of the between" which is essential to the development of a dialogue.
Abstract: This article presents the current perception of dialogical teaching models as a notion that is concerned primarily with the cognitive layers of the dialogue, and focuses on the cognitive functions of learning, information processing, interpretation and decision-making. This perception, according to different researchers, ignores the relational dimensions of the dialogue and fails to raise the question of how the relational capabilities should be developed among teachers. In contrast, the article argues that research attempts to present or propose non-cognitive dialogical models, which focus on the interpersonal aspect, while emphasising relations such as containment and empathy, and while focusing on the emotions of the student, do not necessarily contribute to the realisation of an educational dialogue and might even block the creation of the ‘sphere of the between’, which is essential to the development of a dialogue. The article suggests the adoption of the existential approach and proposes an initiati...
1 citations
TL;DR: In this article, a tactical intervention aimed at improving the academic performance of students that brought about more than the intended positive changes in the target schools through contiguous effect was presented. But the intervention was primarily focused on student performance in examinations and was externally driven but led to many improvements in the internal systems as well.
Abstract: This article analyses a tactical intervention aimed at improving the academic performance of students that brought about more than the intended positive changes in the target schools through contiguous effect. The intervention was primarily focused on student performance in examinations and was externally driven but led to many improvements in the internal systems as well. The manifestation of this process is explained through the Stakeholder Transition Model and the Outcome-focused Tactical Intervention Model. Within the broad framework of the Tactical, Network and Tacit triad, the article argues that contextualising for the local milieu or situation, coordinated stakeholder engagement and interpersonal relationships play important roles in the success of any intervention. The fact that these are not effectively implemented in the government schools covered in this study is not a comment on the system, since this issue is far too complex to be exhaustively discussed here. This intervention suggests a way...