Pub Date : 2023-07-01DOI: 10.1177/09731849231187706
S. Amatullah, S. Dixit
So far research on school choice sets (decision about choosing a school from an available set of schools) has primarily regarded parents as key actors. Moving beyond, this article emphasises that children are important actors as they inform parental decisions to co-produce certain choice sets. This article foregrounds how school-going Muslim children’s experiences interact with their families to produce school choices across public and private schools in Bangalore, India, while accounting for their marginalisation at the intersections of religion, class and gender. Data were collected from 4 school sites using 21 focus group discussions with 190 children and in-depth interviews with 56 children, 14 teachers and 3 parents and analysed using an intersectional framework. Our findings suggest that factors like heterogeneities in social class, differential levels of religious discrimination/exclusion in schools and a need to protect their faith through education and the complex overlap between these were crucial in shaping choices.
{"title":"Situatedness of School Choice among Muslim Students: An Intersectional Approach","authors":"S. Amatullah, S. Dixit","doi":"10.1177/09731849231187706","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09731849231187706","url":null,"abstract":"So far research on school choice sets (decision about choosing a school from an available set of schools) has primarily regarded parents as key actors. Moving beyond, this article emphasises that children are important actors as they inform parental decisions to co-produce certain choice sets. This article foregrounds how school-going Muslim children’s experiences interact with their families to produce school choices across public and private schools in Bangalore, India, while accounting for their marginalisation at the intersections of religion, class and gender. Data were collected from 4 school sites using 21 focus group discussions with 190 children and in-depth interviews with 56 children, 14 teachers and 3 parents and analysed using an intersectional framework. Our findings suggest that factors like heterogeneities in social class, differential levels of religious discrimination/exclusion in schools and a need to protect their faith through education and the complex overlap between these were crucial in shaping choices.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49460724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-30DOI: 10.1177/09731849231171311
Aditi Athreya, I. Goddeeris
This article studies the relationship between the authorities of newly independent India and mission schools using the case of (and the perspective/sources from) the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Chotanagpur (then South Bihar, now Jharkhand). These relationships were marked by much tension in the late 1940s and early 1950s. An abundance of issues—for instance on finances, appointments, recognition, and management—mirror the fight over the control of the mission schools. However, these debates faded in the late 1950s, inter alia because policy-makers became aware of the benefits of mission schools, both in efficiently educating and in collectively suppressing communism.
{"title":"Indian Authorities and Mission Schools in the Aftermath of Independence: Jesuit Education in Chotanagpur, Bihar/Jharkhand, 1947–1960","authors":"Aditi Athreya, I. Goddeeris","doi":"10.1177/09731849231171311","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09731849231171311","url":null,"abstract":"This article studies the relationship between the authorities of newly independent India and mission schools using the case of (and the perspective/sources from) the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in Chotanagpur (then South Bihar, now Jharkhand). These relationships were marked by much tension in the late 1940s and early 1950s. An abundance of issues—for instance on finances, appointments, recognition, and management—mirror the fight over the control of the mission schools. However, these debates faded in the late 1950s, inter alia because policy-makers became aware of the benefits of mission schools, both in efficiently educating and in collectively suppressing communism.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48803560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-06-26DOI: 10.1177/09731849231168728
G. Sharma, Radhika Mittal, Zayan
This article engages with the teacher education (TE) reform approach adopted in India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. It locates the policy recommendations in the context and challenges of TE in India and makes sense of the NEP’s vision for the domain. It examines the knowledge traditions and global education policy (GEP) discourses that underlie the proposed reforms, and the translation of the core reform ideas in the national regulatory framework for implementation. The first part of the findings identifies the knowledge traditions and influences of GEP inherent in the policy and argues that NEP’s reform approach is an assemblage of fundamentally inconsistent discourses. The second part examines the regulatory norms and standards of the NEP-recommended TE programme to understand what makes it distinct as compared to similar ongoing programmes. Based on the analysis, the article argues that the proposed new programme is a tweaked version of India’s conventional TE approaches.
{"title":"Teacher Education in India’s National Education Policy 2020: Knowledge Traditions, Global Discourses and National Regulations","authors":"G. Sharma, Radhika Mittal, Zayan","doi":"10.1177/09731849231168728","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09731849231168728","url":null,"abstract":"This article engages with the teacher education (TE) reform approach adopted in India’s National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. It locates the policy recommendations in the context and challenges of TE in India and makes sense of the NEP’s vision for the domain. It examines the knowledge traditions and global education policy (GEP) discourses that underlie the proposed reforms, and the translation of the core reform ideas in the national regulatory framework for implementation. The first part of the findings identifies the knowledge traditions and influences of GEP inherent in the policy and argues that NEP’s reform approach is an assemblage of fundamentally inconsistent discourses. The second part examines the regulatory norms and standards of the NEP-recommended TE programme to understand what makes it distinct as compared to similar ongoing programmes. Based on the analysis, the article argues that the proposed new programme is a tweaked version of India’s conventional TE approaches.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43530058","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09731849221138153
S. Bhushan
{"title":"Sushree Panigrahi, Ideology, Conflict and State Control in Higher Education: A Sociological Analysis. New Delhi: SAGE Publications, 2022, 324 pp., ₹1146. ISBN: 9789354791529 (Hardback).","authors":"S. Bhushan","doi":"10.1177/09731849221138153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09731849221138153","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42957603","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09731849221148801
Avinash Rambachan Pandey
Mother-tongue education has increasingly become a keyword in formulations of development goals, especially the Sustainable Development Goals (2015). Achievement of these goals acquires a grave sense of urgency in light of the ever-increasing threat to the very fabric of our linguistic diversity. The basic premise of this article is that Gandhian thought can serve as a guiding principle in our struggle to stem the tsunami of language endangerment. Engagement with Gandhian thought enables us to critically examine the current presuppositions about development and the role of language in nation-building (especially in schools) and also inspires us to look for more sustainable alternatives. This article aims at examining the linguistic world order that Gandhi envisaged—an order where languages do not encroach upon each other. In postulating such a world order, Gandhi shows a keen awareness of the dangers that languages such as English could pose to mother tongues. Furthermore, diversity is not seen as a ‘management’ problem but rather a necessary condition for all that is human. Emphasis on ensuring that the child in school is an active producer rather than a passive consumer of knowledge, as well as envisaging the school as a resource centre for the neighbourhood ensures that the mother tongues (L-languages) and languages taught in schools (H-languages) enter into a harmonious and symmetrical pedagogical relationship rather than a relationship of violent conflict, which characterises the current linguistic world-order. The article argues that such a pedagogical relationship serves as a necessary component of any sustainable developmental paradigm.
{"title":"Language, Mother-Tongue Education and Sustainable Development: Some Reflections on Gandhian Thought","authors":"Avinash Rambachan Pandey","doi":"10.1177/09731849221148801","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09731849221148801","url":null,"abstract":"Mother-tongue education has increasingly become a keyword in formulations of development goals, especially the Sustainable Development Goals (2015). Achievement of these goals acquires a grave sense of urgency in light of the ever-increasing threat to the very fabric of our linguistic diversity. The basic premise of this article is that Gandhian thought can serve as a guiding principle in our struggle to stem the tsunami of language endangerment. Engagement with Gandhian thought enables us to critically examine the current presuppositions about development and the role of language in nation-building (especially in schools) and also inspires us to look for more sustainable alternatives. This article aims at examining the linguistic world order that Gandhi envisaged—an order where languages do not encroach upon each other. In postulating such a world order, Gandhi shows a keen awareness of the dangers that languages such as English could pose to mother tongues. Furthermore, diversity is not seen as a ‘management’ problem but rather a necessary condition for all that is human. Emphasis on ensuring that the child in school is an active producer rather than a passive consumer of knowledge, as well as envisaging the school as a resource centre for the neighbourhood ensures that the mother tongues (L-languages) and languages taught in schools (H-languages) enter into a harmonious and symmetrical pedagogical relationship rather than a relationship of violent conflict, which characterises the current linguistic world-order. The article argues that such a pedagogical relationship serves as a necessary component of any sustainable developmental paradigm.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47178585","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09731849221148518
Jessica Chandras
In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close, students from marginalised communities across the world were disproportionately impacted in terms of educational access, opportunities and outcomes. This article explores reorientations to technology for online remote instruction from the perspective of educators delivering instruction with the educational non-profit organisation Teach for India (TFI) in Pune, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. From qualitative ethnographic interviews with TFI fellows and programme managers to online classroom observations from April 2020 until October 2021, this article illustrates successes and challenges in online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, which facilitated both teaching innovations and made apparent cleavages in access to education among marginalised students and their families. Ultimately, TFI’s short-term fellowship model provided novice instructors with a unique window of opportunity during the COVID-19 pandemic to integrate technology into pedagogy in novel ways.
{"title":"Remote Reorientations: Teach for India Fellow Perceptions of Pedagogy and Technology During the COVID-19 Pandemic","authors":"Jessica Chandras","doi":"10.1177/09731849221148518","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09731849221148518","url":null,"abstract":"In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced schools to close, students from marginalised communities across the world were disproportionately impacted in terms of educational access, opportunities and outcomes. This article explores reorientations to technology for online remote instruction from the perspective of educators delivering instruction with the educational non-profit organisation Teach for India (TFI) in Pune, a city in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. From qualitative ethnographic interviews with TFI fellows and programme managers to online classroom observations from April 2020 until October 2021, this article illustrates successes and challenges in online instruction during the COVID-19 pandemic, which facilitated both teaching innovations and made apparent cleavages in access to education among marginalised students and their families. Ultimately, TFI’s short-term fellowship model provided novice instructors with a unique window of opportunity during the COVID-19 pandemic to integrate technology into pedagogy in novel ways.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46521684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09731849221149254
Megha Bali
This article discusses the pedagogic practice of ability grouping in government schools in Delhi. Despite practical evidence against homogenous student settings, ability grouping is implemented as a policy solution to reduce the huge variance in students’ learning levels within a classroom. Research data is drawn from interviews with 110 government schoolteachers in Delhi, where achievement data from baseline surveys conducted by the Delhi government was used to group students. Using Bourdieu’s (1998) theoretical tools, this article explores how the objective practice of ability grouping positions teachers and their pedagogical practices as intending to obtain performance measurement. Ability grouping creates an environment for teachers in which they submit to consigning students with low achievement results to low ability classrooms. Their habitus is less empowering as teachers’ ability to be teachers and in developing their own curricular content is curtailed by ability setting. The findings of this study reveal that most of the teachers’ pedagogic practice take the shape of educational triage. This had implications for enacted pedagogies and curriculum, as there is an extensive application of the exam-oriented technique of teaching, including selective and abbreviated curriculum in low-ability classrooms as teachers selectively cover less curriculum.
{"title":"Teachers’ Voices, Pedagogy and Discursive Practices in Ability Grouping Classrooms in Delhi Government Schools","authors":"Megha Bali","doi":"10.1177/09731849221149254","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09731849221149254","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses the pedagogic practice of ability grouping in government schools in Delhi. Despite practical evidence against homogenous student settings, ability grouping is implemented as a policy solution to reduce the huge variance in students’ learning levels within a classroom. Research data is drawn from interviews with 110 government schoolteachers in Delhi, where achievement data from baseline surveys conducted by the Delhi government was used to group students. Using Bourdieu’s (1998) theoretical tools, this article explores how the objective practice of ability grouping positions teachers and their pedagogical practices as intending to obtain performance measurement. Ability grouping creates an environment for teachers in which they submit to consigning students with low achievement results to low ability classrooms. Their habitus is less empowering as teachers’ ability to be teachers and in developing their own curricular content is curtailed by ability setting. The findings of this study reveal that most of the teachers’ pedagogic practice take the shape of educational triage. This had implications for enacted pedagogies and curriculum, as there is an extensive application of the exam-oriented technique of teaching, including selective and abbreviated curriculum in low-ability classrooms as teachers selectively cover less curriculum.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45521512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.1177/09731849221145748
Garima Singh, R. Khunyakari
Learning about components and processes of complex biological systems is challenging and requires abstraction through mediational tools such as text, visuals, models and visualisation experiences. The ‘systems concepts’ necessitate building coherent relations and anticipating consequences, requiring greater mediational support. This article reports findings from two components of a study. The first component involved a comparative analysis of textbooks and revealed weak links between visuals and other scaffolding tools such as activities and end-chapter exercises. Visuals in textbooks were found to be inadequate, inappropriate and often potential sources of confusion. The second component of the study involved drawing-based task that elicited learner struggles in internalising ideas about the human digestive system. The study calls for a refined understanding and use of mediational tools towards bridging the gaps between conceptual models and learners’ mental models. The study opens avenues for further inquiry that could support learning biology.
{"title":"Analysing Scaffolds in Learning Systems Concepts in School Biology","authors":"Garima Singh, R. Khunyakari","doi":"10.1177/09731849221145748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/09731849221145748","url":null,"abstract":"Learning about components and processes of complex biological systems is challenging and requires abstraction through mediational tools such as text, visuals, models and visualisation experiences. The ‘systems concepts’ necessitate building coherent relations and anticipating consequences, requiring greater mediational support. This article reports findings from two components of a study. The first component involved a comparative analysis of textbooks and revealed weak links between visuals and other scaffolding tools such as activities and end-chapter exercises. Visuals in textbooks were found to be inadequate, inappropriate and often potential sources of confusion. The second component of the study involved drawing-based task that elicited learner struggles in internalising ideas about the human digestive system. The study calls for a refined understanding and use of mediational tools towards bridging the gaps between conceptual models and learners’ mental models. The study opens avenues for further inquiry that could support learning biology.","PeriodicalId":37486,"journal":{"name":"Contemporary Education Dialogue","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47951614","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}