The Social Context of Learning in India

The volume delves into the problem of academic underperformance from a social identity perspective and probes into social context-based variability in classroom learning, systemic disadvantages in the form of negative stereotypes and the family as an under-studied social group in all discussions of schooling.

Manoj Kumar Tiwary is an educationist and research fellow for a number of organisations based in India and the Netherlands. His research explores the social history of education, teacher training, and learning achievements, with a particular focus on Bihar. Sanjay Kumar is a scholar, practitioner, and founder of Deshkal Society, Delhi, India. He has been working in the areas of social diversity, inequality, and education for more than one and a half decades both in practice and scholarship. His articles, monographs, and occasional papers have been published in journals and magazines. He is the co-editor of various books: Interrogating Development: Insights from the Margins; School Education, Pluralism and Marginality: Comparative Perspectives; and Dynamics of Inclusive Classroom: Social Diversity, Inequality and School Education in India. His recent co-edited publication is The Marginalized Self: Tales of Resistance of a Community. Arvind Kumar Mishra teaches Social Psychology at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the co-editor of four books: Interrogating Development: Insights from the Margins (2010); School Education, Pluralism and Marginality: Comparative Perspectives (2012); Dynamics of Inclusive Classroom: Social Diversity, Inequality and School Education in India (2017); and The Marginalized Self: Tales of Resistance of a Community (2020). His research papers have been published in prestigious journals such as the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry and the Journal of Social and Political Psychology. His research interest focuses on theoretical and philosophical issues in psychology, resistance to modernity, self, and identity processes among marginalised communities.

Introduction 1. Understanding Classroom Learning: Psychological Tools Approach to Education 2. The Power of Collective: Responses to Systemic Disadvantage in the Educational Context 3. The Family-School Relationship 4. Enabling Environment for Learning and the Middle-Class Advantage 5. Samaj and Sangat: Parental Construction of Children's Poor Educational Attainments in a Caste-Based Segregated Settlement 6. Textbook 'Proposes', Teacher 'Disposes': Marginalising Textbooks and Teachers' Strategies of Subversion 7. Teachers' Perceptions and Attitudes towards Adivasi Students and Their Effect on Children's Classroom Engagement 8. Understanding Comprehension: Classroom Problems with English for the EWS Child 9. Unequal Access to Learning in Bihar: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives