The education system is meant to compensate for various deficits and disadvantages that some children face in their lives and provide an opportunity for all children to realize their potential. In reality, however, our education system helps to reinforce many of the disadvantages and discrimination that children belonging to certain social groups or deprived economic backgrounds have to live with.

Discrimination on the basis of caste, gender, economic status and disability has been documented and discussed. One kind of disadvantage and marginalization is, however, much less talked about. This is the huge disadvantage faced by a significant proportion of school-going children whose mother tongue or first language is very different from the standard language used in school as the medium of instruction. This is a debilitating handicap that stunts the cognitive and psychological development of these children.

Children belonging to Scheduled Tribes residing in remote areas with little exposure to the regional language face the most severe disadvantage. However, there are several other groups of children who are similarly disadvantaged. At a time when quality elementary education has been guaranteed as a fundamental right for all children, it is really sad that a large number of children are even deprived of an ‘equal opportunity to learn’. This paper is based on the findings of an empirical research carried out in four states of India. It explores dimensions of the alienation and disadvantage that results from the difference between the home and school language. It also draws attention to the fact that negligible work has happened in the country to address this issue. The paper advocates for providing very serious attention to this issue and suggests some policy and strategy measures to address this challenge.

Sri Lanka, a plural society, is hailed internationally for her high standards of education, despite rather modest levels of economic growth. Much of this achievement has been underpinned by revenues generated by the labours of the plantation community whose own educational achievements fell well behind national norms for decades. Over the past 20 years however educational participation among this minority has increased. Paradoxically this progress occurred during a period in which the majority Sinhalese and minority Sri Lankan Tamils have been engaged in civil strife and civil war. Why, and how, has this happened?

The analysis presented in this paper traces educational progress from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. The analysis is embedded with political, social and economic relations that stretch far beyond the confines of the plantation. These include relations within a plural society in which plantation people have become more central to the mainstream and those between the plantation, national and globaleconomy in which plantation production has become less central and less profitable over time.

The Indian Constitution guarantees equality and social justice in all walks of life including education. In fact, policy pronouncements have viewed provision of free and compulsory elementary education for all as a critical prerequisite for achieving this end; successive policy statements have pledged to initiate special measures to rectify the historically inherited inequalities in education that haves hindered the progress of such groups as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and minority communities. Where are we after endeavouring to implement this policy for sixty long years? Recent assessments do not present a very positive picture of the situation. It calls for serious self-reflection not only by the State but also by professional groups and civil society organizations. Education infrastructure has been expanded multifold in recent years with a view to improving access to education and making it mass oriented. However, it is often observed that even if it is unintended, the impact of the way the education system has grown seems to be contributing to further social divisions in the country. In fact, even a cursory study of the social disparities in education reveals that exclusion of specific social groups from education is endemic and pervasive all over the country even if it differs in its degree and nature. It is urgent that the system is restructured to stall the damage being caused to the basic social fabric of the country; it is necessary to ensure that education as it expands brings with it a greater sense of pluralism and harmony, and cooperation and security in the country. What kinds of actions are required for this to happen? What strategies have worked to take us closer to the goal and what are those strategies that have not? The present paper attempts to explore some of these critical issue related to social exclusion in education and the policies and actions required to making educational expansion more equitable.

Culturally appropriate education for people of Indigenous descent is not a privilege; it is a fundamental right. Such an education is also a powerful resource for all educators and all cultures. This paper examines theoretical and pedagogical issues affecting Indigenous Australian education, particularly those raised in my book, Socialization, Land and Citizenship Among Aboriginal Australians: Reconciling Indigenous and Western Forms of Education (The Edwin Mellen Press, New York, 2005). It also draws from comparative dimensions acquired from my recent sabbatical as Sydney Holgate Research Fellow, Grey College, Department of Anthropology, Durham University, UK. The major objective is to examine issues of education and pedagogy and to suggest forms of reconciliation between the dominant Western or mainstream education and Indigenous forms of education. The work is grounded in an ethnographic case study and wide-ranging interaction and consultation with Indigenous Australians.

We can learn a great deal from Indigenous cultures, however their knowledge and methodologies are often ignored or discounted by metropolitan, industrial societies. The presentation and paper draw from extensive educational and anthropological fieldwork, historical and comparative studies, and lead the participant and reader along an alternative, arguably far more productive and equitable pathway. If you work in education, community development or many related fields, participating in this presentation and reading this historical, sociological, anthropological and educational paper, and, crucially, putting the recommendations into practice, should lead to a world of greater reconciliation, understanding, inclusive citizenship, peace and productivity.

It is argued that if we are to achieve a social and political reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous citizens there is a clear need for a broad, inclusive and participatory form of citizenship and civic education, one which acknowledges Indigenous forms of learning and empowers Indigenous communities. The provision of the most appropriate education for Indigenous students is extraordinarily complex and presents an enormous challenge to educators, in Australia and elsewhere. The implications are profound; continued ignorance and arrogance from the dominant cultures will lead to even greater resentment, social alienation, poverty and divisiveness. The presentation and paper explore these issues and concerns in both the broad historical,and more particular localized sense, each informing the other.

Historically, Dalits and Tribals in India share a culture of developing innovative and creative productive technologies. They have been instrumental in discovering appropriate technologies for the development of the society. The technologies to make pot, barber’s knife, leather commodities and so on have been innovated and improved by the Dalitbahujan communities themselves. It is they who discovered the technology of sanitation for maintaining a clean and healthy environment in India. Again in terms of agriculture they discovered the techniques of pastoral practices involving the proper care and nurturance of herds (cattle, goats, sheep etc.) that sustained livelihood and local economy maintaining the delicate ecological balance. However, with the invasion of Aryans and spread of Brahmanism the earlier productive process nurtured and valued by the Dalits, Tribals and OBCs began to erode.
This particularly happened after the emergence of Hinduism as an anti-production religion and philosophy that began to guide and influence the lifestyles of communities. Hinduism had nothing to offer for production and sustainable positive human values because basically anti-production.. Productive innovations in India got stagnated after Hinduism became a dominant religion. Thus, the Hindu cultural ethic had made India nation of 'culture of borrowing begging'. Whatever scientific and technological knowledge that contemporary India society is using is all borrowed from either from Christian, Islamic and Buddhist worlds. Our education system, which is a byproduct of such genesis has remained utterly neglectful to the productive culture of Dalits and tribals in India. We are left with an education system which does not value the 'productive culture' in developing creative and imaginative solutions for everyday life and progress of humanity at large. In this context there is a great scope to reflect back on how the integration of 'productive culture' of Dalits and Tribal with modern education can make real difference in our lives.

Historically marginalized communities have long fought for equitable access to quality education and the realization of democracy. In the U.S., this has led many such communities to champion high standards for education. Coupled with the neoliberalist standards movement, however, standards-based reform has led to standardizing teaching and learning, aligning curriculum with state-adopted curriculum standards and textbooks that are based on dominant narratives. The standardization process has not only curtailed student-centered teaching and alternative narratives, but has also reduced space for democratic teaching altogether. How can teachers who are committed to democracy, equity, and diversity navigate a standards-based environment in which standardization negates diversity, and top-down reform mandates negate democracy? In this paper, I will draw on case studies of 8 exemplary teachers who work in schools that serve students from marginalized communities, to examine strategies that teachers use, as well as tensions inherent in neoliberalist standards-based curriculum.

This paper is based on a forthcoming book ‘Educating Against Extremism’ (Trentham, Spring 2008) which explores the potential role of schools in averting the more negative and violent forms of extremism in a country. It examines identity formation and fear; religious belief, faith schools and the myth of equal value; justice, revenge and honour; and free speech, humour and satire. There is a reluctance to tackle issues of religious fundamentalism beyond a plea for 'respect' and 'tolerance'; yet a critical analysis of beliefs and of how certain interpretations lead to extremist acts, is central to understanding actions which are otherwise labelled 'irrational' or ‘nihilistic’. Schools are also reluctant to address state terrorism, or to give young people skills to hold governments to account for the engagements with other countries. The argument in the book is for greater politicization of young people, but through forging critical (dis)respect and using a secular basis of human rights.

In looking at extremism which impacts at the national or international level, I use examples from societies in currently or previously in conflict (Israel/Palestine, Sri Lanka, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Indonesia), as well as societies implicated in the so-called 'war on terror' (UK, USA). I examine research on the educational history of those designated extremists. Material relating to schools is drawn from current research into student democracy, global citizenship education and human rights education. I argue that specific forms of citizenship education are needed, which have a basis in human rights and which provide skills to analyse the media and political or religious messages. I look at how ‘respect’ and ‘disrespect’ can be handled under a rights framework, and how justice can be pursued without recourse to violence and revenge.

This paper examines how a counter-narrative, based on metaphors drawn from the experiences of kaupapa Māori educational theorizing and practice, and expanded here to address Maori students in mainstream settings, can provide us with a picture of the sort of alternative educational relations and interactions that are possible where educators draw upon an alternative culture than that previously dominant. This picture consists of a collective vision, focusing on the need to address Māori students achievement that identifies the need for power over reciprocal decision-making to be constituted within relationships and interactions constructed as if within a collective whanau (extended family) context. Whanau relationships would enact reciprocal and collaborative pedagogies in order to promote educational relationships between students, between pupils and teachers (also, between whanau members in decision making about the school) and between the home and the school as a means of promoting excellence in education. One wider indicator of this pattern being the development of inextricable two-way connections between the home and the school.

Such a pattern of metaphor also creates an image of classroom relations and interactions where students are able to participate on their own terms; terms that are determined by the student because the very pedagogic process holds this as a central value. Further, the terms are to be culturally determined, through the incorporation and reference to the sense-making processes of the student. Learning is to be reciprocal and interactive, home and school learning is to be interrelated, learners are to be connected to each other and learn with and from each other. In addition, a common set of goals and principles guides the process. Further, just as using Māori metaphors for research repositions researchers within Māori sense-making contexts (Bishop, 1996, 2005), so too does using new metaphors for pedagogy reposition teachers within different contexts where students’ sense-making processes offer new opportunities for them to engage with learning. In these contexts, learners’ experiences, representations of these experiences and sense making processes are legitimated.

This paper reports on a large-scale research/professional development project, currently being conducted in New Zealand in 33 secondary schools, that seeks to implement this counter-narrative within mainstream educational settings. The professional development approach that has been developed for this project seeks to implement an Effective Teaching Profile will be detailed. Also considered ( and results reported) will be the implications of such a narrative for student outcomes, in-service professional development, teacher education and the long-term sustainability of such an undertaking. We began this research by asking what happens when the Effective Teaching Profile (ETP) is implemented in mainstream secondary classrooms. Because of the complex nature of this exercise, we used a triangulation mixed methods approach (Creswell, 2005) to gather and analyse qualitative and quantitative data from a range of instruments and measures. As a result we have multiple indicators (Kim & Sunderman, 2005) that form the basis of our investigation.

From the student interviews we learned that when Māori students have good relationships with their teachers, they are able to thrive at school. Good relationships are based on teachers embracing all aspects of the ETP, including caring for them as culturally-located individuals as Māori, caring for their performance and using a wide range of classroom interactions, strategies and outcome indicators to inform their practice. These developing relationships and interactions were captured by the use of the observation tool. The teachers’ interviews indicated effective Te Kotahitanga teachers have undergone a philosophical shift in the way they think about teaching and learning. Anti-deficit thinking, agentic positioning, and the six elements of the ETP are the essential threads in this new approach to teaching, here termed a Culturally Responsive Pedagogy of Relations. It is an approach that rests in the first instance upon a commitment by teachers to build caring and learning relationships and interactions with Māori students; in the second, for teachers to strongly believe Māori students can improve their achievement; and thirdly, their students are able to take responsibility for their learning and performance.

Results of our analysis of the Teacher Participation Survey showed that Te Kotahitanga teachers’ understanding of the project, to improve Māori student achievement, and the support they receive within their schools is directly related to improving Māori students’ outcomes. Analysis of data from feedback sessions and co-construction meetings revealed teachers are experiencing challenges along with affirmations of their emerging positionings and practices as they participate in the new institutions developed to support the implementation of the ETP in their classrooms. Further, within these new institutions, they are being encouraged to further engage in discourses that: (a) have a focus on raising Māori students’ achievement, (b) reject or respond to deficit theorizing and (c) are agentic. Perhaps most importantly, we are seeing improvements in numeracy for Māori students with teachers who have repositioned themselves discursively, and literacy gains for those in the groups of most concern, the lowest stanine groups. Through these multiple indicators, while Te Kotahitanga teachers have improved in their use of the ETP in their classrooms, their Māori students have improved in numeracy and literacy achievement. While other variables may help account for positive gains in Māori students’ achievement, based on the totality of the evidence presented in this project, that Te Kotahitanga teachers, across multiple schools, have built their knowledge, skills, and capacities in their classrooms through the implementation of the ETP and simultaneously their Māori students have experienced continuous improvement in numeracy and literacy performance during this phase of the project.

The present paper uses the theoretical notions of ‘intersubjectivity’ and collaborative cognition to examine the psycho-semiotic environment of a multiethnic classroom where a folk game was used to teach probability. Data are drawn from an ethnographic study of a Saora (Saora are a tribe from Southern Orissa, who use Saora number system which does not have a base 10 system in everyday activities and the universal number system in school) classroom. The data comprised of the conversations among the class VIII Saora students on the notions of chance, rarity and probability that followed a folk game (called Appuchia) played by the students in the classroom. The discourse analysis of the conversations shows how the use of a folk game helped Saora students accept many as-if assumptions that underlie concepts like chance, rarity and probability and increased their willingness to place faith in them. This supported mathematics learning in the Saora classroom. The deliberate use of as-if discourse as a heuristic device for teaching mathematics to children serves a very specific purpose in this paper. It helped us demonstrate how to bring the ethnic minority children’s cultural experiences and discourse to the centre stage of mathematics pedagogy in the classroom. Moreover, everyday mathematics within this framework does not appear antithetical to modern mathematics. The analysis of the discursive context of the Saora classroom and the actual discourse while learning probability using folk games suggests strong possibilities for helping these children successfully swap between everyday discourse and school mathematics. This paper suggests to use the "as if discourse" to bridge between everyday mathematics embedded in the indigenous activities and school mathematics by creating a recognizable common discourse frame despite other differences. The paper, therefore, concludes with an argument that a good understanding of the everyday discourse of the children and presenting it as a protocol of as-if discourse and attitude in the classroom may provide a common epistemic stance on which bridging between home and school mathematics is possible.

How one tells the story of the development of youth identity in South Africa (and indeed elsewhere) in relation to schooling has been dominated, understandably, by the great themes of race, class and gender. This paper, drawing on a range of sources, attempts to develop an analytic narrative for describing youth development, and the different trajectories it takes in South Africa, in a wider psycho-social frame. This analytic narrative shows
i) that young people are in a complex engagement with a range of formal and informal structures to produce identities that are at some levels continuous with those of their apartheid antecedents, but
ii) that new forms of identity are emerging that are troubling and unsettling conventional (both conservative and radical) understandings of what appropriate youth forms of address, deportment and engagement with the new South Africa might be.
The challenge that this constitutes for schooling is what this paper focuses upon. It attempts to show how school as a site in which meaning is made, in a context in which intense experiences of globalization and modernization come into engagement with older and more traditional understandings of self, struggles to remain relevant for young people. How it constitutes the basis for a dialogue with young people about the issues that matter in their lives, and the lives of others around them, is the concern driving this presentation.

The scepter of test scores is haunting the entire school system in contemporary India, deforming the educational values of teachers, parents, education bureaucrats and above all hapless students. Curiously, almost all schools – from elite to budget, from vernacular to English-medium, from `communal’ to `secular’, from government to private – seem to be chasing the same `dream’ of turning over more students securing more marks. The education system, therefore, is segmented yet homogenized. It often sorts out children into schools that too are socio-economically stratified. Yet at once they all seem to be guided by a sterile vision of education. This is what we describe as the homogenizing, albeit damaging, influence of a dominant education regime spanning across a segregated and exclusionary school system. In this paper we attempt to elaborate on this idea by focusing on 1) the lack of professional autonomy of teachers in core educational activities; 2) the lack of opportunity for parental involvement in schooling matters, and 3) the lack of academic challenge for school going children (who are otherwise under severe pressure). Our analysis is based on empirical research conducted recently in the States of Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal.

We suggest that due to the nominal role, in the enterprise of education, of these potentially vital school-level actors, the school system remains that much deficient, as it fails to benefit from the richness of their experience and their creative ideas. Intriguingly, we further argue, the dominant ethos of education as the pursuit of more marks (and eventually more money) generates new segmentation in the system. Budget, English-medium schools spring up to ostensibly satisfy the educational aspirations of the indigent; second-grade, error-ridden, text books and study guides saturate book stores; and a new market for private tuition comes up again to seemingly cater to the growing educational ambitions of the previously marginalized social groups – and all this with quality no bar. In the near-total absence of any regulatory norms to ensure quality schooling for the poor, the dominant educational regime works to further segregate the already differentiated school system. Therefore, in a plural and diverse society like India, just as we rightfully plead against the massive exclusion of the underdogs of society from the school system, we also need to debate about the idea and content of inclusive education. We are hopefully not talking about coercive assimilation into an impoverished notion of education that reduces educational values into mere marks and consequently produces a number of perverse results such as teaching shops, parrot-training, and rote learning.

*Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
+Institute of Social Studies, the Hague

Current writing on children and work tends to view them either as ‘child labour’ or as ‘working children’. Within this categorization, the former are viewed as exploited while the latter terminology attempts to push for different conceptions of childhood that are continuous with the adult world. While research on ‘child labour’ privileges a binary understanding of ‘formal schooling’ as a space that ‘saves’ these children, research on ‘working children’ on the other hand is keen to highlight the ways in which children can combine school and work quite effectively and without any lasting negative psycho-social impact. However, what is missing from these discussions is an understanding of the ways in which formal schooling serves as a space in which the 'manual' work that these children do is implicitly devalued and considered unworthy when compared to the 'mental' learning that schooling involves. What are the ways in which this binary between 'mental' and 'manual' work gets privileged within the school space? How does this affect these schooled children’s understandings of the work they do at home and outside, and how does it play out in their relationships with their families and members of their community? In what ways do we need to reconceptualise the normative figure of the learner to include the everyday realities of the lives of working children? The paper, through using both archival as well as ethnographic narratives, will attempt to discuss the above with a view to highlighting the significance of this issue for rethinking our current educational practice in the Indian context.

Schools can be seen “as deeply implicated in producing those aspects of dominant culture that served to reproduce an unjust and unequal society.” Dalit scholars and thinkers have pointed to the manner in which the school culture endorses and reproduces upper caste dominance. As Kancha Ilaiah says, Teachers (largely dominant caste Hindus) generally uphold casteist ideologies; the “school teacher’s attitude to each one of us depended on his own caste background.” The normative child in educational theories being an upper caste, urban middle class child, its pedagogic practices in India reflect various forms of caste prejudices and an ideological resistance to the knowledge formations and experiences of marginalized people in India. Their experiences, poverty, culture remain strictly outside the frontiers of school curriculum. Hence, the curriculum does not point to, let alone address, the existing socio-cultural divide among various castes. Rather it naturalizes the socio-cultural and economic inequalities through its various pedagogic practices. It is done, at one level, through the strategic silences of curriculum and the education system over the issues of caste and unequal treatment of human beings and at another level, through the overt practices of caste discrimination by the teachers. Therefore, students from the marginalized communities like Dalits feel alienated in the school environment and face a lot of hurdles.

We can observe the tacit Brahminical cultural codes operating in schools. On many fronts, Dalit students are made to feel that they do not and cannot belong to the very school in which they pursue their studies. This aspect can be examined and proved especially by looking into the classroom seating arrangement, selection of class leaders, teachers’ preferred students in the classroom and outside, teacher’s own beliefs of who can answer the questions and who cannot. Apart from these we can also observe from the kind of roles given to students of various castes in the extra-curricular activities like cultural programs and self-government day (students act and assume the roles of teachers, headmaster and so on for one day). The duties distributed to students in many occasions reflect the caste prejudices of teachers and students. Teachers’ use of abusive words also connotes their caste prejudices and designation of which culture is accepted and which is not. Consequently, Dalit students internalize the hegemonic values. These are only few examples to indicate manifestations of caste prejudices in everyday practices of schooling.

My thesis in this paper is that the Dalit child’s experience of schooling can provide a critical perspective on the theory and practice of education in India. Moreover, I argue that education system in India must adapt to ‘Dalit-Centric System of Education’ which will lay foundation to democratization of knowledge and an egalitarian social system.

Henry A Giroux. Schooling for Democracy: Critical Pedagogy in the Modern Age. Great Britain: Routledge, 1989. P. 8

Kancha Ilaiah, Why I am Not a Hindu. Kolkata: Samya, 1996. P. 12

For example, Omprakash Valmiki’s autobiography, Joothan, stands as evidence to how teachers practice untouchablity and caste discrimination in schools. The principles of purity and pollution are kept intact in most of the schools.

In this paper I examine the interconnections between `race', social classand gender, with some reference to caste, in schooling, society and economyin the UK, in particular relating to the two million heritage children andadults in Britain who are of South Asian heritage. I do this from empirical and theoretical/analytical perspectives, concludingthat the salient forms of discrimination, oppression and inequality in theclassroom, as in the economy and society, are those relating to (`raced' andgendered) social class, and that these forms and processes of marginalization and inequality are a function of the capitalist system of expoitation, which uses schooling and formal education to reproduce the existing patterns and forms of educational, social and economic inequalities. .

I argue for forms of radical critical pedagogy and socialist pedagogy andorganisation of schooling and education that are democratic, critical and publicly funded, aimed at empowering disempowered communities and the(`raced and gendered) working class , and at developing / creating anegalitarian society, economy and polity.

In concluding I also evaluate the limitations on the role of teachers andeducators and cultural workers as critical transformative intellectuals, associalist educators.

Orissa constitute largest tribal population in the country. Life, land and language in Orissa have been in a constant threat and therefore equity and quality in their social development sector is also in great threat. Elementary education in the context of tribal Orissa is at the cross road. After independence, dream of Pundit Nehru on tribal in his five principles have not translated in to action.

It is understood that people develop rapidly in economic sector given right opportunity and this can bring a rapid change in their life. But education of tribal children in the context of Orissa is a major challenge. The reason is tribal children live in a different world view , speak a language in their home and society other than school language, mismatched curriculum and instructional materials, lack of a language policy in the state, lack of addressing the tribal children from their cultural context, attitude and behaviour of non tribal teachers and field functionaries towards tribal children , society, and language , lack of long term educational plan for the tribal children are some of the issues that need to be addressed.

The paradox in the field of education is that we want to teach the tribal children in a language that is not intelligible to her, also we want to mainstream them at par with other children. Another paradox is that while the linguists, educationists psychologists advocate that children learn from their cultural context in their mother tongue for their quality improvement , parents are in favour of teaching their children in the language of power. Historically, after independence, our policy makers , administrators and educationsist have not been able to demonstrate a success example of educating tribal children in their mother tongue and to bridge them with the mainstream education vis a vis to maintain the cultural plurality and cultural diversity.

DPEP or SSA is a programme which is time bound and during the specified time it is not possible even to make the teachers , field functionaries , and the community aware of the dialectics of tribal education and achieve the desired goal.
SSA and DPEP in Orissa has initiated some innovations like addressing the tribal children to teach in their mother tongue , bridging the gap of home language and school language and develop their cognitive ability beyond their horizon. The proposed paper spells out the issues and intervention that is taken up in Orissa during last two years .

I would like to center my discussion today on three core themes
• Firstly I would like to touch upon my experiences in teaching of social sciences in a situation of diversity.
• Secondly I would be talking a little about classroom processes involved in marginalisation amongst other related issues.
• Thirdly I would like to briefly touch upon aspects of pedagogy especially in the teaching of social sciences in a situation of diversity.

I begin with the first portion –my experiences in the teaching f social sciences in a backdrop of diversity. These experiences are situated in Jhansi, a small yet central town in Uttar Pradesh.Most of the experts gathered here are widely traveled and have the benefit of a variety of experiences. However I would like to re-iterate that Uttar pradesh is one state in India in which first hand experience can be had of all that we read in the social sciences books- poverty, unemployment, lack of development and such the like. Jhansi specially is located in bundelkhand, an extremely backward region. It was in this region in the time between 2000-2005 that I had the opportunity to teach in two different schools and pursue an MEd degree. As a teacher I feel that these opportunities, which cannot be in any way called privileged actually served an educative purpose. The link between education and empowerment became real amidst the extremity of deprivation I saw. It was also in this time that the phenomenon that we call international terrorism was beginning to emerge worldwide. 9/11, 13th December 2001,Americas afghan war, the Gujarat riots and the American intervention in Iraq all came back to back creating what can only be called a very surcharged atmosphere in which I was to teach social-sciences.

In this context I started to teach in Gyansthali Public School in Jhansi. Students in this school came predominantly from the disadvantaged sections of society –the scheduled castes and the OBC’s. Muslims in the school were present in the ratio of 1:10 with roughly four Muslims in a class of forty. The textbook that I was using was the history textbook prescribed by the NCERT for class X. The classes were a pleasure till I reached the section on India’s struggle for independence, specially the portion on The Muslim League and communalism. The images of the hijacked planes crashing into the twin towers found their place in the classroom. Every mention of the words, communalism and partition provoked baiting of the Muslim students in the class. “See they are killers” was the response to 9/11. “They deserve it “was the response to the Gujarat riots. Each social sciences class would degenerate into a verbal duel while the possibilities of physical duels on the issue outside class very real. Attempts at mediation evoked the response “Madam are you Muslim”. I finally abandoned teaching this lesson since neither brutal severity on my part, neither attempts at thrashing out the issue had any effect. The prejudices ran too depend neither were the school authorities interested nor were they equipped to deal with the situation. Peace was restored finally when I returned to the safe geography portion of the syllabus.

I subsequently left this school to teach in Army School, Jhansi. Here the students came form a very different social context. Predominantly there were children of officers and jawans studying in the school. Amongst the locals there were a very small number of Muslims. In a class of 40 about two Muslims could be found. Here too the curse I taught and tee classes were same as before. The portions on communalism and the partition went by with some mummers. The problem arose when the course reached the section n international terrorism and India’s internal and external security. With fathers posted in and at times maimed and killed in J&K, the Muslim equals terrorist, anti-national and separatist was very difficult to avoid. I was finally to leave even this school for pursuing MEd from Bundelkhand University. However these experiences left me with the feeling that as a teaching professional I was unable to deliver in a situation of diversity. Diversity in the classroom especially differences based on religion have been largely unexplored because I feel that these issues are uncomfortable and go against established intellectual positions. This brings me to the second concern that I hope to highlight today – the role of classroom processes and school structures in generating and maintaining stereotypes that contribute to Muslim marginalisation.

It is obvious that in the classroom the teacher forms the link between the text and the student. It is likely the in the social sciences, especially in history we might never arrive at a satisfactory textbook, one that is free of all biases. It is however possible to create teacher capabilities to deal with the biases. I would thus argue for a central position for the teacher in the classroom. Within the classroom the teacher very often carries his caste- religion-ideological baggage. I would place the entire problem in the context of the process of identity formation that we all go through as inhabitants of a multi-cultural nation in which the aim of creating a common political identity very often leads to extreme confusion. This monolithic identity not only militates against differences but also very often leads to confrontationist positions. So I cant be a good secular Hindu citizen until I share a meal with a Muslim neighbor and a Muslim who refuses the tika is most certainly a fundamentalist. So does being Indian mean that there can be no differences. Drawing the covers more closely, does the teacher promote stereotypes in the classroom while the urge might be to actually be in the correct secular position?

So which are the points at which the teacher might be committing this error. As modern schools elsewhere in the world Indian schools are also based on the twin premises of rationality and scientific education. Like others, Indian schools, despite the commitment to democracy are agents through which the state promotes the hegemony of ideas. Teachers are a link in this chain. Thus there must not be a teacher here who has not willingly participated in national integration programmes that routinely dot our school academic calendar- in which students are dressed up to represent different religious identities. So we have a Hindu with a tilak, a Sikh in a turban, a Christian in a western dress and a Muslim in a cap and beard, generating a seldom-encountered stereotype. Curiously enough if we were to encounter such a person we would almost certainly regard him fundamentalist.

It is very well to say that religion be kept out of schools. Whether we like it or not religious festivals and symbolism creep into the school calendar in the shape of assembly celebrations, class and board decorations and sometimes even as a part of the syllabus. A refusal to allow for or acknowledge either majority or minority festivals might not always be possible. So the tilak- diya routine happens, and the happy end of almost every school event is in the ‘We are all one” framework. Yet we as teachers are not equipped to deal with or engage with plurality in the classroom. Social sciences is one of the most visually representable of all disciplines and grants many occasions for reinforcing stereotypes within and outside the classroom’s would like to now briefly name few such stereotypes:
• All Muslims should go to Pakistan.
• All Muslims live in ghettos.
• Discord and aggression are integral to Islam.
• Indian Muslims are an appeased lot.
• All Muslim women are in purdah.
• All was well in India And Hindu society till the medieval (Muslim) age started in India.
• Urdu is a Muslim language.
• Muslims marry four times and will son out populate other communities in India.

These and many more stereotypes are formed not just in the outside world but also in the school and the classroom and in the minds of 14-15 year olds. It is as if the much discussed ‘clash of civilizations’ has found its way into the classroom and the entire Islamic crescent is the dreaded enemy. This brings me to the final part of my discussion- the pedagogical aspects of teaching in a situation of diversity. Specifically the areas of concern for a teacher of social sciences would be: -
• Can we conceptualize pedagogy of the minority in a situation in which there is little space for the assertion of religion and the overwhelming agenda is the suppression of differences?
• Can teaching methods in social sciences work to de-construct stereotypes.
• Where ‘different pasts exist’ can the teaching of social sciences not accept these differences. So if there is an Islamic history or geography, why can it not be accepted?
• Can the teaching of social sciences not incorporate a study of language specifically in this case Urdu? I has been emphasized in this forum that Urdu medium education is not the demand of the Muslims. It has also been repeatedly emphasized that Urdu is not a Muslim language. Then why are we loosing a language that is ours? Can the social sciences not provide the teacher opportunities to explore language? Ex- Many a times I have felt that there is nothing that expresses the desperate times of 1857 as adequately as the poetry of Zafar, or for that matter the poem on Rani Laxmibai. My plea is that, `Can the pedagogy of social sciences not be used to recapture language?
• I have already mentioned different pasts- I would also plead that methods of teaching in social sciences should explore different worldviews. This far, our worldviews are driven by the ‘American-English’ paradigms. This world- view filters every event. So if, for example, this world –view tells us that America is saving democracy in Iraq, we believe it.
• Finally, can pedagogy in the social –sciences engage differences and diversity?

While engaged with these concerns I came across a group of theories in education, which can be grouped together as the critical- race theories. Like all theories, this group of theories has its own problems, the very first being the obvious concern with the concept of race. What I found worthy of attention in the critical race theories were the following:
• In the critical race method the marginal participant is placed at the center of analysis.
• Critical race uses story telling as a key pedagogical tool, where narratives and stories are fundamental to the classroom and as tools to overcome ‘internalized condemnation’.
• Critical race theories maintain that multi-cultural education can create equalized social conditions. Particularly they are critical of the liberal tradition, which maintains that real social change can occur without changes in the social structure. So there can be no ‘trickle-down’ as far as critical race theories go.
• Self-determination is treated s the main goal of education.
• Particularly interesting are the research projects based on this method which seek to explore exemplary teaching practices.
• Most importantly the critical race theorists maintain that merely assigning the students texts to study and asking them questions is not enough for marginal students.
• There is also a section on how tensions arise in the classroom on ‘making it easier for them’-an event resisted by both the marginal students and their classmates.

These and many more ideas could well serve as future avenues of research. In the end I would like to cite just two examples from my struggle with marginalisation in the last session. Saeeda and Salima are twins studying in class 8 in Kamal Public School,Vikaspuri. They are Afghans. Both girls have come to us after missing crucial years of education under Taliban Rule. Easily the most committed and dedicated students in the school both are struggling in academics. Kamal Public school has a management and teachers who are sensitive to their predicament and extremely supportive of both girls. Yet they have failed to make significant progress.langage is on major barrier. The other is health. On the other hand the sizeable population of Burmese refugee population we have is on the way ahead. In the case of the afghan twins, marginalisation is nobody’s intent but sadly it is extant. What is apparent is that the processes of marginalisation are complex and worthy of being given due recognition.
In the end I would like to borrow from yesterdays speakers:
• Prof. Imtiaz Ahmed talked of plurality and of the need to engage differences. Let us as teachers open ourselves to this task.
• Prof. Rakesh Basant talked of the ways that a majority community can reach out that are not available to the minority. Let us try to reach out in class.
• Dr.Farah Faroqui, spoke of communities and connections that helped her overcome her personal trauma. Let us as teachers imagine ourselves a part of such a healing community.
Ultimately let us recognize our role and the power that we have as teachers in the classroom.

The school education of the tharu tribal in west Champaran, Bihar (India) is in a pathetic and anarchic State. There are, however, several myths prevailing in the society at large about their over social context. First myth is that there exists a monolithic dalit (schedule caste)- tribal unity in India, hence they have common agenda in various spheres of life, especially regarding education. Second myth is that there exists a binding unity within the tribal community (insiders) and general hostility towards other (outsiders). Third myth is that political leadership from the OBC is more sympathetic and considerate towards the tribe’s school education and other development than the upper caste leadership. Fourth myth is that if one teacher are well paid with regular government service they would be usually punctual and serious in teaching the tribal children in rural areas. Fifth myth is that the extremists, especially the Maoists,, disturb the government school system in rural areas. In the empirical study in west champaran (Bihar), I found that these myths are based on misconceptions and misinformation deliberately spread in order to suit the ulterior motives of the power-that –be of which teachers are part and parcel and the Tharu tribal students are the powerless victims of the socio-political system. It has, however, transpired that the powerful elites have incorporated some tribal in their well-designed nexus so that they may not be distributed by the tribal masses’ protest in due course of time. Thus may finding is that the entire educational system in the tribal areas does not fulfill the genuine aspiration of the tribal despite the various relevant provision in the Indian constitution which have been hijacked by the political class and the highly politicised teachers in different ways.

Historically, African education has been approached in terms of contributing fundamentally to national development. In emphasizing the goal of national integration, post-independence, 'post-colonial' education in Africa has denied heterogeneity in local populations, as if difference itself was a problem. With this orientation, education has undoubtedly helped create and maintain the glaring disparities and inequities, structured along lines of ethnicity, culture, language, religion, gender and class, which persist and grow. This pattern can, however, be disrupted. Education can acknowledge difference and diversity while, at the same time, highlighting commonalities, even among peoples with conflicting interests. Ultimately, it can contribute to both national integration and social reconstruction. To do so, however, it must meet the challenge of minority education. More specifically, since transformative change encompasses more than the reform of existing curricular and pedagogical practices, it must respond to problems of discrimination, prejudice, and alienation within schools and schooling. To promote the democratic participation of all citizens in a project of nation-building and to provide lasting solutions to human problems, education in Africa must acknowledge and affirm difference and diversity within the context of pursuing equity and social justice.

This paper analyses some of the pedagogical challenges of confronting difference in African schooling. It seeks to examine issues of culture, social difference, identity and representation in schooling in the African context. Located within theoretical debates on inclusive schooling in pluralistic contexts, the paper reflects on a Ghanaian case study material to show how educators, students and community learners in Africa pursue equity in education. Specifically, the paper looks at social difference and minority education in Ghanaian schooling. It is informed by an empirical study done in Ghana that investigated how ethnic, cultural, religious, and linguistic minorities as well as women and students from low socio-economic/ class backgrounds engage in the school system. Data for the empirical study was generated through field interviews with key participants. The analysis is situated within an anti-colonial discursive framework. The educational dynamics and discourses in Ghana are examined in relation to those associated with North American/Canadian schooling. By anti-colonial I refer to an approach to theorizing colonial and re-colonial relations and the implications of imperial structures on the processes of knowledge production and validation; the understanding of indigeneity, and the pursuit of agency, resistance and subjective politics. ‘Colonial’, in this context, is understood as not simply ‘foreign’ or ‘alien’ but as ‘imposed’ and ‘dominating’

This paper will discuss recent developments in critical pedagogy in the United States against the backdrop of global neoliberalism and U.S. imperialism. Mainstream or "reformist" critical pedagogy will be critiqued from the position that it ultimately legitimizes neoliberal capitalism. As a counterstance to reformist critical pedagogy, I will develop the groundwork for a "revolutionary" critical pedagogy based on the struggle for socialism for the 21st century.

While taking Croatia as an example of a multicultural (multiethnic, multi-religious), post-communist and post-war new democracy of the Southeast Europe seeking its membership in the European Union, we shall analyze the complexity of demands facing education and present an integrative rights-based approach to education in the time of profound social changes and instability. Following the break of Yugoslavia, the ideas, values and practices that were the very pillars of the communist society were nullified literally overnight. Teachers who had been trained to install in their students the values of a collectivistic ideology, anti-national and anti-religious communist identity, state ownership and the duties toward the party and the state were, in a matter of days and with no preparation and no adequate resources, required to teach the opposite and, accordingly, to alter their teaching methods and approaches. The most demanding question was how to find the balance between the principle of national and religious revival and the principle of democratic development, diversity and equality in particular. The former was seen by the majority as a necessary remedy after communism and as a homogenization and mobilization tool for the defense of the country, while the latter was rather superficially understood and rhetorically accepted, partly under the pressure of the international community and partly as the outcome of a growing civil society.

In order to contribute to personal and professional self-empowerment of teachers who were, apart from these dilemmas, additionally challenged by a great number of displaced students and the raise in school violence, a group of scientists and civil activists have developed a rights-based approach to teaching and learning in primary school that integrates five dimensions: identity, diversity, democratic citizenship, peaceful conflict-resolution and global perspective. This has been the basis for the development of programs for all levels, including the university, the resource materials, including the manual and the dictionary. It has also initiated a series of empirical studies on educational practice and its outcomes.