Dynamics of Inclusive ClassroomsDynamics of Inclusive Classroom explores the challenges and possibilities of rendering classrooms more inclusive by contributing to a better understanding of the educational needs of socially diverse children in India.
The contributors to this volume show how, in a world of rapid social, political, economic and educational changes, social diversity, inequalities and social exclusion/inclusion are subjects of great import. Part of this process is the significant increase in the number of children from socially diverse backgrounds in the classroom. This increase calls for a better understanding of their needs and for processes that render classrooms more inclusive.
In India, the increased enrolment of socially diverse students requires us to give special attention to issues of inequality based on caste, class, religion, gender, language and region, which affect children's learning processes and outcomes. This volume is based on a great variety of research, drawn from academic analysis, policy formulation, and classroom practices. Collectively, the contributors argue that, in order to render Indian classrooms inclusive, the country needs to formulate a school education policy that would result in pedagogical preparedness to deal with the increased enrolment of historically marginalized and oppressed children from diverse backgrounds. Through case studies and field examples, the authors demonstrate the processes and practices through which learning can be made inclusive and democratic in Indian classrooms.
This book offers fresh insights into diversity and contemporary educational practices in India and will be of considerable interest to students, scholars, practitioners and policy makers involved in education, development studies, social work, sociology, history, and public policy.
List of Tables and Figures
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Section 1: Alignment of Inclusion in Elementary Education
Inclusive Elementary Education in India: The Journey
R. V. Vaidyanatha Ayyar
Social and Regional Inequality in Elementary Education in India: Retrospect and Prospect
Madhumita Bandyopadhyay
Section 2: Social Diversity and Learning Performance Disparity
Education of Equitable Quality: 81All Children Reading
Dhir Jhingran
Social Diversity and Learning Achievement: Contextualising Policies and Practices for Primary Schools in Rural Bihar
Manoj KumarTiwary and Sanjay Kumar
Section 3: Children in Unconventional Learning Settings
Rights, Mobility and Social (In) Justice: The 2009 RTE Act and Mobile Pastoralist Children's Education Deprivation
Caroline Dyer
Educationally Excluded Street and Working Children: Financial Literacy and Life Skill Based Education as a Way Forward
Shushmita Chatterji Dutt
Section 4: Learning English in the Labyrinth of Contrasting Technologies
The Technology and Politics of Teaching English
Nita Kumar
The Road to English: The Slow Migration of the EWS Child to Elite India
Peggy Mohan
Section 5: Pedagogy, Teacher Agency and the Operation of Stereotypes
Cultural Marginality and Reproduction of Stereotypes: An Insider's View on Practices of School
Vikas Gupta
Becoming a Critical Pedagogue: Teacher Agency and Critical Theory
Smriti Singh
Conclusion: Situating India's Inclusive Education in the Global Episteme of Diversity, Inequality and Democracy
Arvind Kumar Mishra
Contributors
Index
