Anthropological Studies of Education – serie

This book examines diverse ways in which young people from around the world envision and prepare for their future education, careers, and families.  The book features cutting-edge anthropological essays including ethnographic accounts of schooling in India, South Africa, the US, Bhutan, Tanzania, and Nigeria. Each chapter focuses on today’s generation of students and on students' use of education to create new possibilities for themselves. This volume will be of particular interest to practicing teachers and anthropologists and to readers who seek an ethnographic understanding of the world as seen through the eyes of students.

This book examines the Singapore government’s controversial practice of recruiting students from China and granting them full scholarships on the condition of a service “bond”. It offers detailed ethnographic accounts of the Chinese “foreign talent” students’ educational and cross-cultural experiences in Singapore to illustrate the complex intersections between international mobility and educational desire. In doing so, the book presents contemporary Singapore society’s concerns over immigration and cross-cultural encounters from a unique perspective.

This edited volume focuses on the impact of education among different social groups in different geographical areas of South Asia. The chapters illustrate the effects of formal education on castes ranging from Dalits to Brahmins, Buddhists, and Christians, even as they consider a range of topics such as the relevance of practical knowledge prior to formal teaching, the personal educational experiences of young women, missionary education, curriculum, and the challenges and benefits of Information Technology. The geographical areas range from Sri Lanka and Nepal to various Indian states, including Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Maharastra, Odisha, and Rajasthan.

Taking Care of the Future examines the moral dimensions and transformative capacities of education and humanitarianism through an intimate portrayal of learners, volunteers, donors, and educators at a special needs school in South Africa and a partnering UK-based charity. Drawing on his professional experience of “inclusive education” in London, Oliver Pattenden investigates how systems of schooling regularly exclude and mishandle marginalized populations, particularly exploring how “street kids” and poverty-afflicted young South Africans experience these dynamics as they attempt to fashion their futures. By unpacking the ethical terrains of fundraising, voluntourism, Christian benevolence, human rights, colonial legacies, and the post-apartheid transition, Pattenden analyzes how political, economic and social aspects of intervention materialize to transform the lives of all those involved.

Through an ethnographic study of schooling in the Republic of Tatarstan, this book explores how competing notions of nationhood and belonging are constructed, articulated and negotiated within educational spaces. Amidst major political and ideological moves toward centralization in Russia under the Putin presidency, this small provincial town in Tatarstan provides a unique case of local attempts to promote and preserve minority languages and cultures through education and schooling. Ultimately, the study reveals that while schooling can be an effective instrument of the state to transform individuals as well as society as a whole, school also encompasses various spaces where the agency of local actors unfolds and official messages are contested. Looking at what happens inside schools and beyond—in classrooms, hallways and playgrounds to private households or local Islamic schools—Dilyara Suleymanova here offers a detailed ethnographic account of the way centrally devised educationalpolicies are being received, negotiated and contested on the ground.

Through an ethnographic study of schooling in the Republic of Tatarstan, this book explores how competing notions of nationhood and belonging are constructed, articulated and negotiated within educational spaces. Amidst major political and ideological moves toward centralization in Russia under the Putin presidency, this small provincial town in Tatarstan provides a unique case of local attempts to promote and preserve minority languages and cultures through education and schooling. Ultimately, the study reveals that while schooling can be an effective instrument of the state to transform individuals as well as society as a whole, school also encompasses various spaces where the agency of local actors unfolds and official messages are contested. Looking at what happens inside schools and beyond—in classrooms, hallways and playgrounds to private households or local Islamic schools—Dilyara Suleymanova here offers a detailed ethnographic account of the way centrally devised educationalpolicies are being received, negotiated and contested on the ground.

This book examines how the Lycée autogéré de Paris, an experimental high school established in 1982 which claims to implement critical and democratic pedagogical practices, contributes to the development of counter-hegemonic educational and social practices. The author presents and analyses significant discursive data on the school’s pedagogical practice, focusing specifically on triangulation, from general assemblies to official texts, pedagogic projects and everyday interactions inside and outside the institution. He then argues that the discourses of the self-managed high school tend to be critical of the French state’s neoliberal discourse on education while favouring the development of practices of solidarity within the local and broader context of the institution. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of sociology of education, sociolinguistics and education for social justice.

Taking Care of the Future examines the moral dimensions and transformative capacities of education and humanitarianism through an intimate portrayal of learners, volunteers, donors, and educators at a special needs school in South Africa and a partnering UK-based charity. Drawing on his professional experience of “inclusive education” in London, Oliver Pattenden investigates how systems of schooling regularly exclude and mishandle marginalized populations, particularly exploring how “street kids” and poverty-afflicted young South Africans experience these dynamics as they attempt to fashion their futures. By unpacking the ethical terrains of fundraising, voluntourism, Christian benevolence, human rights, colonial legacies, and the post-apartheid transition, Pattenden analyzes how political, economic and social aspects of intervention materialize to transform the lives of all those involved.