Education and the Public Sphere: Exploring the Structures of Mediation in Post-Colonial India. Routledge Research in International and Comparative Education

"Education and the Public Sphere" conceptually and empirically investigates and unfolds several complexities embedded in the educational system in India by exploring it as a site of transforming the public sphere. Bringing together a range of contributions from education and the social sciences, this volume analyses and reflects on structures in education and how these mediate and transform the public sphere in post-colonial India. Drawing on fresh research, case studies and testimony, this book debates issues such as the crisis in higher education, privatisation and politicisation of education, the reciprocal relationship between marginalisation and education, and the lasting impact that modern pedagogical practices have on the wider world. It critically reflects on the direct engagement of people, institutions, various cultural sensibilities and public debate to animate how these combined structures affect the teaching and learning process. From a unique interdisciplinary perspective, this book initiates an analytical enquiry into teaching and the culture of learning, generating critical discourses on the system as a whole. This book will be vital reading for researchers, scholars and postgraduate students in the field of international education, education theory and social justice education. Titles in the book include: (1) Towards a Destruction of Critical Thinking (Prabhat Patnaik); (2) The Crisis of India's Higher Education (Zoya Hasan); (3) Education as Emancipation: Reading Freedom through Dalit Narratives (Raj Kumar); (4) Between Prohibition of Political Activity and Capture of Political Space: The Predicament of Student Politics in Kerala (Praveena Kodoth); (5) Public and Private Dichotomy: An Empirical Insight into the University Governance in India (Chetan Singai); (6) Publication or Public Action? Discursive Spaces of Disengagements in India (L.N. Venkataraman); (7) Parental Choice for Schools in the Changing Context of the State and Market in India (Pradeep Kumar Choudhury); (8) Privatization and Shrinking Free Space in Indian Higher Education: Challenges for Inclusive Knowledge Society (Narender Thakur and Gaurav J. Pathania); (9) Public Sphere and Educational Policy Transformations in Kerala (Ahammedul Kabeer AP); (10) Can Social Movements Lead to Educational Change? Some Reflections on Case Study of the Adivasi Munnetra Sangam (Amman Madan, Rama Sastry and B. Ramdas); (11) Everyday Violence, Schooling and Mediating Institutions in Northeast India (Jeebanlata Salam); (12) Pedagogic Settings and Pedagogic Deterrence: A Treatise on Tribal Education and Social Exclusion (Babu C. T. Sunil); (13) Silent Public and Speaking Selves: Locating 'Public Sphere' through Classroom Practices (Pranta Pratik Patnaik); (14) Everyday Engagement with Social Issues: Prospects of Liberal Arts and Engineering Students in the Institutions of Higher Learning (Sarvendra Yadav); (15) Researcher, Field and Caste Encounter: Critical Reflections on Fieldwork (Ajay Choudhary); (16) Education, Self and Society: A Contemporary Reading of (Integrated) 'Science of the Absolute' in the Philosophy of Narayana Guru and Nataraja Guru (Shareena Banu C. P.); and (17) Conclusion: Education and the Public Sphere: Conceptions and their Mediations (Suresh Babu G.S.).