The work of tuitions: moral infrastructure in a Delhi neighborhood

Abstract

In India, as in many other Asian countries, private tutoring to supplement school education and prepare students for competitive examinations is a burgeoning industry. These “tuitions” provide opportunities for self-employment, including for many women working in or near their homes. Through an ethnographic study of tutors in a Delhi neighborhood, this article presents tuitions work as a form of moral infrastructure. This infrastructure is foundational to the fulfillment of evolving social roles that comprise the realization of relational personhood in contemporary urban India. Consequently, it remains robust – indeed, continues to expand – despite encompassing conflicting projects and discourses. Through the case of tuitions, this article proposes a theoretical framework for conceptualizing infrastructures as channels for movement that articulate normative visions of and for society. These prescribed channels may simultaneously invite shortcuts, bypasses, and other unintended uses that incrementally transform those visions.

Keywords:

• tutoring
• work
• infrastructure
• morality
• Delhi

Acknowledgments

This work would not have been possible without the generous assistance of my family in India Dolly, Pradip, Kriti, and Ankit and the kindness of all the tutors who welcomed me into their homes and classrooms. I am further indebted to Perveez Mody and Sian Lazar at the University of Cambridge for their guidance, to my colleagues at O.P. Jindal University, especially Jayani Bonnerjee and Yugank Goyal, and to Saba Sharma, Kristina Nielsen, and Jonn Salovaara.

Notes

1. This phrase has been used to describe forms of tutoring in almost all regions of the world. See especially the work of Bray (2007, 2009, 2011; Bray and Kwo 2013, 2014).

2. The Indian school system follows the same grade numbering scheme as the United States but typically represents the standard with a Roman numeral. For example, the last two years of secondary school (when students are 16 to 18 years old) are represented as Class XI and Class XII.

3. The National Council of Educational Research and Training is the government body that publishes official textbooks used by many (though not all) schools.

4. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) is the main national credentialing board for high-school students in India.