Decontextualized schooling and (child) development: Adivasi communities’ negotiations of early childhood care and education and schooling provisions in India

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the assimilatory politics of modern schooling as embodied in the spatial and temporal logics of the state’s educational apparatus. Drawing upon a study of early childhood care and education in Gudalur, India, it demonstrates how modern schooling, even during preschool years, deprioritizes indigenous Adivasi commmunities’ socio-cultural practices surrounding children. The separations produced by state educational institutions, between home and school, children’s work and (economic) work of adults, (in contrast to the continuities they assume for communities) are central to this. Adivasi communities negotiate the decontextualized state educational provisions, without completely rejecting them, cognizant of its implications for their lives. Demanding greater accountability from educational institutions, they show how educational institutions include without attending to their socio-political histories and changing relationships with forests, which requires children to be prepared for the present and future, economic and social life, and through intergenerational continuity in knowledge.

KEYWORDS:

• Adivasi communities
• early childhood education
• inclusion

Acknowledgements

This paper is part of the British Academy funded project ‘Examining the contexts, practices and costs of early childhood care and education in India’ jointly undertaken by the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies and University of Cambridge. The authors would like to acknowledge Akash Kumar, Arathi Sriprakash, Jyotsna Jha and Pallawi Sinha, who contributed to the overall development of this work. We would also like to acknowledge Bhaskaran Ramdas, Vishwa Bharathi Vidyodaya Trust, Gudalur, ACCORD and the Adivasi Munnetra Sangam for the field support provided to us. Our sincere gratitude to Sarada Balagopalan and the anonymous reviewer for valuable feedback on the paper draft.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 We use the term politically progressive to signal the long history of anti-caste movements in Tamil Nadu that have been incorporated into the state’s administration and functioning. ‘Caste’ denotes the hierarchical social ordering of population that was historically based on occupational status, and which was rigidified and made unchangeable during the colonial period. Caste differences have central to historical forms of discrimination in India. Adivasi is the term for self-identification used by indigenous populations of India, and literally means ‘first inhabitants’. The official state category for Adivasis is ‘Scheduled Tribes (STs)’.

2 See for example Indian Forest Act (1865); Forest Conservation Act (1980).

3 Though the average annual household income for Adivasis in Gudalur is US$ 366, the land-cultivating Mullakurumbas and Irulas have relatively higher incomes; followed by Bettakurumbas employed in forest department jobs; and lowest among Paniyars who work as landless agricultural labourers on tea, coffee, pepper and banana plantations, and Kattunayakas who rely on forest produce such as honey for their income (Just Change India 2018; Menon and Karthik 2019).

4 Names of all villages, institutions and people have been anonymized to maintain confidentially.

5 TWIG and AC members facilitated access to government and private ECCE institutions and Adivasi communities where we conducted extensive observations, Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and interviews with ECCE staff, family members of children and members of AC to document available schooling provisions, expectations and priorities within the Adivasi communities in relation to education.

6 (Researcher) assisted extensively with the coding of data.

7 Explaining the term, Gupta and Sharma (2006) argue that welfare provisions such as the ICDS functioned to govern populations through development in the interest of national development.

8 ‘Dalit’ is the term of self-identification used by groups considered to occupy the lowest rung of the Hindu caste system in India, and that have faced historical discrimination. They are officially recognized as Scheduled Castes (SCs).

9 A simple solution to this problem had been devised by TWIG, which had arranged for paid volunteers from the community to pick up and drop children to anganwadi centres and schools. Though the intention of this paper is not to provide an alternative educational model, initiatives in the area of community-based, responsive education by TWIG in this regard, including the setting up of an Adivasi school, can be found at Prabha et al. (2019).

10 School readiness refers to a set of cognitive, linguistic, socio-emotional and physical competencies that enable children to successfully transition into formal schooling. In addition to ‘toilet control’, for other examples of ‘school readiness’ (see UNICEF 2012).

11 SMCs are composed of elected representatives of parents, local authorities and teachers, with parents making up at least three-quarters of the committee, and heading it. SMCs however have minimal decision making powers and largely monitor plans laid down by the state at the local level (Maithreyi and Sriprakash 2018).

12 A doll-exhibition festival celebrated by upper caste Tamil Hindu families.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by British Academy [EC170022].