“Do You Know Angreji?” Economically Oppressed Parents on Education, and the Teaching and Learning of English in Schools in India

ABSTRACT

In this paper, I interpret the perspectives of 19 economically oppressed parents and five teachers from the Indian city of Vadodara, in the state of Gujarat, as they discuss the unprecedented emphasis on the learning of English in education in India. In this ethnographic study, I employed participant observations, sentence completion tasks, in-depth interviews, and focus groups. Verbatim transcripts were uploaded into the qualitative software NVivo. Open, axial, and selective coding was used to identify themes, which were supplemented by coding notes and commentaries. The parents dwelt on the dominance of English in the educational and professional landscape in India, and designated English as the most prestigious subject taught in school. They spoke eloquently about its irreplaceability for gaining social status and mobility. Notably, they indicated that the heavy emphasis on English is a frustrating reality given their own unfamiliarity with the language, which limits the amount of academic support they can offer their children.

KEYWORDS:

• Education
• English
• ethnotheories
• globalization
• India
• low-income parents

Acknowledgment

A University Research Committee Grant from Indiana State University provided funding for this research. I owe a debt to the Gupta family for their unconditional affection, unstinting logistical assistance, and insights throughout the data collection process. My gratitude, too, to the parents who opened their homes and lives to me.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. I reference only one teacher, Dharmesh, in this essay; all other participants are parents.

2. For a critique of the term “lingua franca” as pernicious, misleading, and false, see Phillipson (2011).

3. English was taught as a language and “English teachers” taught other subjects too.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the University Research Committee Grant, Indiana State University .

Notes on contributors

Hema Ganapathy-Coleman

Hema Ganapathy-Coleman is a developmental cultural psychologist. Her ethnographic and qualitative research focuses on the culturally based beliefs, or ethnotheories, of Asian Indian parents, both immigrants in the United States and Canada and parents living in the state of Gujarat, India. Her current project examines ideas about educational success and failure held by Hindu parents and teachers of middle and low socioeconomic status in India.