Modern Schooling and Trajectories of Exclusion

Empirically rich and theoretically astute, this book offers brilliant insights into the construction and contestation of childhood in India. Focusing on children's negotiations of the normative structures and practices of schooling, the authors shine a light on the persisting forms of exclusion that are experienced particularly by the most marginalized. Rarely does a book succeed in offering such range and depth of scholarly analysis, attentive to both the ethics of researching children's lives and the politics of institutions that attempt to condition them. This is an unparalleled contribution to studies of childhood in India and globally. Arathi Sriprakash, University of Bristol, UK This important collection explores the institutional practices found within compulsory schooling in the (re)constitution of normative categories of childhood. Underpinned by rich archival and ethnographic research, the eight chapters lay bare how non-normative childhoods across an array of geographical contexts in India remain excluded by legislation that purports to promote an inclusive education. In doing so, this foregrounds questions of how (and, more importantly, why), in spite of policy commitments for the inclusion of marginalised children, formal schooling in India continues to privilege the normative 'child': that is, children who are predominantly male, upper class and upper caste. Without doubt, this extremely timely book represents a critical contribution to contemporary debates around multiple childhoods and the politics of educational exclusion. Peggy Froerer, Brunel University London, UK