Education and the Public Sphere: Exploring the Structures of Mediation in Post-Colonial India

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.

Suresh Babu G.S teaches at the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Previously, he was working with the Department of Sociology, University of Jammu (2005–2013). His research focuses on the post-colonial debates of subaltern communities in India through the critical lens of education as a tool of cultural politics beyond the normative logic of social mobility. He is trying to situate how the marginalized, the displaced, the migrants and the mountainous communities negotiate with a democratic institution and cultivate new habits and aspirations for (higher) education in the citadel of the knowledge society. He holds a doctorate and a master of philosophy in sociology from JNU and a master’s from the Loyola College of Social Sciences. He has undertaken field-based research in Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, and Kerala on education, development and ecology. Recently, he has taken up a new research project to study the political culture of the university campus in India for ICSSR. His numerous publications include Engaging with Modernity and Development in India, research-based articles, chapters in books and monographs. As a member of the collaborative project under DAAD, he has been visiting scholar at the University of Cologne, Germany, in 2015 and 2017.