Unpacking Intersectionality: Conceptual Explorations of Convergences and Divergences of Class, Caste and Gender in Education (original) (raw)
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We understand the world around us, at a cursory view, in a commonsensical dimension. Consider this very moment, as I am typing out my analysis in formal English to be assessed for presentation at a seminar. I often think why I can't make such submissions in my first language here, or what is even so important about a degree. I also dwell upon the fact that I have to incur expenditures for renting a room near my institute, while rooms are reserved for many of my friends stay in the institute hostels. In order to conduct a deeper analysis of such pointed questions, my commonsensical understanding falls well short. I need be reflexive in my views – having an inside view of my own thoughts, as well as an outside view as a member of the larger society. I also need to de-familiarize some terms that form a part of my commonsensical understanding now, such as reservations. In this study, I have dealt with the issue of caste inequalities in India. I shall describe how, as a student of education, I have developed a 'sociological imagination'. This sociological imagination has altered many of my views, to varying extents, regarding the origins, mechanisms, and spread of the caste system in India, as well as its implications for the present times.
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1. Social stratification and opportunities 2. Explaining stratification: theories and ideas 3. Understanding stratification: methods of evaluation 4. Class and the structure of inequality 5. The upper class and the elite 6. The middle class and workers 7. The working poor and the underclass 8. Social mobility 9. Education and inequality 10. Women and their changing positions 11. Race and ethnicity 12. Culture 13. Inequality across the globe 14. Public policy and social stratification.
This paper suggests that we may be suffering from a constrained educational and social imaginary in our current thinking about equality in education. The ‘common sense’ of our time, enshrined in both EU and Irish law, is that equality of opportunity is a reasonable and tenable principle for promoting equality in education and in society more generally. It is also widely believed that the educational system is itself meritocratic. Using empirical evidence from a range of international studies, this paper claims that equality of opportunity needs to be underpinned by the principle of equality of condition, especially equality of economic condition, if it is to be meaningful. As the principle of equality of opportunity is operationalized in education through the practice of meritocratic selection in schools and colleges, the paper demonstrates how meritocracy is an unrealizable myth in an economically unequal society.