Engaging with ‘Caste’: Curriculum, Pedagogy and Reception

Abstract

Caste has been a persisting form of stratification that continues to evade equality and social justice in Indian society. Among the routes to tackle the menace of caste has been the education system. In this regard, the National Curriculum Framework 2005 came with a resolute to engage the students with different issues, including that of caste with a critical and empathic eye. This paper locates the challenges to this curriculum by focusing on the pedagogy and reception of the curriculum. In doing so, it argues that the challenges emanate from the social identities and lived realities of the students and the teachers.

Facing Caste: Engaging with the Privileged

“…Kirasur (2021), however, is critical of the attempt and cites instances from the history and political science NCERT textbooks to claim that they ‘implicitly and explicitly’ uphold caste hierarchy. Mittal (2020) in her 2015–2016 study analysed the NCERT social science textbooks for Classes 6–10 for their content on caste-based inequalities and examined how students in a government-aided school in Delhi engaged with it. The findings of a questionnaire administered to 86 students from Class 9 to understand their opinion about caste-based discrimination revealed that 44.19% of the students denied its prevalence, and barely a quarter of the sample accepted that caste-discrimination still exists.…”

Un‘casting’ Universities: Examining the Intersections of Inclusive Curriculum and Dalit Pedagogies in a Private University in Bangalore, India

“…Teaching caste in classrooms is a difficult task, both pedagogically and ideologically and teachers need to engage with the curriculum to present a critical perspective (George & Madan, 2009). Students often render caste as "exotic" and "distant" (Shankar, 2017;Mittal 2020). Hence, discussing caste in classrooms requires historicizing it and making students aware of their preconceptions.…”

“…The classrooms, in the experience of Dalits, instead, work as sites where one confronts the brutal reality of caste." Social stratifications mark their presence quite overtly in classrooms and "who does/does not see caste in classroom, is associated with caste privilege" (Pan, 2022;Mittal, 2020). Hence, while on one hand, upper caste students claim "caste as a practice of the past and denies witnessing it in contemporary society" (2020, p. 106) often denying its existence (Pan, 2022), on the other hand, students from the marginalised communities maintain silence (Mittal, 2020) or look for alternative articulations of their identities.…”

“…Social stratifications mark their presence quite overtly in classrooms and "who does/does not see caste in classroom, is associated with caste privilege" (Pan, 2022;Mittal, 2020). Hence, while on one hand, upper caste students claim "caste as a practice of the past and denies witnessing it in contemporary society" (2020, p. 106) often denying its existence (Pan, 2022), on the other hand, students from the marginalised communities maintain silence (Mittal, 2020) or look for alternative articulations of their identities. Even if the curriculum shows the potential of an equitable discourse, the disconnect between curricula and pedagogy affect classroom engagements.…”

“…Even if the curriculum shows the potential of an equitable discourse, the disconnect between curricula and pedagogy affect classroom engagements. In addition, teacher motivations affect the comprehension of students and their critical awareness significantly (Mittal, 2020). If "the ideology, curriculum, and pedagogy become tools through which power is used to secure social control" in classrooms (Jogdand, 2017;Giddens, 1984), a pedagogy that is critical, situated, historical and attempts to understand the experiences of the marginalised communities with care (Jogdand, 2017;Biko, 1971) could make classrooms more inclusive and less humiliating.…”