DISCUSSION
Caste among Schoolchildren
Disha Nawani
Despite the potential of the paper,
“Critical Thinking on Caste
among Schoolchildren in
Maharashtra: Case Study of Two
Schools in Chiplun” (EPW, 31 May
2014), it is reduced to a reporting
of some of the views and attitudes
of children on caste-related issues
and leaves much to be desired.
The paper does not achieve the
objectives it set out for itself. It
makes sweeping generalisations
across sites and across
respondents and holds the
schools responsible for being
unable to develop critical
thinking among children.
Disha Nawani (dishanawani@yahoo.com) is
with the School of Education, Tata Institute of
Social Sciences, Mumbai.
Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 6, 2014
I
read Sameer Mohite’s paper, “Critical
Thinking on Caste among School-
children in Maharashtra: Case Study
of Two Schools in Chiplun” (EPW, 31 May
2014) with a lot of interest. The signifi-
cance of this work can hardly be under-
emphasised in a country, where schools
continue to be the sites of oppression,
and in several covert and overt ways,
condone discriminatory behaviour on
part of both teachers and students.
Instances of children from scheduled
castes and other such disadvantaged
communities being called by derogatory
names, asked to clean toilets, eat in
separate utensils, drink from a separate
pot are not uncommon in our country.
However, the article leaves much to
be desired and does not achieve the
objectives which it sets out for itself. A
study which had tremendous potential is
thus reduced to a reporting of some of
the views and attitudes of children on
caste-related issues. The title also seems
to be a bit misplaced as all that the arti-
cle does is tell us that children think in
traditional ways, reflecting and in all
probability parroting societal beliefs and
attitudes against each other, especially
those who are placed below them in the
social, more specifically, caste hierarchy.
Traditional Views on Caste
The author asserts that “not much is
known about how classroom pedagogy
reinforces traditional views on caste and
discourages critical thinking”. The new
sociology of education of the 1970s was
essentially about looking critically at
what happens inside the institution of
schools as opposed to the earlier “black
box approach” which simply examined
the relationship between students’ back-
ground (input) and output (educational
achievement and occupational place-
ment). Research in India within this
tradition has systematically unravelled
ways in which classroom processes,
vol xlix no 36
including teachers’ beliefs, attitudes and
textbooks reinforce and reproduce ine-
qualities in society, be it pertaining to
caste, class, tribe, gender or religion.
Even autobiographies like Om Prakash
Valmiki’s Joothan narrate incidents
where school becomes a site for discrim-
ination against the lower castes.
One could say that “classroom peda-
gogic practices” need to be much more
systematically researched upon and ex-
amined so that conne2ctions between
classroom processes and ways in which
they influence children’s thinking can be
understood better. Having made such an
assertion, one would expect that the re-
searcher would try and address this gap
and undertake an in-depth analysis of
classroom practices and show the man-
ner in which they reinforce children’s
traditional thinking on caste. However,
in this paper, one does not even get a
glimpse of what happens inside the
school or classroom which leads to a
conservation of such prejudiced views,
which have an origin outside school.
Children’s Views on Caste
The primary objective of the study was
to understand students’ thinking on
caste and to assess its critical nature, as-
suming thereby that it should have been
“critical” and if it is not so, then the
schools should be blamed for it. It is
strange that the author should choose
children’s attitudes on caste-related is-
sues as a site for studying their critical
thinking. In a caste-ridden society and a
schooling culture which focuses on chil-
dren remembering “given” information
and reproducing it, to expect children as
young as 12-15 years, to present reflec-
tive and informed views on caste seems
a bit far-fetched. Moreover, most ques-
tions asked were in a closed yes/no
format, which forced students to choose
either of the two responses. There was
no attempt to even examine in-depth
children’s understanding of caste and
how they related to it.
One of the questions, which the study
seeks to answer is, “Does the school
facilitate critical thinking in the class-
rooms”? While the research locates itself
67
DISCUSSION

in schools, and interviews school stu-
dents and even claims that “in actual
practice, however, traditional, uncritical
thinking continues to prevail with the
result that schools actually reinforce tra-
ditional biases”, it does not explain the
ways in which schools do that. Though it
even claims that the study focuses on,
“how the school played a part in shaping
the children’s capability for critical
thinking” and “it was necessary to under-
stand the pedagogy applied in schools”,
it assumes that schools are responsible
for such an uncritical thinking on part of
students, as “children are naturally lib-
eral and progressive in their thinking”.
Rather than systematically investigat-
ing ways in which schools, which in the
author’s view is the “only common space
where children from different caste
groups can interact”, it assumes that if
children are still rooted in traditional
prejudiced view of the other, then the
school must not be doing its job of,
“facilitating the breaking of caste barriers
and providing a fear free stimulating
environment for the process of making
friends”. If children make friends within
their caste groups (which cannot be seen
as an aberration in this case, living as
they are in caste-based hamlets and
probably walking down together to
school), then the “schools have failed to
create a space where there is inter-caste
interaction on a sustained basis”.
Similarly, even if students prefer to
marry within their own caste, then “the
obvious inference is that schools have
failed to promote logical and critical
thinking among students”. According to
him, even a majority of students justify-
ing a horoscope check before arranging
a marriage, is another indicator of
the school’s failure to ensure that the
students develop rational, logical and
critical thinking.
While the author is trying to argue
that schools must help foster critical
thinking of students, and there is no
denying the important role those schools
should play towards that end, it cannot
attribute this lack of critical thinking to
schools entirely, without showing any
evidence for the same. A researcher’s
task is to systematically present and
analyse data which substantiate his
reflections and not rely on unfounded
assumptions, no matter how true they
may appear to be.
Critical Thinking
The author seems to be driven by a
fairly decontextualised understanding of
critical thinking. Thus he defines this as
“thinking clearly and rationally”, “capa-
bilities of students to analyse, criticise
and advocate ideas as well as to reason
inductively and deductively...”, “critical
thinking to the extent that it can help us
gain knowledge can also save us from
making mistakes”, among others, suggest
that he seems to treat thinking as a purely
psychological phenomenon without situ-
ating “thinking” in the social, economic,
cultural contexts in which children are
situated and ways in which their differ-
ential locations affect their thinking.
By this understanding of critical think-
ing, it is possible to believe in the institu-
tion of caste and its hierarchical nature
and yet think “clearly and logically”.

REVIEW OF URBAN AFFAIRS

May 31, 2014
Patterns and Practices of Spatial Transformation
in Non-Metros: The Case of Tiruchengode –Bhuvaneswari Raman
The Politics of Classification and the Complexity of Governance in Census Towns – Gopa Samanta
Intentions, Design and Outcomes: Reflections on IHSDP in Maharashtra – Himanshu Burte
Planning as Practice?: Governing Conjunctures and Informal
Urbanisation in Solapur Town – Lalitha Kamath, Pranjal Deekshit
Changing Structure of Governance in Non-Metropolitan Cities:
A Study in Andhra Pradesh – N Purendra Prasad
The Regularising State – Amita Bhide
On the Charts, Off the Tracks: Disconnected Development
in Ambur Town, Tamil Nadu –Karen Coelho, M Vijayabaskar
Territorial Legends Politics of Indigeneity, Migration, and Urban Citizenship in Pasighat – Mythri Prasad-Aleyamma

For copies write to:

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email: circulation@epw.in

68 september 6, 2014 vol xlix no 36 EPW Economic & Political Weekly


Most children would by this logic swim
with the tide and believe in “caste”, no
matter how unfair it may seem to them,
rather than take a stand against it and
invite wrath of other, often important
people in their lives. Though the author
refers to the National Curriculum Frame-
work, 2005 and critical pedagogy and
mentions Paulo Freire in passing, he
completely misses the point that the likes
of Freire, Michael Apple, Henry Giroux
and others were making. Critical peda-
gogy facilitates a critical examination of
teaching-learning processes and seeing the
connections between individual problems
and iniquitous social structures in which
people are placed and taking appropriate
steps/actions to resolve them, thereby
taking control of one’s lives. It is think-
ing situated in concrete socio-political-
economic contexts and not thinking
which is restricted to a step-by-step logi-
cal and coherent thinking.
Views of Children
The villages in which this study was
conducted were deeply hierarchical and
divided along caste lines, with caste-
based hamlets in which people from
different caste groups lived. The author
shows that all the children were aware
of their caste identities, 60% preferred
making friends from their own commu-
nity, 40.5% were opposed to inter-caste
marriage, 23% believed in living with
members of their own caste, 40.5% pre-
ferred voting for candidates from their
caste and 27.4% also found only upper
caste to be good at studies and 41.7%
viewed Katkari tribe as being dirty. This
even leads the author to conclude that
since 25% of the students did not con-
sider any caste dirty, it can be inferred
that “students are inherently progres-
sive in their thinking and must be facili-
tated in the classrooms”.
Similarly, he says that in matter of
choice of a captain 35.7% would prefer
the same caste sports captain while 50%
of the students had no such preferences,
which is a positive sign and is “indicative
of an underlying progressiveness in the
children’s thinking”. In the same breath
he sighs that “the study showed that
such processes (interaction and inte-
gration) do not take place in the school
Economic & Political Weekly EPW september 6, 2014
because of the school’s failure to create
such spaces in the classroom”. The
author obviously does not believe in sub-
stantiating such statements and does not
hesitate in passing such judgments on
the schools.
Moreover, one is left wondering why
would one ask children’s views on issues
which do not impact them directly –
what sort of answers was he expecting
from students of classes 7 and 9 on ques-
tions of marriage, horoscope and voting
preferences. In all probability they would
have given responses based on what
they had seen in their families and com-
munity. It is unlikely that teachers also
would have engaged in discussions with
children on such issues.
Methodology Adopted
The villages selected had high literacy
rates: Talser 65.8% and Mundhe 81.8%.
The literacy rate of both the villages is
then averaged to 73.8%, which is com-
parable with the national literacy rate
(74%), and therefore, they were con-
sidered suitable for a case study to
understand whether high literacy rates
are actually indicative of improved
levels of critical thinking among
school students.
While this may seem a valid concern,
strangely enough the literacy rates of
two villages were averaged out and
differences among them ignored. The
schools selected in both the villages
were also not comparable – one was a
zilla parishad school and the other was
a private school. The reader is not
provided with any understanding of
the differences that may exist among
these schools or the profiles of students
that study there. The tools used for the
study were interview schedules and
non-participatory observations. From
some of the data given, it seems that
while some questions were closed-ended
(agree-disagree), a few others were a
bit unstructured.
The reader remains unclear as to what
was observed and how those observa-
tions were used to strengthen the under-
standing of the field and achieve objec-
tives of the study. One is guessing that
the teachers were interviewed but one
has no understanding of what was asked
vol xlix no 36
DISCUSSION
and what their responses were like.
There was neither any attempt to inter-
view parents of children and get an un-
derstanding of the social contexts and
lives and beliefs of people living in these
villages nor examine the textbooks that
children were reading in these schools
and whether they dealt with issues
related to caste, discrimination, etc. It is
doubtful that classrooms were observed,
and if they were there is no mention of
them in the study.
Conclusions
The study conveniently homogenises
both villages, both schools and all 84
students of classes 7 and 9, irrespective
of their gender, caste or class differences.
It makes sweeping generalisations across
sites and across respondents and holds
the schools responsible for being unable
to develop critical thinking among
children. By simply administering some
interview schedules on children and cal-
culating percentages of their responses
in an either or format, the author con-
cludes that “there is a complete absence
of systematic analysis of the self and
society and criticism of inequality, ex-
ploitation, oppression and domination
on the basis of caste that leads to and
perpetuates caste inequality”.
If the work is still in progress and the
author wants to understand ways in
which schools influence children’s
thinking about caste then he may want
to inform himself of the relevant body of
work in this area and re-look at his data
by examining spaces inside school, most
importantly, classrooms, and having
more in-depth conversations with chil-
dren, their parents as well as teachers.
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