Overview
A sea change has occurred in the Indian economy in the last three decades, spurring the desire to learn English. Most scholars and media venues have focused on English exclusively for its ties to processes of globalization and the rise of new employment opportunities. The pursuit of class mobility, however, involves Hindi as much as English in the vast Hindi-Belt of northern India. Schools are institutions on which class mobility depends, and they are divided by Hindi and English in the rubric of “medium,” the primary language of pedagogy. This book demonstrates that the school division allows for different visions of what it means to belong to the nation and what is central and peripheral in the nation. It also shows how the language-medium division reverberates unevenly and unequally through the nation, and that schools illustrate the tensions brought on by economic liberalization and middle-class status.
Full Product Details
Author: Chaise LaDousa ,
Krishna Kumar
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Imprint: Berghahn Books
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 1.30cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.327kg
ISBN: 9781785332111
ISBN 10: 1785332112
Pages: 236
Publication Date: 01 April 2016
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
[This book] is a much needed study of the situation in the field at root level... [it] allows the reader to grasp complexity of the language question that applies to the entire country by the author's focus on the complexity in one of India's urban centers. New Books Asia
The painstaking, thorough study presented in this book comfortably straddles disciplinary boundaries. Judicious and imaginative selection of material and methods drawn from social anthropology and linguistics enables LaDousa to take readers to the intersection of ideology, status, and education. They stay long enough at this intersection to get over the emotive illusion of the term 'mother tongue.' * SirReadaLot This book conveys a highly nuanced and sophisticated analysis of the relationships among language, language ideology, schooling, and globalization in India... The author draws creatively on fieldwork experiences that stretch across considerable time and space. * Peter Demerath, University of Minnesota This book provides an excellent discussion of education, language, and social class in contemporary India... Informed by research in linguistic anthropology, sociolinguistics, and applied linguistics, it attempts to unravel the sociolinguistic complexity of language and class in India by examining the realities and ideologies surrounding one of the most profound divisions in Indian social life today: English-medium vs. Hindi-medium education. [It] will make a significant contribution to diverse disciplines engaged in the study of language and society... The writing, both engaging and accessible, is sure to capture the attention of students and scholars across academic levels. * Kira Hall, University of Colorado, Boulder
Author Information
Chaise LaDousa is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Hamilton College in Clinton, New York. His publications include House Signs and Collegiate Fun: Sex, Race, and Faith in a College Town (Indiana University Press, 2011) and articles in a number of peer-reviewed journals such as American Ethnologist, Journal of American Folklore, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Journal of Pragmatics, and Language in Society.
