Amman Madan
amman.madan@apu.edu.in
The sociology of education explores the connections of educational issues with broader social processes. Education gets seen not as a series of individual actions alone, but as part of larger interactions, institutions, trends and transformations. The need for a sociological perspective gets more pressing as the conventional intuition of seeing things from the point of view of the individual or the immediate context becomes increasingly inadequate with societies getting ever larger and more complex. The sociology of education offers a way of grasping the connection between the individual self and the local context, on the one hand, with systems and processes that are not immediately visible, on the other. It enables us to recognize how larger events and relations impact our feelings, our imagination and our actions. It thus facilitates our critical reflection upon both our self and the world, so as take action to re-envision and rebuild both ends of the continuum between them. This perspective permits the development of an educational praxis that integrates reflective action at micro and macro societal levels.
The course would accordingly emphasize a historical and comparative approach, with an integration of individual actions with larger meta-sociological processes and their mediation through institutions. We would engage with the policies and practices of the state as well as other powerful actors and seek a grounded understanding as well as aim at cultivating a personal praxis.
Objectives
To initiate students into thinking sociologically.
To get a familiarity with major themes and perspectives in the sociology of education.
To get a familiarity with major social processes creating inequality in education.
To get a familiarity with the sociological understanding of culture and the processes that contribute to it, particularly in the domain of education.
To be able to connect theories with empirical trends across different societies, particularly in India
To develop a personal praxis in the Indian social context.