China’s internal labour migration has profoundly reshaped rural family life, leaving millions of children to grow up apart from their parents. This article examines how left-behind children (LBC) in rural households perceive and pursue education when parental academic guidance is largely absent. Drawing on Social Learning Theory, the article employs a qualitative approach that integrates home-based observation and semi-structured interviews with LBC and their caregivers. Findings show that children’s perceptions of schooling are highly instrumental; education is seen as a pathway to stability and social mobility, but emotionally ambivalent when daily support relies on distant parents or elderly caregivers. Challenges cluster around thin academic scaffolding at home (generational and educational gaps, inconsistent digital access) and pronounced emotional strain (loneliness, insecurity). Yet, children and caregivers demonstrate resilience and ingenuity: self-directed study routines, peer-supported homework circles, ‘silent scaffolding’ by caregivers, teacher reinforcement via phone or video and micro-community resources all play key roles. The study argues that the household, even in parental absence, remains a critical learning site where modelling and reinforcement are sustained through alternative figures and mediated environments. Effective support should go beyond remedying deficits, instead leveraging and amplifying the resources and routines already present in rural families and communities to bridge remaining academic and emotional gaps.
Despite strong educational outcomes, women comprise less than 20% of Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) researchers in Indian higher education institutions (HEIs). This underrepresentation transcends the ‘leaky pipeline’ metaphor, resembling instead a ‘braided river’ of intersecting barriers—sociocultural pressures, infrastructural deficits and institutional biases operating simultaneously. Through critical policy document analysis, we systematically coded 32 institutional gender policies alongside seven national frameworks. Findings reveal that while 22% explicitly address the dual burden, only 31% mandate infrastructural support. None of them address patrilocal assumptions or dual-career support, and 87.5% lack any substantive commitments. Current interventions accommodate individual women’s circumstances rather than transforming institutional structures—an approach inadequate for navigating braided complexity, where women must successfully traverse all channels simultaneously. We propose a Gender Equity Institutional Framework (GEIF) comprising 10 interconnected components: gender mainstreaming with audits and budgeting, substantive policies, transportation infrastructure, bias training, representation with power-sharing, formalised mentoring, physical and mental health infrastructure, childcare as shared responsibility, curriculum integration and leadership development. These multi-layered institutional interventions transform HEIs from passive sites mirroring societal inequalities into active agents fostering equity, inclusion and leadership among women in STEM.
This article examines teachers’ perspectives of their knowledge, skills and dispositions in their classroom practices within the context of India’s newly established National Professional Standards for Teachers (NPST). The study explores how teachers, as ‘knowers’ operating in context-driven environments, perceive and utilise their professional knowledge, an area under-researched in the Global South and particularly in social science as a school subject. In-depth focus group discussions were conducted with K-12 teachers in Bengaluru and Mumbai, where participants generated written artefacts. Findings reveal that teachers heavily rely on personalised experiences to shape pedagogy and contextualise curriculum. Their classroom practices integrate values and cultural contexts, informed by lived experiences, student interactions and unique environmental challenges. This dynamic interplay enables teachers to create relevant learning conditions and foster critical thinking suited to their subject. The study suggests that while frameworks like the NPST aim to formalise teacher knowledge, they must accommodate the diverse and situated nature of teacher knowledge in practice. Policymakers should prioritise teacher agency and support systems that facilitate the integration of teachers’ perspectives of their knowledge into formalised practices, ensuring standards that can harmonise with local contexts and acknowledge teachers’ lived realities, often overlooked in large-scale reforms.
Science education is an interdisciplinary field of enquiry with conceptual frameworks drawing from the foundational disciplines of education, besides the multiple sub-disciplines of science. An interdisciplinary understanding has been critical to postgraduate courses in science education. However, students continue to have a conventional understanding of the nature and practices of science, based on predominant experiences at school and undergraduate education. This article analyses two assignments which draw upon philosophical and sociological perspectives in science. It discusses the development of hybrid spaces for students in understanding and navigating the disciplines and their interests. Conceptual and rhetorical elements, particularly emphasising students’ extension of inferences and projection of personae, are illustrated as elements of the forward and backward search strategies. Such assignments are essential to develop a richer understanding of the nature of science and its complex interpretation compared to typical deifications in textbooks and pedagogic approaches. They also support students with diverse interests and backgrounds to navigate different disciplines and unique interests through the development of ‘hybrid spaces’. Such spaces, at the boundaries of disciplines, writing conventions and students’ interests develop and reshape conventional understanding.
Homeschooling is an alternative educational approach where parents assume the responsibility of educating their children at home instead of enrolling them in formal schools. This study focuses on the lived experiences of parents of homeschoolers from Chennai District, Tamil Nadu, in India, offering a localised perspective of the homeschooling landscape. The article explores the perception of parents regarding the prevalence of homeschoolers, parental motivations and the teaching–learning processes using a qualitative case study approach. Snowball sampling was employed to identify participants and conduct in-depth interviews with 12 families. The study documented the nascent status of homeschooling in Chennai. It also highlighted the need for regulations and official records in non-intrusive ways. Parents prioritised dissatisfaction with the formal school system as a significant reason to homeschool over religious instruction and continuation due to COVID-19. The study reveals that homeschooling practices are characterised by flexibility, learner autonomy and personalised learning. Families adopt diverse curricula and pedagogy, ranging from unschooling to structured, board-aligned education. However, they also acknowledge the need to participate in formal board exams for higher education access. Also, it is perceived that homeschooling provides meaningful socialisation through broader community interactions, challenging the stereotype of isolation of homeschoolers. Challenges identified with regard to homeschooling include social stigma, parental self-doubt and overwhelming responsibilities. The study calls for improved school–home partnerships with broader community involvement to support inclusive learning environments.
School prayers in India are not merely routine elements within morning assemblies but structured curricular activities that occupy a significant place within the school timetable. They are moments of collective performance in which students engage in songs, recitations and moral instruction, subtly transmitting institutional and civic values. Far from being neutral or purely devotional, these daily practices function as pedagogical spaces that shape students’ moral, civic, spiritual and epistemological sensibilities. This article investigates the content of school prayers across four types of institutions in the Delhi-NCR region: government, private, government-aided religious (GAR) and Tibetan refugee schools. Using content analysis, the article examines how distinct values, emotions and ideas are communicated through these prayers. The comparative analysis reveals that each school type draws on different ideological and cultural frameworks in selecting or composing its prayer texts. The article thus calls for students to critically analyse the prayers they sing daily, transforming a repetitive ritual into a reflective learning practice that enables them to recognise how values, emotions and ideologies are reproduced through seemingly simple acts of collective devotion.
The access to higher education for Dalits through positive affirmation is an important step to address representation. However, representation of Dalit women in male-dominated disciplines has received little attention. This article seeks to understand the process of social differentiation that affects Dalit women in engineering colleges. Through the lived experience of these women, the article explicates how caste privilege has transformed itself into merit in the modern era. The entry of Dalit women is facilitated through reservations, but their survival through the exclusionary structures of engineering colleges receives little support. Therefore, this study examines the process of exclusion through the structures of power and privileges operating as a form of meritocracy. The analysis of intersectionality and lack of cultural capital shows how these factors interact, to significantly impact Dalit women, creating unique and intensified barriers to their academic and social integration.
This commentary, unlike other commentaries published in this journal, does not focus on a book; rather, it brings together Krishnamurti’s views concerning the importance of educational ideals and educational pursuits. Unlike other educational thinkers of his time, such as Sri Aurobindo, Gandhi, Tagore and Phule, Krishnamurti does not view education as a matter of indigenous, nationalistic or international agendas. Krishnamurti categorically rejected all philosophies, theories, religions, ideologies and policies as of little use for freedom of the mind. Still, recent studies have presented Krishnamurti as a post-colonial thinker. They highlight Krishnamurti’s emphasis on freedom of the mind, the unconditioned mind and the nurturing of free thinkers as the bases for a decolonising project. This article examines the claim that Krishnamurti can be considered a de/post-colonial thinker. This requires a critical analysis of his views on nationalism and colonialism, as well as positioning Krishnamurti as a nationalistic, post-colonial thinker. After examining the tenability of viewing Krishnamurti as a post-colonial thinker, the article argues that, although Krishnamurti critiques mainstream education, he cannot be categorised into any such category because his vision is one of transformative education that is not seeking a movement from the political arena of colonialism but from within the frame of education itself. Finally, the article presents excerpts from Krishnamurti’s words, arranged in a conversational format that speaks to the reader, should they choose to listen.
