This volume examines the history and research on the sociology of education (SoE) in India. It analyses the influence of culture, identities, structural inequalities, and poverty on education, and evaluates how sociological tools can be used to address the impending crisis in the educational system. The consistent study of SoE has been slow in India, as is evident in the only recent attempts to establish the structure of the discipline. This volume places the SoE as a sub-discipline of Indian sociology, with the first few studies on education being undertaken in the 1950s/1960s by Kothari Comm ... More

This volume examines the history and research on the sociology of education (SoE) in India. It analyses the influence of culture, identities, structural inequalities, and poverty on education, and evaluates how sociological tools can be used to address the impending crisis in the educational system. The consistent study of SoE has been slow in India, as is evident in the only recent attempts to establish the structure of the discipline. This volume places the SoE as a sub-discipline of Indian sociology, with the first few studies on education being undertaken in the 1950s/1960s by Kothari Commission (1964-6). The book emphasizes the need to grow the sociological imagination as there is still a lack of understanding of education as a social institution and its interlinkages with poverty, cultural diversity, and the world of work. This book attempts to deal with how structural inequalities, cultural diversity, and identities of different social groups mediate institutional practices and influence learning. These are areas of research where sociologists of education in India have a critical role to play.