Contrasting School Culture and Education: Mapping the Public-Private Binary

This book presents a comparative ethnographic understanding of government and low-fee private schools in India within the context of ever-increasing privatization and commercialization of education and the growing presence of non-state actors.

Drawing on rich empirical data, the book provides an ethnographic account of a government and a low-fee private school in Hyderabad, India, and explores life in these two distinct spaces through the lens of culture. While private schools catering to the poorer sections have been proliferating, little is known about how these low-fee private schools operate, how choices and negotiations unfold, the classroom discourses, subjective meanings of different stakeholders, and the kind of education provided in these schools vis-à-vis the government schools. The book focuses on the educational experiences, schooling choices, processes, and voices of the children and teachers at these schools to reflect on how school culture influences the quality of education. Based on intensive fieldwork and qualitative data, the book provides contextual insights into what exactly happens inside the schools and classrooms of two contrasting schooling provisions in India and helps understand the world views of different stakeholders as they negotiate their daily lives.

The book will be of interest to students, researchers, and teachers of education, sociology of education, childhood studies, urban education, and teacher education. It will also be useful for education policymakers, educationists, education professionals, and those working on private schooling in India.

V. Sucharita is a faculty in the Department of Educational Administration at the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi. She received her doctorate in the discipline of Anthropology. She has widely published in different areas of education. Currently, she is involved in teaching, research, and training in aspects relating to educational governance. Her research interests include School Culture, Quality, Low-Fee Private Schools, Privatization of School Education, Equity in Education, Innovations, and Change in Public Systems.