Historically marginalized youth shape public life through civic literacies that are rooted in their identities and experiences with systemic injustices. Literacy scholarship has accordingly traced how practitioner inquiry, a participatory approach to knowledge production, can educationally support the flourishing of these literacies. But while…

Collective leadership employs a sociological lens to locate leadership in the context and relationships from which it emerges. It has been defi ned as a process of collective meaning making, developmental capacity building, and collaborative action. Its focus is directed toward developing groups of people empowered to act together to bring about…

This study explores the role of education in a democracy in order to create informed people, advance democratic values, and enable active participation in the political process. It provides a comprehensive overview of the Indian political landscape, highlighting the political framework, important parties, hot button issues, and challenges to…

This article explores the contours of the Indian pragmatist Bhimrao Ambedkar and his reconstruction of Buddhism in the 1950s. As a student of John Dewey at Columbia University, young Ambedkar was heavily influenced by the pragmatist ideas of democracy and reconstruction. Throughout his life he would continue to evoke Dewey's words and ideas in his…

"Learning To Live Together" (LTLT) has been proposed as one of the four UN pillars of education. Several Indian educationists including Aurobindo, Gandhi, Krishnamurti, and Tagore have emphasized equivalents like 'education of the heart' and founded schools that have pursued these goals, some for more than a century. This paper explores…

Drawing on field-based research in selected government-run and private preschool centres in three selected districts of the Indian state of West Bengal, this article makes four basic arguments. First, there is a need to both defend public provisioning of early childhood education for equity goals and demand its major improvement on quality…

The chairman of the drafting committee of the modern Indian Constitution, Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar, emphasized that education cultivates democracy in society, strengthens the roots of democracy, and brings about social transformation. The social transformation includes a way of life that will promote liberty, equality, and fraternity, which are Dr…

This booklet compiles 10 good practices of the Happy Schools activities from different countries in Asia-Pacific. As part of the Happy Schools Campaigns organised in 2019 and 2020 to celebrate the International Day of Happiness under the theme: "Share Happiness, Share Your Happy School Activities" for 2019 and "Happiness for all,…

This article examines the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (RTE, 2009) in India, including its origin, the system of schools to which it gave rise, and its importance against the backdrop of the larger Indian society. This article further assesses the progress made in the implementation of the RTE, the roadblocks, and the…

Citizenship is about individual's membership in the socio-political community. Education for citizenship conceives issues such as quality education, learning society and inclusion. Educational thinking in India has long valued community as a learning resource. With empirical experiences drawn from the programme of "Ecology and Natural…

With the premise that investigation into impact of reforms on the educational outcomes like democratic citizenship is at best inconsistent, this study reports the findings of analyses of how secondary school pass-outs in Kerala from different streams of schools commit to democratic values. In order to judge the impact of post NCF (2005) school…

This study reports development of a reliable and valid instrument for assessing the commitment to democratic values among secondary school students in Kerala from 57 likert type statements originally developed in 2007 by Gafoor and Thushara to assess commitment to nine values avowed in the Indian Constitution. Nine separate maximum likelihood…

In this global village, it is relevant to look at two educational visionaries from two continents, John Dewey and Rabindranath Tagore. Dewey observed that the modern individual was depersonalized by the industrial and commercial culture. He, thus, envisioned a new individual who would find fulfillment in maximum individuality within maximum…

Archbishop Mar Ivanios (1882-1953) was a visionary and his educational vision has relevance for today. He emancipated the socially marginalized and disenfranchised people of his time through his educational vision and practice. This article is the story of a small community of Christians and their leader who made a difference in their society.…

Education is often seen as the key agency in international development and poverty reduction. Frequently the emphasis is on the economic and social role of education in development. This book, on the other hand, is unusual in explicitly examining the political role of education in development. In particular, it sets out the theories, evidence and…