Schooled for the Future? Educational Policy and Everyday Life Among Urban Squatters in Nepal (PB)

Anonym 01/11/2022

Schooled for the Future?: Educational Policy and Everyday Life among Urban Squatters in Nepal, Karen Valentin, Information Age Publishing Inc, 2006, 224p Karen Valentin aims to clarify the contradictions attached to a statement, produced by the Minister of Education, claiming the Nepalese government is working under the slogan “Education for all”. In doing so, she explores two central questions relating to the paradoxes of schooling. She offers a critical perspective on educational policy, as a part of planned development in Nepal. Firstly, if standardized formal schooling is eliminating or creating social differences; and secondly, if the schooling is an asset or a threat to the family structure of the landless people living in a squatter community called Ramaghad in Kathmandu. The book begins by presenting a comprehensive historical context of the educational systems, with formalized educational opportunities for all emerging late, as a result of the unique position of Nepal not being colonized. Valentin takes a holistic approach to examining the effects of educational policy, by investigating the motives and ideas connected to the notion of formal schooling on three different levels. At state-level she interviews politicians, chairmen and other people in power, to whom providing admission-free education is a nation building tool for combatting social inequality and serving other development goals in the pursuit of joining the category of developed, modernized nations. She explains the interests of Non-Governmental Organizations, who use their economic aid, as an instrument to affect the morals of society, through Nepal’s commitment to global conventions. This is done based on the belief that education is a necessary component for individuals to participate in a modernized, democratic society. But the focus of her research is to understand how policy affects the daily lifeworld of a group in a socio-economic disadvantaged position, via a bottom-up perspective. With these three perspectives, Karen links the global process to local practices. The families of Ramaghat identified two main values of schooling, attaining to upward social mobility in the pursuit of middle-class lifestyles, primarily in the form of permanent income opportunity and secondly as prestige for the entire family. Based on this, parents viewed schooling as an investment in the future, that transcends beyond the classroom, and childhood. Karen’s research found that not all families had equal opportunities when it came to sending their children to school. She argues that this primarily is due to a lack of economic capital and uses Bourdieu’s theory of capital as a framework. Even though admission is free, she discovered the families' economic challenges by interviewing, participating in classes, and observing the material structures. Children stay home from school, because the household needs supplementary income or assistance, which doesn't corollate with the fixed-time schedule of the schools, or simply because of having to wash their uniforms. The book’s unique perspective is, that it not only concerns itself with upward mobility, but also with how schooling for the privileged is strengthening existing divisions in society based on social class. She argues that the concept of “the schooled person” also creates a new category of un-schooled people. The state, but also families prescribe great value to formal schooling, as a fundamental condition for “knowing anything at all” and thus becoming “someone”. She has since pursued study in social mobility processes as one of the core subjects in her further career. The title “Schooled for the future?” is relating to the second question posed. By flipping it on its head and asking: “Schooled for the past?” it reveals the generational relations that are being negotiated. The old generation find value in the lifeways of the past, such as caste-hierarchy and rural living. The younger generation rejects aspects of this way of life. Karen concludes that it might be an indirect result of schooling facilitating growth in social and political awareness under modern doctrines. This empowers the younger generation's ability, to play a bigger part in creating their future. It is a battle between tradition and modernity that is most distinct, in the occurrence of inter-caste love-marriages. Karen is aware of her own role as a white foreigner when doing her field work. She knows that her relationships with the families are tainted by their desire to create a good impression on her as a potential patron. At many times she was confronted with difficult choices of offering economic support. This is also partly due to the way she gained access to the community through a NGO and chose to live in a hotel near the settlement instead of in it. Despite this, she relates to her informants as human beings, by pointing out that the best conversations were not facilitated through formal interviews, proving that you don’t have to cast humans into a research role in order to learn from them. The book is written in a descriptive and comprehensive way. The included statements from the informants make for an engaging, personal and at times heartbreaking account. Karen is of Danish nationality and culturally upbringing of which I share. It is impressive how Karen can portray subjects such as poverty and child abuse without judgement or condemnation. I gained a great insight into the complex dynamics at play when policy is turned into social practice. The passage from the book that is clearest in my mind, is that sameness in appearance isn’t the same as equality. Another aspect, ripe for further studies are the relations between social workers and the community. They have unique relationships with the community through frequent visits, but sometimes unintentionally offer patronizing support and inferior treatment. In the same way schooling is creating the un-schooled, NGOs are creating the needy. She claims that the selection process of which families get to receive a sponsorship seemed “random” at times. This statement needs to be supported further. Karen concludes that the increasing role of global media furthers the tendency for social change. Although this might be true, it has not been explored in the book and is thus in need of further investigation into specifics such as access to, prescribed value of and moral content in set media. This book offers an original theoretical contribution, useful for scholars of education with a global and local perspective, tracing the dynamics at play when political polices are being negotiated by its recipients into local practices. This book is especially suitable for leaders within community-based organizations, as well as graduate students, and scholars interested in studying poverty, inequality, and youths’ aspirations toward social mobility.