THE POLITICIZED INDIAN WOMAN:INDIA’S AGENDAS ON WOMEN’S

EDUCATION

Candidate: Sabeena Mathayas

Dissertation Chair: Dr. Kathleen M. Boyle Ph.D

University of St. Thomas | Department of Leadership, Policy and Administration

Minneapolis, Minnesota

August 2016

• Research Questions

• Theoretical Framework

• Methodology

• Narrative Overview

• Weaving Destinies: Women’s Education Pre-Independence

• Trysts with Destiny: The Nehru Administration (1947 – 1964)

• Indira Gandhi and the Indian National Congress (1966 – 1984)

• The National Policy on Education (1984 – 2000)

• Right to Education (2000 – 2010)

• Discussion

• Gender as Context

• Gender as Identity

• Gender as Agency

• Scope for Further Research

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• How has India’s National Policy(ies) on Education articulated and defined women’s educational

opportunities in post Independent India (post -1947)?

• Through what means are “foundational” notions of the female subject of history, a female claimant

before the law, and a female citizen, qualified in educational policies?

• How is the Category of “Woman” foreclosed in the ontological politics of articulation and agency?

• What are the political operations that constrain and constitute the FIELD (in this case, the political field

would be educational policies and ideologies) within which women’s positions emerge?

• What EXCLUSIONS effectively constitute and naturalize that FIELD?

• How is the female experience in education constructed, valued/normalized, and described? What

have been the instances of deconstruction and re-description?

RESEARCH PARADIGMS

Feminist Theory

Gendered Feminism and Intersectionality

Gender as an ordering system that

valorizes or privileges what is deemed masculine and

devalorizes or subordinates what is deemed feminine

to naturalize inequalities and power relations not only between men and women, but also between and among states, cultures, institutions, organizations, policies, practices, and even ideas and perspectives.

Public Policy

Democratic Policy Design: Social Construction of Target Populations

Problem structuring that

reflects the institutional hegemony’s superstructure,

where assumptions, stereotypes, and powerful signifiers for target groups influence benefits and burdens in policy agendas

Spectrum of emotional, value-laden attributes used in political rhetoric

METHODOLOGYHistorical Method and Document Analysis

Dimensions Variables Themes

Linguistic / Semantic

• Phraseology, Information

levels, Meaning formation

• Primary SourcesA theme will be identified based on

the analysis of the variables in the

process of discourse articulation.

Themes will be explored interactively

to analyze how actors and

organizations employ these variables

to construct discourse (in this case,

policy)

Social / Interactive

• Structures, Organizations,

Stakeholders, and

Dispersion of Information

• Secondary Sources

Cognitive / Narrative

• Knowledge Categories,

Ideologies, Mythologies

and Rituals

• Popular and Media

Sources

METHODOLOGY

Purposeful Sampling Strategy

Fulfilled the following conditions:

Public documents

Articulated by policy actors in central leadership

positions,

Which have materially contributed to India’s

education policy.

All policy documents were freely accessible and

available in the public domain.

Verification

Internal validity: Through other scholars and informal reviewers

External Validity: Rich narration avoiding anachronism

Design Pitfalls

No primary data collected

No quantitative or mixed method analysis

Only Central leadership and narratives considered. State initiatives were not analyzed.

NARRATIVE OVERVIEW

CHOLI KE PICHHEBEHIND THE BODICE

Chapter 1 – The British Raj and the Indian

Independence Movement.

Nationalism and fundamentalisms

Chapter 2 – The administration of

Jawaharlal Nehru.

Partition, Post Colonialism, Institution Building,

and Socialism

Chapter 3 – Indira Gandhi

Patrimonialism, Bureaucratization, and the

Formation of an Indian Political Logic

Chapter 4 – Coalitions

Central Instability, Communalism, and Populist

Politics

Chapter 5 – A Global India

Globalization, Capitalism, Development, and

Socio-Economic Inequalities

DISCUSSION

INDIA’S SHADOW POPULATIONS

Gender as Context

Legacy, Authority, and a Cavalier Historicism

Gender as Identity

Essentialisms, Mother and Non-Mother, and a

Structured Subjectivity

Gender as Agency

Central Agency and Peripheral Agency

SCOPE FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

GENDER AS PROCESS

Our vocabulary restricts our thought which

restricts our dialogue, which restricts our

vocabulary – and so goes the vicious circle.

The test of legitimacy for any given practice should

be embedded in the capacity to respond to the

needs for whom the practice exists.

Unless policy design mimics the diversity within its

target populations and is punctured by the inclusion

of more data points – narratives, oral histories,

interviews, surveys, case studies, cross-cultural and

action research and various mixed methodology

designs that are inclusive of women’s productive

activity – policy making for education will remain an

exercise in abstraction, a solipsism bound by socio-

political singularities.

THANK YOU