Are NGO schools for marginal childhoods congruous (non)places?

Rajan, Vijitha (2026) Are NGO schools for marginal childhoods congruous (non)places? In: Revisiting Contemporary Childhoods: International Research on Children’s Voice and Agency. Policy Press, pp. 129-148. ISBN 9781447371823

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Abstract

Drawing from my ethnographic research on migrant childhoods and education, I have previously argued that NGO schools – though situated within broader contexts of children’s mobility and a techno-rational, neoliberal landscape – pursue heterogeneous educational agendas shaped by their distinct organisational philosophies and histories. In this chapter, I extend this argument by examining how ideas of discipline, relationality, aesthetic reform and children’s agency are variably enacted within these spaces. These practices give rise to a shifting spectrum of educational (non)places – sites that simultaneously include and exclude, nurture and regulate. Rather than viewing NGO schools as monolithic entities, the chapter foregrounds their internal complexities, ambivalences and contradictions. It also highlights the everyday negotiations of children, whose agentive actions challenge static portrayals of marginal childhoods as passively governed by NGO frameworks. Further, the chapter poses a critical question: does characterising NGO schools solely as benevolent providers or neoliberal reflections risk reinforcing dominant structures of power – structures that continue to obscure the nuanced, lived realities and situated agencies of children growing up on the margins?

Item Type:	Book Section
Authors:	Rajan, Vijitha
Editors:	Editors Email ORCID Sinha, Pallawi UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Richards, Sarah UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED Stella, Marianna UNSPECIFIED UNSPECIFIED
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology > Communities > Planning and development > Development Social sciences > Education > Elementary education
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Education
Full Text Status:	None
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/7747
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.51952/9781447371823.ch007

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