Connecting families with schools: The bureaucratised relations of ‘accountability’ in Indian elementary schooling

Dyer, Caroline and Jacob, Suraj and Patil, Indira and Mishra, Preeti (2022) Connecting families with schools: The bureaucratised relations of ‘accountability’ in Indian elementary schooling. Third World Quarterly, 43 (8). pp. 1875-1895. ISSN 0143-6597

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Abstract

Increasing community and parental connection with schools is a widely advocated means of improving levels of student learning and the quality and accountability of education systems across South Asia. This paper draws on a mixed-methods study of accountability relations in education in the Indian states of Rajasthan and Bihar. It explores two questions: what formal platforms exist to enhance connections between socially disadvantaged families and the schools serving them; and (how) do they influence engagement with student learning? It finds that various platforms have proliferated across public, low-cost private and non-government schools. But, while they promote enrolment attendance and monitoring, a substantive focus on student learning is empirically demonstrated to be missing everywhere. The paper argues that an apparently surprising similarity of (dis)connection is located in system features that are common across school types, locations and social structures. It proposes that this is a ‘field’ in which connection, facilitated by various platforms, is performed according to bureaucratised norms of accountability that even pervade family and community responses. Seeing this as a socially constituted ‘field’ that constrains meaningful discussion of learning across schooling provision for disadvantaged families contributes new insight for accountability-focused reforms in education.

Item Type:	Article
Authors:	Dyer, Caroline and Jacob, Suraj and Patil, Indira and Mishra, Preeti
Document Language:	Language English
Uncontrolled Keywords:	India, accountability relations, bureaucratic relations, primary schooling, community participation
Subjects:	Social sciences > Sociology & anthropology > Social interaction > Social interaction within groups Social sciences > Education > Public policy issues in education
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Development
Full Text Status:	Public
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/7086
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2022.2070469

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