Abstract
Under the neoliberal shifts in education, motivated by the global knowledge economy, changes in the conceptualisation and practice of education and its subjects have been firmly set in place. Curriculum, its transaction, teachers’ training and preparing students for the ‘right’ social and economic life have undergone massive transformations influenced by forces that are largely determined by the market in education. These markets are represented by various agencies that have introduced frameworks that restructure discourses in relation to education, in tandem with the global agendas of profiteering, not necessarily contextualised for a particular place or time. Also redefined are the psycho-social aspects of education—the ideas of students’ well-being and success, developed top-down by such agencies that see its subjects as both homogenous and those with an urgent need to be ‘fixed’ to meet the needs of the new economy.
The book under review takes readers through a programme of Life Skill Education (henceforth, LSE) in the context of understanding ‘youth’ as a sociological category, that despite intense attempts to be restructured in normative imaginaries as being associated with risks and grave uncertainty by the likes of the agencies mentioned above, is both an actively negotiated and fluid category. It is based on an ethnographic study of LSE programmes in Bengaluru and its transaction in mainly government and aided elementary and a few private schools. The book draws from interviews with facilitators of the programme in schools and its conceptualisers, that is, the ones that the author calls ’managers’, referring to those at the helm of drawing up the programme. It comprises seven chapters and concluding remarks. The first two chapters set the foundation for the book, drawing on theoretical debates and concepts around the category of youth and programmes such as LSE in the context of skilling and ‘reforming’ the lives of youth towards ‘acceptable’ behaviour in society. These performative aspects of youth identity were set into force in the neoliberal context where youth were to adhere to fixed ideas of being employable and successful to be seen as contributing citizens in a society. As the state retreated from sectors such as education and health, concepts like success, achievement and employability became guided by the notions of the self or self-regulation than seen in the larger context of governance, policy or public good.
The author also draws attention to the cultural (and foreign) context in which LSE appeared, which is not essentially tailored to the interests of the Indian students. The inherent problem in the programme lies in the conceptualisation of ‘youth’ itself for whom these programmes are designed. Irrespective of their social and cultural contexts, as mentioned above, youth are devised as a fixed set of people that are irrational and emotional, urgently requiring interventions that empower them for the new economy and its needs. The emphasis of many such programmes is eventually on ‘employability’, especially for the children from underprivileged sections. They are seen as lacking not only in technical skills but also in psycho-social skills like right mannerisms and cultural capital—similar to that of the middle-classes. Programmes like LSE are designed by a multitude of actors—mostly belonging to the middle-classes—that rationalise these other ‘skills’ as necessary and urgent. Since these concepts are themselves debatable, the resulting ‘skills’ that finally become part of the LSE curriculum also do not necessarily reflect what is needed by its subjects. Conceptualisers of these programmes also see state-aided schools as failing and hence, their own interventions as urgent. As the author shows later (p. 90), many life skill programmes are provided by non-state actors and private organisations, raising questions on their reach and outcomes and what is defined as life skills by them.
Chapter 3 maps the life and context of schooling in India, with focus on government elementary schools, the starting point of educational and mobility aspirations of the lower and working classes. Through extensive critical and empirical literature, Maithreyi shows the systematic attempts at downgrading state-run schools in the country. This opened up space for the entry of private school players, who are seen as providing quality education to prepare a workforce for the new economy, legitimising their attempts at making curricular changes and introducing programmes such as LSE. Here, the author could have drawn from literature on the growth of these and other public-private players in education and structural changes that have ensued within the sector since then. One also misses the comparison of LSE with other programmes (the Teach for India programme, for instance) that are now considered essential though their rationalisation was framed in a neo-liberal context. Such a comparison could have contextualised the introduction of programmes within frameworks that have been discussed by the author early in the book (p. 34).
Maithreyi then weaves together her field and the understanding of LSE among those taking it to students. Through interviews, one learns the very different notions of skills that are associated with LSE programmes. LSE is also often reflective of the ideas of disciplining of students in these schools who are seen as truant because of their social class backgrounds. State-run schools thus become playgrounds for neo-liberal experiments in education that work with the normative imageries of children from these classes. Ironically, these reflect the larger ideas of schools themselves—research has shown that administrators and teachers at these schools look down upon the students with negative imageries. Hence, programmes like LSE become mirrors to the pedagogy of the institutions themselves. Like the schools’ pedagogy, these programmes are also unaware of students’ social and cultural contexts and fail to resonate or make any connection with the students. In the end, though the programmes are meant to challenge societal norms, the ‘regular’ ways of school, pedagogy, class and caste get reproduced.
In Chapter 4, the author lays bare the disconnect between the organisations at the helm of LSE planning and the schools where they are executed. Interviews with life skill providers (LSPs) put into spotlight once again the inherent issues with corporatisation of education—the very top-down, individualistic ideas of how definitions of education and knowledge can be altered to suit the middle-class imaginations of development. Their conceptualisation of the programme and training to facilitators reflect the managers’ own middle-class values and corporate, status-driven goals. The author’s classroom observations and personal communications that shape this chapter also highlight the vague understanding of LSE, both among those at the helm and the facilitators. Many saw LSE as providing emotional skills only while others saw it as a ‘correcting’ tool. Observations in private schools—a detailed explanation of which would have been a worthy addition—reveal contrasting sets of values being offered to the students, given their middle-class upbringings.
Chapter 5 takes readers inside LSE classrooms. The strength of the book lies in its thick ethnographic descriptions, and it is in this chapter that one finds the inherent contradictions in the programme’s conceptualisation and execution. Through techniques employed to teach life skills, the reader is shown how students are trained by facilitators to develop socially acceptable behaviour. Tellingly, the norms around patriarchy, gendered behaviour and the other good and bad in classrooms—which must ideally be challenged through ‘value-neutral’ programmes such as LSE—are only further subtly imposed on students. The author further breaks down the language and session plans of the LSE in classrooms to reveal ways in which they were geared towards making students authority-affirming, compliant beings despite its ‘liberal’ content. This is essentially due to the lack of value-neutral training to facilitators. As seen in classroom interactions, individual subjectivities become an inevitable part of the LSE pedagogy. Hence, the idea of making students creative, critical or empowered beings through LSE does not succeed.
The author’s ethnographic account continues in Chapter 6. Maitreyi uses curricular transactions to reveal how LSE is used as a tool for behavioural change in students (as also facilitators) than impart even those skills that were classified in the programme. As seen throughout the book, in this chapter as well, Maitreyi shows overt ways in which skills are associated with ‘correcting’ students’ behaviour—keeping their working-class backgrounds in mind. This is inherently because, like many other such programmes driven by markets, LSE has no defined agenda or goal. To rationalise the programme, state schools are simply shown as failing. Ironically, however, agencies rely on the same learning measures (and even rote learning of ‘skills’) to evaluate the programme’s ‘success’ and ensure its continuity. As the author explains:
…the programmes appeared to be catering to several different ends – of funders seeking demonstrable educational outcomes, schools and teachers expecting more disciplined and manageable classrooms, managers with a vision of transferring ‘middle-class merit’ among the poor and the disadvantaged as a means to empower them to overcome their structural barriers, and even catering to entrenched patriarchal expectations of society. (p.160)
To underscore her argument that runs through the book—that LSEs are disconnected from the social and cultural lives of its subjects, facilitators and managers—the author presents responses from various actors in the last chapter focusing on multiple and yet, individualistic ways in which they appropriate the programme. It is also in this chapter that the author finally answers why students’ responses were not included or formed a separate chapter in the book—a need felt throughout the earlier chapters. In the responses by all stakeholders of this programme, it is evident that everyone is strategically opportunising or selectively using the various discourses for their own ends. Hence, for the facilitators who are given training to develop critical thinking or to be reflexive, the larger idea of being associated with the programme was to acquire such cultural capital that would aid their future professional lives. Similarly, the ‘managers’ responses and goals were entrepreneurial in nature than working towards bringing visible changes in the lives of underprivileged students. Hence, in their interactions with the facilitators, they sought to impart the middle-class values they believed were necessary for the latter’s role as teachers and for cultivating the identity and status of their own organisation. However, it is in the limited responses of students included in the book (pp. 210–219) that one sees how youth identities are a result of multiple interactions between top-down attempts of making them and the resistance shown by the subjects. Students’ responses show that the programme was considered meaningful only where their in-school relationships with their teachers were concerned and not necessarily as a key to changing their life situations. This highlights their agency and active role in the process of construction of identity or the self, often overlooked as a key sociological category of analysis.
In the examination of production of youth identities—shifts in which have been seen extensively since post-liberalisation—Maitreyi successfully digs through a multitude of essential voices and sources to draw attention to the complex layers, processes and practices that form them. Within schools, there are diverse relations of power—student–teacher, peer-peer, teacher-management, student-management—that influence and contribute actively to the production of youth identity. The role of these multiple actors and their own individual ‘opportunistic’ responses to programmes such as LSE demonstrate that youth identities eventually are negotiated at every step and are not linear productions. The book challenges reproduction theories and draws attention to youths’ role in conceptualisation of themselves beyond grand narratives. Eventually, the book also raises critical questions that demand reflections. Where the question of teaching life skills within schools is concerned, the real meaning of these skills for students belonging to different socio-economic classes needs attention. The ways in which discourses of these programmes only serve to support the middle-class-influenced ideas of development and definitions of success is another area of concern. An important question is raised by the author herself—what possibility of change, protest or critical reflections are created by these programmes as they de-politicise the lives of their subjects and put emphasis on individual efforts for success in a neo-liberal economy. The answer is both apparent and difficult.
