Educational Curriculum and the Politics of Domination: Recent proposals for school reform have involved a significant shift in how curriculum decisions are made, particularly at the state level. In response to these proposals, actions taken by educators have underscored the critical nature of the issue regarding who makes curriculum decisions. What should be learned? How should it be organized for teaching? These seemingly simple questions are deceivingly political. Curriculum theorists are preoccupied with the politics of the first question at the expense of the real politics of the second. Instructional designers are preoccupied with the real politics of the second question at the expense of the politics of the first. It is argued that conceptual distances between curriculum theory and instructional design are based on division of labour established during the 1960s. After decades of neglect, curriculum theorists, and specifically critical theorists, appear clueless when it comes to curriculum design and the real politics of their causes. When it comes to the real politics of practice their political causes are formless. Quite the opposite of critical theorists, instructional theorists nearly mastered the real politics of form, but have no political causes.
Schools are always treated as a medium from where the students gain knowledge from their teachers. It is felt that school for the elite class always provide the better knowledge to the students irrespective of the other small status schools. Another major concept employed in understanding curriculum as a political text was hegemony, borrowed from the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1972), who borrowed the term from Marx and Engels (1974). Gramsci emphasized “the role of the superstructure in perpetuating class and preventing the development of class consciousness”.
Apple and Weis (1983) discuss the movement beyond simple reproduction theory, stating that “hegemony is not and cannot be fully secure.” Their view that the cultural sphere is relatively autonomous leads them to move beyond resistance to a belief in the possibility of meaningful intervention in the schools. However, they caution that this action must be a kind of praxis and that the connections between the schools and the larger society must be made.
Apple extends his analysis of curriculum as a political text. In “Race, Class and Gender in American Education: Toward a No Synchronous Parallelist Position” Cameron McCarthy and Apple call for theoretical work that demonstrates how race, class, and gender interconnect, and how economic, political, and cultural power expresses itself in education (McCarthy & Apple, 1988). As well, they point to a shift in strategies for fundamental change in curricular content, pedagogical practices, and social structures (McCarthy & Apple, 1988). Landon Beyer and Apple’s “The Curriculum: Problems, Politics and Possibilities” (1988) concentrates on issues of political and pedagogical agency. Fundamental to these issues is the concept of praxis, which involves “not only a justifiable concern for reflective action, but thought and action combined and by a sense of power and politics. It involves both conscious understanding of and action in schools on solving our daily problems”.
(a) Colonial Education in India: The ideas and pedagogical methods of education during the colonial period, from 1757 to 1947, were contested terrain. The commercial British East India Company ruled parts of India from 1764 to 1858. A few 18th century company officials became scholars of Sanskrit, Persian, and Tamil and promoted “Oriental” learning, which was classical learning in indigenous languages. However, they were outnumbered by “Anglicizes,” those who denigrated “Oriental” learning and advocated the introduction of institutions for Western learning based upon the British curriculum with English as the medium of instruction. By the early 19th century, when English was made the official language of government business, British policy promoted a cheap, trickle-down model for colonial education. When the British Crown abolished company rule in 1858, government universities existed at Bombay (Mumbai), Calcutta (Kolkata), and Madras (Chennai); about 2000 students studied at 13 government colleges in all of British India, and another 30,000 students were in government secondary schools. Direct rule did not change the decision to deemphasize primary education to provide occupational training for young Indian men who took jobs both in the lower tiers of the government and in urban, western-style legal and medical services.
Non-government schools established by Western Christian missions and Indian social and religious reform organizations provided the only opportunities for elementary education in the 19th century. American and English missionaries founded men’s colleges, and by the 20th century, Lucknow, Lahore and Chennai all had Christian women’s colleges as well. Foreign teachers staffed these institutions, offering a Western curriculum in English with financial support for the children of Christian converts. Reformist societies also started schools, partly to provide Western education without the threat of Christian conversion. The curricula in private girls’ schools ranged from the Urdu, Persian, writing, arithmetic, needlework and Islamic studies of the Punjabi Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam primary schools in north-western India to the Western-style liberal arts curriculum of Bethune College, founded by liberal Brahmo Samajists (Hindu reformers) in Kolkata. Even voluntary societies’ members who wanted to provide educational alternatives for their children disagreed about the advantages and disadvantages of the colonial educational model for both content and the language of instruction.
When British officials who represented direct rule by the Crown introduced modest self-government in the 1860s, they shifted financial responsibility for education to a growing Indian middle class. Families of respectable middling status usually chose to send their daughters to gender-segregated educational institutions once there were schools taught in vernacular languages with general curricula while older historians narrated the “insidious, total and transparent” domination of the educational system by the colonial state, more recent scholarship delineates the “creative resistance” to state agency and suggests that there was a “combat” between “consciously opposed sides” (Kumar). As the nationalist movement gained supporters in the 20th century, Indian leaders developed several nationalist educational paradigms to challenge the colonial model. Mahatma Gandhi wanted the state to teach basic literacy in vernacular languages to the majority of the population. Rabindranath Tagore, India’s first recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature, believed that the English language provided Indians access to the sharing of knowledge across international borders and that education should include the teaching of India’s cultural traditions. The fight for freedom from colonialism preempted decisions about educational ideologies until after 1947. In the 19th century East India Company took following measures to establish education system in India:
● The governing of new system is entirely in the hands of government under all the levels.
● The teaching of English and use of English language in the medium of instruction.
● Establishing teachers training schools for all levels of instruction.
● Maintaining existing government colleges and high schools and increasing their number when necessary.
● Vastly increasing vernacular schools for elementary education.
● Introducing a system of grants-in-aid for private schools.
(b) Politics of Language: Language is a material medium in which people interact in society. The most elementary observation is that language is, of its nature, involved with power devices, because it involves interaction of man in society. Power is a kind of domination, often thought to be right and legitimate; however domination has also been described as a form of repression. Day-to-day lives of people have to deal with co-beings and agencies that attempt to exercise power, enabling things to be done the way that they want it done. Language politics is a term used to describe political (and sometimes social) consequences of linguistic differences between people, or on occasion the political consequences of the way a language is spoken and what words are used. It means language can express some authority.
The mutual interaction between politics and language depends upon power and its structures. Different political parties develop their own language to dominate over other parties. Since the relationship multifaceted, it becomes clear that power is not always given; on the contrary, it is the basis for argument, is created, re-created, subverted and hidden using language. Language however is not simply a medium for turning a power resource into influence between language and power is dynamic.
This can be seen when the prestige of a language rises or falls with the power of its users. At the micro level of social interactions, a speaker’s power or powerlessness is reflected in the content or style of language and the style of language reflects upon group membership. Research on language style has focused attention upon features of language that characterize and describe low but not high power forms, and has done so without due recourse to the inter group relationships that underpin style differences in the first instance. In doing so this work prioritizes the low over the high power form, thus obscuring processes that might enable the powerless to become powerful.
Language also control over the direction and outcome of conversation is determined by the ability to win conversational turns and the ability to gain turns is a function of both the interactive nature of conversation, and the social context in which conversation takes place.
The political or social dominance of one country or one group over another is often accompanied by linguistic dominance, in which the more dominant party imposes its own language on the population at large as the standard language to use. Attempts at gaining influence power and power are often covered up and/or justified through the strategic use of social categori-zations or stereotypes.
(c) Women’s Education: Women’s education in India has been one of the major issues of concern of the Government of India as well as the society at large. It is because of the fact that today the educated women play a very significant role in overall development and progress of the country. Women hold a prominent position in the Indian society as well as all over the world. However, since the prehistoric times women were denied opportunities and had to suffer for the hegemonic masculine ideology. Thus, this unjustifiable oppression had resulted into a movement that fought to achieve the equal status of women all over the world. Women education in India is the consequence of such progress and this led to the tremendous improvement of women’s condition throughout the world. Nevertheless eradication of female illiteracy is considered as a major concern today. In the recent era, the Indian society has established a number of institutions for the educational development of women and girls. These educational institutions aim for immense help and are concerned with the development of women. In ancient India, women and girls received less education than men. This was due to the set social norms. Interestingly, in the Vedic period women had access to education, but gradually they had lost this right. Women education in ancient India prevailed during the early vedic period. In addition to that Indian scriptures Rig Veda and Upanishads mention about several women sages and seers. Women enjoyed equivalent position and rights in the early Vedic era. However, after 500 B.C. the position of women started to decline. The Islamic invasion played a vital role in restricting freedom and rights of the women. A radical change attended and there was a terrific constraint for women education in India.
India presently account for the largest number of illiterates in the world. Literacy rate in India have risen sharply from 18.3% in 1951 to 64.8% in 2001 in which enrolment of women in education have also risen sharply 7% to 54.16%. Despite the importance of women education unfortunately only 39% of women are literate among the 64% of the men. Within the framework of a democratic polity, our laws, development policies , plan and programmes have aimed at women’s advancement in different spheres. From the fifth Five Year Plan (1974-78) onwards has been a marked shift in the approach to women’s issues from welfare to development. In recent years, the empowerment of women has been recognized as the central issue in determining the status of women. The National Commission of Women was set up by an Act of Parliament in 1990 to safeguard the right and legal entitlements of women .The 73rd and 74th Amendments (1993) to the Constitution of India have provided for reservation of seats in the local bodies of Panchayats and Municipalities for women, laying a strong foundation for their participation in decision- making at the local level
Although in the Vedic period women had access to education in India, they had gradually lost this right. However, in the British period there was revival of interest in women’s education in India. During this period, various socio-religious movements led by eminent persons like Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar emphasized on women’s education in India. Mahatma Jyotiba Phule, Periyar and Baba Saheb Ambedkar were leaders of the lower castes in India who took various initiatives to make education available to the women of India. However women’s education got a fillip after the country got independence in 1947 and the government has taken various measures to provide education to all Indian women. As a result women’s literacy rate has grown over the three decades and the growth of female literacy has in fact been higher than that of male literacy rate. While in 1971, only 22% of Indian women were literate, by the end of 2001, 54.16% female were literate. The growth of female literacy rate is 14.87% as compared to 11.72 % of that of male literacy rate.
Women education in India plays a very important role in the overall development of the country. It not only helps in the development of half of the human resources, but in improving the quality of life at home and outside. Educated women not only tend to promote education of their girl children, but also can provide better guidance to all their children. Moreover, educated women can also help in the reduction of infant mortality rate and growth of the population.
Education and Politics: Comparative Perspective
The influence of politics on education does not only related to Indian scenario. This can be seen in other countries also. Russia has a long-standing tradition in high quality education for all citizens. It probably has also one of the best mass education systems in the world producing a literacy rate (98%) exceeding most Western European countries. Education is split into a compulsory Basic Education, and ongoing Higher Education. As the political, economic, social and cultural foundations of the new Russia continue to evolve, we should expect a more organic relationship between education and society to emerge. As in so many areas of life during the Soviet period, programmes were devised, decisions were made, and relationships were created not on the basis of the needs and desires of those who carried them out and those they were supposed to serve, but by the bureaucrats and their masters on the basis of unquestionable assumptions about national priorities. Now that people are able to bargain and to negotiate with each other without the omnipresent influence of the CPSU, relationships and programmes can be more pragmatic and more likely to serve the needs of the population. This by no means guarantees a period of enlightenment and justice, any more than it has in other industrial societies. But in the case of education, at least, it is already producing some astonishing changes.
Education played a very important part in Nazi Germany in trying to cultivate a loyal following for Hitler and the Nazis. The Nazis were aware that education would create loyal Nazis by the time they reached adulthood. The Hitler youth had been created for post-school activities and schools were to play a critical part in developing a loyal following for Hitler– in doctrination and the use of propaganda were to be a common practice in Nazi schools and the education system.
Enforcing a Nazi curriculum on schools depended on the teachers delivering it. All teachers had to be vetted by local Nazi officials. Any teacher considered disloyal was sacked. Many attended classes during school holidays in which the Nazi curriculum was spelled out and 97% of all teachers joined the Nazi Teachers’ Association. All teachers had to be careful about what they said as children were encouraged to inform the authorities if a teacher said something that did not fit in with the Nazi’s curriculum for schools.
Subjects underwent a major change in schools. Some of the most affected were History and Biology. History was based on the glory of Germany – a nationalistic approach was compulsory. The German defeat in 1918 was explained as the work of Jewish and Marxist spies who had weakened the system from within; the Treaty of Versailles was the work of nations jealous of Germany’s might and power; the hyper-inflation of 1923 was the work of Jewish saboteurs; the national resurgence which started under the leadership of Hitler etc.
Biology became a study of the different races to ‘prove’ that the Nazi belief in racial superiority was a sound belief. “Racial Instruction” started as the age of 6. Hitler himself had decreed that “no boy or girl should leave school without complete knowledge of the necessity and meaning of blood purity.” Pupils were taught about the problems of heredity. Older pupils were taught about the importance of selecting the right “mate” when marrying and producing children. The problems of inter-racial marriage were taught with an explanation that such marriages could only lead to a decline in racial purity.
For boys considered special, different school were created. Those who were physically fit and stronger than the rest went to Adolf Hitler Schools where they were taught to be the future leaders of Germany.
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