The Aotearoa New Zealand early childhood education (ECE) landscape is becoming increasingly multicultural, in particular with a significant number of migrant Indian teachers working in the field. This paper explores the potential role of environmental identity as migrant Indian ECE teachers navigate between the Indian and New Zealand cultures,…

This article shows the significance of college-going aspiration in the future identities of young girls and the sources of such influence in their worlds. Using the figured worlds theory, the paper analyzes the process and implications of these young girls' college-going aspirations. Drawing on interviews and observations with nineteen young girls…

Religious minority schools are seen to take on the task of transmitting the normative image of a community, its ideology and culture. Through pedagogy and daily routine practices, schools seek to shape students' ideas of a religion and ways in which it is to be performed. This paper, based on ethnography of a Sikh school in Delhi, explores such…

Collective identities of people have remained largely transitional despite largely remaining rooted in certain inherited essentialities. The essential dynamics of identity often get negotiated with various forces and processes like those of the economic transformation, technological reorientation, collective mobilisation, modernisation,…

Identity formation has been a keen area of interest for researchers and it involves several physiological, cognitive, biological, emotional and hormonal changes often influenced by the adolescent's social environment. Adler conceptualized the notion that birth order of a person can leave an indelible impression on an individual's style of life.…

In this essay, I explore the genre of live comedy outside its traditional Western setting in popular and academic understanding. I argue that its ever-growing popularity in urban India is reflective of an expanding middle-class's search for an authentic social identity. I demonstrate -- through ethnographic and analytical detail -- how stand-up…

This article discusses from a critical education perspective what it is like to be a Dalit (former untouchable) student studying at an elite university in India. Much writing on exclusion and discrimination in higher education is focused on power relations such as gender, race, ethnicity and religion. This article broadens this focus to consider…

Focusing on the contemporary conflicts and social political complexities of South Asia (specifically, India and Pakistan), this paper explores the roles and relevance of Gandhi's and Bacha Khan's moral education in negotiating/addressing the situated disparities. Drawing from the words and wisdom of Gandhi and Bacha Khan, this paper examines…

Schools are truly 'microcosms of society' since they reflect the larger dynamics of society. Women's position in society also got replicated in their low participation in education among other fields. This article contextualises women's education in the nineteenth-century Punjab. It briefly discusses approaches followed by various stakeholders…

This article draws upon a study completed in a specific school in Bangalore where most children enter at the pre-school level and continue till high school. While the particular children in the study constitute a small number--four--it was observed that questions of identity mainly arose when they started questioning the circumstances behind their…

This paper presents constructions of 'work' through a comparative charting of the manner in which young people across rural India, urban India, and the urban UK account for their educational and work trajectories. The comparison grounds an interrogation of the individualisation thesis and the reflexive biography, an influential analytical…

This study examined adolescents' perceptions of cultural change and identity development during an age of globalization in India. Analyses of data from 1497 Indian, urban, middle-class 12-15-year-olds (46% girls) revealed that these youth were aware of changes in their daily lives due to globalization and evaluated such changes in a pragmatic…

Based on a study rooted in van Manen's hermeneutic phenomenology, conducted with agents working in international facing call centers in Mumbai and Bangalore, India, this paper describes targets' identity work in the context of workplace bullying. Data were gathered through conversational interviews and were subject to sententious and selective…

The study is focused on understanding identity construction through combining my own experience with the theoretical underpinnings of postcolonial theory, social identity theory and through the examination of two films. The central question that I am interested in is understanding the identity construction and formation process especially as it…

Purpose: Although there is increasing insight in student engagement (SE) in higher education, there is limited insight in how students experience SE in a transnational setting. The purpose of this paper is to explore SE perceptions and transnational experiences. A model, derived from the literature, representing four student identities (consumer,…