Education, Aspiration and aage badhna: The Role of Schooling in Facilitating ‘Forward Movement’ in Rural Chhattisgarh, India

This article explores the role of education in marginalised young people’s aspirations for aage badhna (forward movement). Drawing on ethnographic research in rural Chhattisgarh, central India, we show how young people’s orientations toward a desired future remain anchored in education, even when possibilities for education-related forward movement become unattainable. The way in which aspirations are translated into locally viable outcomes, we suggest, is inextricably linked to the structural limitations that prevent access to education’s more expansive opportunities and that underpin the possibility of falling behind. Focusing on how young people and their parents navigate this tension, we examine their attachment to the idea that education is necessary to get ahead, even as they fail to access its promised benefits. We suggest that a relational approach is critical to this understanding and argue that the way in which young people frame (and reframe) their aspirations must be understood in relation to both peers and parents, but also in relation to the central role that education plays in viable alternative pathways.ESRC-DFID Raising Learning Outcomes in Education Systems (Grant No. ES/N01037X/1

Introduction: Development, Young People, and the Social Production of Aspirations

In this editorial introduction to the Special Issue Youth, Aspirations and the Life Course: Development and the social production of aspirations in young people’s lives, we put the work presented in this collection in conversation with the wider literature on development, youth and aspirations. Aspiration we define as an orientation towards a desired future. We elaborate on our conceptualisation of aspirations as socially produced and reflect on the methodological challenges in researching young people’s aspirations in development. While mindful of the various critiques of aspiration research we argue that aspirations constitute fertile terrain for theorising the temporal dynamics of being young and growing up in contexts of development

Rural children’s access to the content of education

Policy Brief heading: Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings An ESRC-DFID-funded collaborative research project (ES/N01037X/1).Research team LESOTHO Prof Nicola Ansell, Brunel University Dr Claire Dungey, Brunel University Dr Pulane Lefoka, Centre for Teaching and Learning, National University of Lesotho INDIA Dr Peggy Froerer, Brunel University Dr Arshima Dost, Brunel University Mr Muniv Shukla, Gram Mitra Samaj Sevi Sanstha, Chhattisgarh LAOS Dr Roy Huijsmans, ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam Mr Syvongsay Changpitikoun, ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam Ms Jodie Fonseca, Plan International, Laos SURVEY Prof Ian Rivers, Strathclyde UniversityRecommendations: * Textbooks and curricula could illustrate ideas and concepts through concrete examples that are familiar to rural students * More varied and authentic representations of rural life would assist children to relate their education to their own current and future lives * Greater use of children’s home languages in school would likewise make schooling more accessible and appear more relevant to futures that don’t revolve around salaried employment * (Aspiring) rural teachers should be encouraged to work more flexibly with the standard content and adapt it more to the realities of remote rural context in terms of enforcement of school uniform policies, classroom language, adapting textbook examples, or merely engaging rural students in exercises that stimulate them to identify how their own lives relate to textbook representationsThe content of education is an obstacle in rural children’s learning. The subject matter and the way in which it is taught render learning more abstract for rural children. The language of education is often different from rural children’s home language. Rural life is underrepresented in textbooks, and the partial depictions of village life that have made it into textbooks are often out of sync with children’s lived reality. The content of education must be revisited to stimulate children to envisage the relevance of schooling for current and future rural lives.ESRC-DFID-funded three-year collaborative research project: Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings (ES/N01037X/1)

The representation of occupations in school

Policy Brief heading: Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings An ESRC-DFID-funded collaborative research project (ES/N01037X/1)Research team LESOTHO Prof Nicola Ansell, Brunel University Dr Claire Dungey, Brunel University Dr Pulane Lefoka, Centre for Teaching and Learning, National University of Lesotho INDIA Dr Peggy Froerer, Brunel University Dr Arshima Dost, Brunel University Mr Muniv Shukla, Gram Mitra Samaj Sevi Sanstha, Chhattisgarh LAOS Dr Roy Huijsmans, ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam Mr Syvongsay Changpitikoun, ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam Ms Jodie Fonseca, Plan International, Laos SURVEY Prof Ian Rivers, Strathclyde UniversitySanstha, SSRecommendations: * Revise/rewrite school textbooks to better reflect and represent the lives, livelihoods and prospective career opportunities of rural communities. * Integrate discussions about accessible and realistic rural livelihoods and future occupations into teacher training. * Encourage schools to invite individuals who have been successful in a range of occupations, both within the rural community and further afield, to talk to students about their career paths. * Develop websites available through mobile apps that enable young people to find information about diverse livelihoods, how to access them, and experiences of people who undertake them.The figures of the teacher, nurse, soldier and police officer feature prominently in textbooks and in the aspirations articulated by children in remote rural settings. These occupations represent the category of educated, salaried and uniformed employment, the promised reward for education which is particularly powerful in remote rural areas. The occupations are, however, represented as static endpoints and children do not learn what they entail or how to access them. Realistic rural occupations are largely absent from textbooks or may be represented in an alienating fashion. Efforts to broaden occupational horizons through representations need enforcement by teachers in order to be recognised as actual options by students in remote rural areas.ESRC-DFID-funded three-year collaborative research project: Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings (ES/N01037X/1

Young People’s Aspirations in an Uncertain World: Taking Control of the Future?

Copyright © The Author(s) 2022. The future for young people worldwide is characterised by multiple uncertainties, particularly perhaps in countries of the Global South. There is a growing and pervasive expectation that these uncertainties need to be responded to, both by institutions and individuals, so that young people are prepared for an unpredictable and changing world. ‘Raising aspirations’ is expected to play an instrumental role in preparing young people to confront a constantly changing world. Of the four articles that constitute this special section, two explore institutional efforts to shape young people’s aspirations to build new kinds of (national and individual) future, while the other two focus on the messier, more fluid ways in which young people reorient themselves in relation to unpredictable events. Together, they highlight how interventions designed to produce flexible creative individuals largely ignore how young people already live their lives in responsive and creative ways

Innovating in rural education

Policy Brief heading: Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings An ESRC-DFID-funded collaborative research project (ES/N01037X/1).Research team LESOTHO Prof Nicola Ansell, Brunel University Dr Claire Dungey, Brunel University Dr Pulane Lefoka, Centre for Teaching and Learning, National University of Lesotho INDIA Dr Peggy Froerer, Brunel University Dr Arshima Dost, Brunel University Mr Muniv Shukla, Gram Mitra Samaj Sevi Sanstha, Chhattisgarh LAOS Dr Roy Huijsmans, ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam Mr Syvongsay Changpitikoun, ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam Ms Jodie Fonseca, Plan International, Laos SURVEY Prof Ian Rivers, Strathclyde UniversityRecommendations: In order for the majority of rural young people to view education as having a value for futures outside a narrow range of formal sector careers: * Teachers should be supported in encouraging children to think about alternative possible futures. * Speakers should be invited to talk about their livelihood experiences in ways that make them ‘real’ for rural children. * When textbooks are revised, greater attention should be given to non-salaried livelihoods and prospective career opportunities that will be accessible to a larger number of rural children.Lesotho’s new ‘Integrated Curriculum’, introduced in 2009, aims to radically overhaul both content and pedagogy for the first 10 years of school. This provides a useful case study as the reforms seek to address some of the challenges that we have identified through our research in rural Laos and India, as well as Lesotho. Broadly, the new curriculum seeks to replace the narrative that education leads to a specified (formal sector, urban) future with one in which children are agents in their own futures – equipping them with the knowledge and skills to plan their own lives and livelihoods within their own geographical context. In practice, however, children’s experiences of education have changed less as a result of the new curriculum than might be expected, and they continue to associate schooling with salaried jobs rather than rural businesses. The research points to useful lessons for future curricular reform in India, Laos and elsewhere.ESRC-DFID-funded three-year collaborative research project: Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings (ES/N01037X/1)

The roles of rural teachers

Policy Brief heading: Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings An ESRC-DFID-funded collaborative research project (ES/N01037X/1).Research team LESOTHO Prof Nicola Ansell, Brunel University Dr Claire Dungey, Brunel University Dr Pulane Lefoka, Centre for Teaching and Learning, National University of Lesotho INDIA Dr Peggy Froerer, Brunel University Dr Arshima Dost, Brunel University Mr Muniv Shukla, Gram Mitra Samaj Sevi Sanstha, Chhattisgarh LAOS Dr Roy Huijsmans, ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam Mr Syvongsay Changpitikoun, ISS, Erasmus University Rotterdam Ms Jodie Fonseca, Plan International, Laos SURVEY Prof Ian Rivers, Strathclyde UniversityRecommendations: To motivate teachers to become better facilitators of learning, sources of career information and representatives of education, there is a need for: * Teacher education that challenges the narrative that schooling is about academic success and salaried jobs * A curriculum more relevant to rural children, in which they are able to demonstrate success (and are therefore seen as ‘worth teaching’) * Teacher education that addresses the roles, challenges and expectations of rural teachers * Teacher mentoring (from peers or trainers) that provides ongoing support and capacity building of rural teachers, including through the use of mobile apps and other technology.Teachers can be influential in shaping the aspirations of rural children, directly (by talking to them about possible future careers and lifestyles, both within and outside the classroom setting) and indirectly (as rare representatives of educated people in a rural setting). However, many teachers in remote rural settings demonstrate little commitment to their charges and are frequently absent, in part because they lack conviction that they can make a difference in children’s lives. Teachers need preparation, support and supervision to become better facilitators of learning, sources of information about potential career pathways and as embodied signifiers of education in a rural community.ESRC-DFID-funded three-year collaborative research project: Education systems, aspiration and learning in remote rural settings (ES/N01037X/1)