In this article we describe evolving educational aspirations and practices of female high school students and their families in the context of rapidly changing education and employment markets in Kolkata. We interviewed 35 families of girls attending two government high schools. The families are from lower middle-class and lower income…

This article attempts to locate the 'English-Speaking' class in contemporary India. By unpacking different aspects of one such class in Mumbai, it sheds light on the ways in which students, teachers and those who run the class view the 'English-Speaking' course and the ability to speak 'good English'.

In the multilingual, multicultural emerging economy of India, the language debate may seem to have settled with the adoption of the Three-Language Formula in the first National Policy of Education 1968. However, 50 years later, does this policy still hold? Has research on language acquisition informed our education policy and classroom practices,…

How soon does a child learn to discriminate orthographic units in his written language as distinguished from a general form-discrimination ability. A discrimination test of letters, words, or characters, in three written languages, Chinese, Hindi, and English, at three age levels, from four to five and a half years was given to 153 middle class…