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Studying School Textbooks |
| In October 2004, after nearly a year-long preparatory period, Nirantar formally began working on a research and advocacy project involving critical/feminist readings of school textbooks. In the recent past, issues related to curriculum development and textbooks have been animatedly debated at the regional and national level. Nirantar’s engagement in these debates and our hands-on involvement in writing textbooks created an interest in deepening the existing levels of gender analyses. At the project’s core is a five-state research study. We have partnered with women’s studies units or independent researchers in U.P., West Bengal, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu; a study of national textbooks has been done by Nirantar in Delhi.
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Through an examination of school textbooks - government, private and those being used by organisations with religious affiliations - the study proposes to analyse how issues of gender intersect with caste, class and religion to construct the idea of the Indian nation. The study’s importance lies in bringing together women’s studies departments, feminist scholars and groups and individuals working on education. And, by developing a theoretical framework which can be used by organisations working on education to reflect critically on their work, we hope that the findings of the study will inform future textbook and curriculum development processes. |
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