Skip to product information
1 of 1

Education, Aspiration and Social Mobility

Publisher:

Regular price $135.00
Regular price $135.00 Sale price $135.00
Sold out
Informed by over two decades of anthropological research in Chhattisgarh, this book examines how the marginalized Adivasi (tribal) youth in rural India navigate the contradictory ways in which ed...
Read More
  • 01 December 2025
View Product Details

Informed by over two decades of anthropological research in Chhattisgarh, Education, Aspiration and Social Mobility brings ethnographic nuance to the contradictory ways in which education represents both a strategy for social mobility and a very tangible risk, whose transformative potential is not as straightforward as proponents suggest. This book examines the relationship between education, aspiration and social mobility amongst marginalized Adivasi (tribal) youth in rural India and how young people navigate the tensions and uncertainty that emanate from this contradiction – fashioning their own meanings and understandings of education against a backdrop of structural constraints and a future in flux.

files/i.png Icon
Price: $135.00
Pages: 254
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Imprint: Berghahn Books
Series: Lifeworlds: Knowledges, Politics, Histories
Publication Date: 01 December 2025
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9781836952817
Format: Hardcover
BISACs: SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social, SOCIAL SCIENCE/Social Classes
REVIEWS Icon

“This is a fascinating monograph on how education, as a social institution and everyday lived reality, is connected to the conceptions and practices of socioeconomic mobility and differential aspirations among the poor Adivasi communities in India’s rural hinterlands.” • Jayaseelan Raj, King’s College London

Peggy Froerer is a Professor of Anthropology at Brunel University of London. She is the author of Religious Division and Social Conflict (Routledge, 2018) and has been co-investigator on a collaborative, multi-regional research project on education systems, aspiration and learning outcomes in remote rural areas in India, Laos and Lesotho.

Acknowledgements

Introduction

Chapter 1. The Transformative Potential of Education in Rural India: Probing the Possibilities
Chapter 2. The Utility and Futility of Schooling in Rural India: (De)Valuing Educational Returns
Chapter 3. The Mobility Imperative of Education: Aspiring for Elsewhere
Chapter 4. The Question of Educational Investment: Capital Risks and Gains

Conclusion

References
Index