If their story is lost from the classroom, what students learn about themselves? In the first analysis of the caste bias in Indian textbooks, researchers from ISI-Bengaluru and IIT-Hyderabad were found in case studies that for every 16 pages on the dominant caste, there was only one in Dalits.
“Academic research on textbooks in India is largely focused on the problems of historical communication, and gender …
The presence of caste bias in textbooks has not been systematically examined in the Indian context so far,” paper, ‘bias caste in school.
Textbook: A case study from Odisha, India, published by Taylor & Francis’s ‘Journal of Curriculum Studies’ on July 20, said.
The researchers analyzed 10 textbooks from Odisha in literature and social sciences for students at the basic level, from class I to VIII.
They found seven of the 10 textbooks did not represent Dalit at all.
Not one book excluded the dominant social group.
And while around 260 of the 328 pages talking about social life, or 79%, devoted to dominant groups, Dalit found space in just 16%.
“It’s not just about Dalit students.
Citizens of the future must be sensitive to human rights violations.
Look at the cruelty in Dalit in India.
Why do certain forms of understanding survive? Because we have not systematically attacked the belief, social practice.
Why not Can it be handled through education that the state expects everyone passing? “The main author of Subhadarshee said to Ti.
And it’s about more than a representation on paper.
“Inclusion must be meaningful.
It must explain why certain things exist like they did.” The researchers also took instances from other states.
The paper, a textbook in Gujarat, for example, is indeed talking about the caste system but as a “benign institution”.
The same is done in Rajasthan, where the text is rewritten to argue that “caste is a good system based on professional differences.” The researchers found deleted caste material, removed from context, falsified or stereotyped root.
For example, no one comes from SC in the text of the literature for students from class IV, V, VI and VIII.
When class V students were taught about freedom struggles, no SC leaders found a place in the discussion.
And in class IV books, government initiatives for the Dalit community are written about but there is no word about why these provisions are needed.
“This reflects a much deeper invisibility of the practice of caste and rejection to accept it as a form of dominant inequality,” said the newspaper.