Individual Paper
8. Negotiating Margins: Representations, Resistances, Agencies
This paper explores the nature of tribal deprivation, focusing on education in the Indian state of Jharkhand. It covers specific factors that cause the marginalization of tribal adolescents in the form of dropouts from schools and colleges. Despite poverty and family background being recognized as factors contributing to dropout rates, socio-cultural adjustment to conventional academic settings has been an understudied issue affecting tribal students. The point of adjustment often gets involved in the syllabus provided in government schools, which often fails to resonate with the unique cultural backgrounds of students coming from tribal communities.
Since schools/colleges are the major socialization institution that provides an essential foundation for developing an individual's personality, tribal students sometimes face communication challenges in educational settings due to their dialects distinct from the mainstream language. Also, the policies are created from the government's perspective and do not consider tribal perspectives; students face problems with socio-cultural adjustment due to their distinctive cultural identity and complex social approach to life. Therefore, this paper focuses primarily on indigenous epistemologies. Indigenous epistemology encompasses traditional knowledge systems, customs, stories, songs, and history deeply rooted as part of the culture of the tribal communities. Incorporation of indigenous epistemology into the pedagogy of education institutions in Jharkhand (India) will certainly contribute to potential integration into government schools in Jharkhand (India) as a means to combat the high dropout rates among tribal adolescents.
Jaiwant Murmu
Jawaharlal Nehru University, India