Critical Perspectives on the Denial of Caste in Educational Debate

This volume represents the first exploration of caste in the field of curriculum studies, challenging the ongoing silence around the issue of caste in education and curriculum theory. Presenting comprehensive critical examination of caste as a category of domination and oppression in the colonial power matrix, chapters confront Eurocentric educational epistemologies which deny the existence and influence of caste. The book examines the impact of such silence in educational policy, praxis, and curriculum, and draws from leading scholars to illustrate the fluidity of power and oppression in the caste system. By challenging historical, cultural, and institutional origins of caste and foregrounding perspectives from outside Western epistemological frameworks, the book pioneers a critical approach to integrating caste in educational debate to interrupt social and cognitive injustices. In so doing so, the volume advocates for an alternative, non-derivative curriculum reason, through an itinerant curriculum theory as a path toward the emergence of a critical Dalit educational theory. As such, it makes a vital contribution for scholars and researchers looking to refine and enhance their knowledge of curriculum studies by highlighting the importance of theorizing caste in the role of education.

João M. Paraskeva is Professor at the University of Strathclyde, Scotland. Mozambican-born, he is an award-winning pedagogue and critical social theorist. The critique places him as 'undeniably one of the most acclaimed curriculum theorists in the world today.'

1. On Caste: Towards Critical, Non-Derivative Caste Curriculum Studies 2. Caste: a Division of Labour and Labourers 3. The Caste Context 4. Archaeology of Untouchability 5. The Word and the World: Dalit Aesthetics as a Critique of Everyday Life 6. Casteocracy: A Millennium Standard of Merit and Tests 7. Reading Foucault's History of Madness to Obliterate Caste in Hindu-Majority Indian Society 8. Epistemological Untouchability: The Deafening Silence of Indian Academics 9. Critical and Caring Pedagogies: Habermas and Ambedkar at the Intersections of Caste and Gender 10. Contextualizing the Emergence of Dalit Studies in Indian Academia 11. Economic Reservation as Caste and Cultural Power: Posing Challenges to Representation, Equality and Diversity in Kerala, India