The central theme of this book deals with the contemporary perspectives on diversity in development cum moderization and their differential influence on contrasting fertility behaviour in the advanced regions of southern Kerala as against the less progressive northern area.

One of the first ethnographic studies to explore use of social media in the everyday lives of people in Tamil Nadu, Social Media in South India provides an understanding of this subject in a region experiencing rapid transformation. The influx of IT companies over the past decade into what was once a space dominated by agriculture has resulted in a complex juxtaposition between an evolving knowledge economy and the traditions of rural life. While certain class tensions have emerged in response to this juxtaposition, a study of social media in the region suggests that similarities have also transpired, observed most clearly in the blurring of boundaries between work and life for both the old residents and the new. Venkatraman explores the impact of social media at home, work and school, and analyses the influence of class, caste, age and gender on how, and which, social media platforms are used in different contexts. These factors, he argues, have a significant effect on social media use, suggesting that social media in South India, while seeming to induce societal change, actually remains bound by local traditions and practices.

Schooling for Social Change offers fresh perspectives on the emerging field of human rights education in India. 60 years after independence, the Indian schooling system remains unequal. Building on over a year of fieldwork, including interviews and focus groups with policymakers, educators, parents and students, Monisha Bajaj examines different understandings of human rights education at the levels of policy, pedagogy and practice. She provides an in-depth study of the origins and effects of the Institute of Human Rights Education, a non-governmental program that operates in over 4,000 schools in India. This enlightening book offers an instructive case study of how international mandates and grassroots activism can work together. Bajaj shows how the Institute of Human Rights Education has gained significant momentum for school-based adoption, textbook reform, and policy changes in a nation-state still struggling to ensure universal access to education. Schooling for Social Change provides a wealth of analysis from the frontlines of education reform and will be of interest to all those working in international and comparative education, human rights, and South Asian development.

This book addresses the familiar issue of unequal access to education in a new perspective. In this regard, whether one looks at gender or caste or tribes or class differences, the gap between the privileged and the dispriviliged is a matter of everyday experience. In what manner and form are these asymmetries reflected in the domain of education is the question at the core of this collection of essays. This volume is likely to be useful to those interested in understanding the interface between education and society in India as well as in other developing countries.

This is the first handbook to cover the sociological approaches to higher education. It is timely because of global expansions of mass higher educational systems, especially as these systems come under scrutiny by a variety of stakeholders. Questions are being raised about the value of traditional pedagogies along with calls for efficiency, accountability and cost-reduction, but above all job training. Within this neoliberal context, each chapter examines different sociological aspects of, and debates about, educational institutions as status-conferring organizations, with myriad positional characteristics, experiences, and outcomes. Many current debates concern the legitimacy of the statuses conferred, including the continuing debate regarding the role of universities in legitimating social class reproduction as well as more recent concerns about standards in mass systems. This handbook puts these issues and debates in focus in ways that will be of interest to a variety of stakeholders, within academia as well as in policy circles.