Educational Experiences of Indigenous Peoples

The existence of political agenda in education is obscure and complex. It inhabits the corridors of power relation, the social construction of curriculum, and the imposition of alien knowledge system to the disadvantage people who are not in a position to question the existing system. In a state of multi-ethnic, the policy makers and the government must understand the need for representation of an accommodative multi-ethnic educational system with multicultural and multilingual type of educational experiences. Keeping this in view, this book attempts to understand the educational experiences of the indigenous peoples in a multicultural society. The impact of educational experiences of indigenous peoples in Tripura is complex coupled with diverse contradicting dimensions, being an abode of multi-ethnic communities. In such a situation what is the role of an educational system towards formation of the self and identity. How do history, culture and traditional life get represented in the curriculum? The book will help the reader to understand how the composition of ethnic groups and their relation to Tripura shaped the questions of mother-tongue and its impact on the educational experiences of the indigenous peoples. It de-constructs the family situation and unravels the socio-economic challenges that goes to shape the educational experiences of the indigenous peoples; and to capture the cultural representation and knowledge composition in school curriculum from the subjective experiences of the indigenous peoples that goes on to shape their educational experiences. 

Biswaranjan Tripura (b. 1988) teaches at the Centre for Social Justice and Governance, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. His expertise is in Tribal Studies. His research interests encompass Tribal Education and Indigenous Knowledge, Epistemology of Indigenous Peoples, Politics of Autonomy Movement; and Human Rights and Indigenous Peoples. He is editorial board member of the Journal of Tribal Intellectual Collective India. He is also the co-convenor of DalTri-a field action project on Dalits and Tribes in India. His publication has appeared in Asian Journal of Research in Social Sciences and Humanities, an International Peer Reviewed Journal. He was the recipient of Top Class Scholarship Award from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, India, 2009-11 and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Young Scholar Award, 2009.