From Sociology of Education to Women's Studies

Current positions

Professor, Dept. of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, Delhi - 110 007, India

Provost, North Eastern Students' House for Women, University of Delhi, Delhi, India

Fellow, Developing Countries Research Centre, University of Delhi, Delhi- 110 007, India


Education

B.A. (Hons.) Psychology 1974 (Delhi University)

M.A. Sociology 1979 (Delhi University)

M. Phil. Sociology 1980 (Delhi University)

Ph. D. Sociology 1985 (Delhi University)


Work Experience

From 1989-2002, Reader (Associate Professor) at the Department of Education, University of Delhi.

Taught two courses on "Femininity and Culture" to undergraduate and graduate students at the Dept. of Sociology, University of Chicago, Illinois, during the Winter Quarter (Jan.-March) 1995.

Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Studies, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi, from 1 January 1993 to 31 December 1995.

Research Associate, Dept. of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, from December 1986 to September 1989. Lectured graduate and M.Phil. students. Tutored graduate students in several courses.

Lecturer (Ad-hoc) in Sociology, Dept. of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, from January to March 1985.

Lecturer in Sociology, Miranda House, University of Delhi, in November and December 1986

Co-ordinator, Cell on Women at the All-India Association for Christian Higher Education (AIACHE) in 1986.

Editorial Assistant, Contributions to Indian Sociology, Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, for a period of eight months from September 1984.


Professional information : Honors and Awards

UGC Visiting Fellow, Dept. of Sociology, University of Hyderabad for 10 days in March 2002. Delivered four formal lectures and two informal talks.

Visiting Scholar at Centre for Asia-Pacific Studies and Transformations (CAPSTRANS) at the University of Wollongong, Australia, for a week in Sept.-October 2001. Interacted with colleagues at the Centre and presented a research paper at their weekly seminar.

Visiting Fellow, Centre for Research in Women's Studies and Gender Relations, University of British Columbia, Vancouver in March-April, 2001.

Invited member of a Peace Delegation led by the Women's Initiative for Peace in South Asia (WIPSA) to Lahore, Pakistan in November 2000. Visited Lahore for three days on this mission and interacted with colleagues in Pakistani academic institutions including the leading Women's Studies Centre - ASR.

Elected the first C.R. Parekh Visiting Fellow at the Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford, England for the Summer Term (April-June) 1998. Recipient of an additional grant from The Charles Wallace Trust during this period. Presented research papers at conferences at the University of Oxford and at the University of Warwick. Also presented a paper at the Theory, Culture and Society Centre at Nottingham Trent University.

Visiting Scholar, Dept. of Sociology, University of Chicago, Illinois, during the Winter Quarter (Jan.-March) 1995.

Visited The Netherlands for five weeks in May-June 1993 under the IDPAD-ICSSR Exchange of Scholars Programme to collect material for my project on "Feminin¬ity and Culture". Delivered a lecture on "Femininity and Culture : an agenda for research" to graduate students taking the course on Women and Development at the Dept. of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam.

Awarded the first position in Asia by the International Sociological Association on the occasion of the First Worldwide Competition for Young Sociologists 1990 for a research paper in the field of the sociology of educa¬tion.

Invited by Professor Pierre Bourdieu to the Centre for European Sociology at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris from 1 February - 31 May 1989. Participated in seminars and conferences and presented a paper to the Research Colloquium of the Centre on 25 May 1989.

Commonwealth post-doctoral scholar at the Dept. of the Sociology of Education, University of London Institute of Education, London from Sept. 1985 - Oct. 1986. Affiliated with Professor Basil Bernstein, Karl Mannheim Professor in the Sociology of Education at the time.

Convenor of the Research Committee on the Sociology of Education by the Indian Sociological Society, New Delhi, 1999-2001. Life Member, Indian Socio¬logical Society, New Delhi.

Director (one of the two representing India) on the Board of Direc¬tors, Comparative Education Society of Asia (CESA), Tokyo, Japan from 1999 onwards.

Associate Member, Advisory Board, Body and Society, edited by Bryan Turner and Mike Featherstone, published by the Theory, Culture and Society Centre, Nottingham Trent University, U.K.


Participation in Conferences

Organized a Colloquium under the Indo-French Program on "Pierre Bourdieu: Sociologist and Sociologies" at the Dept. of Sociology, University of Delhi, in February 2004 with participating scholars from India and France.

Organized an International Conference on Women and Migration in Asia as part of a larger programme on Gender Perspectives on Asia at the Developing Countries Research Center, University of Delhi from December 10-13, 2003. Convenor of the Organizing Collective.

Presented a paper on "Ethnographies of Adolescence" at the Conference on Values in Education organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation at Neemrana Fort, Rajasthan, from April 6 - 9, 2003.

Presented a paper on "The Burden of Poverty : Embodiment, Well-being and Agency among Women in Slum" at the Townsville International Women's Conference, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia from 3-7 July 2002.

Presented a paper on "Aspects of Recolonization, Embodiment and Gender identity in a Changing Society: Women and Representation in Popular Women's Magazines" at the Sixth Women in Asia Conference held at the Australian National University, Canberra from September 23-26, 2001.

Presented an invited Symposium paper on "The Burden of Poverty: Well Being and Agency Among Women in a Slum" at an International Conference on Development Paradigm : Social Transformation and Gender Performance in Asia held at the Dept. of Sociology, University of Madras from August 27-29, 2001.

Presented a paper on "A critical pedagogy for learning. J. Krishnamurti in the contemporary educational context" at the International Conference on Teacher Education organized by the School of Education at Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan from March 27-31, 2000.

Organized a South Asian Conference on "Education in South Asia : Issues and Challenges" with invited speakers from the South Asian region (SAARC coun¬tries) at the Dept. of Education, University of Delhi from 14-18 November, 1999. Convenor of the Organizing Committee for this Conference. Presented a paper in the session on Education and Identity.

Presented a paper entitled "Gender in a changing society : education, woman and identity in contemporary India" at the Women's Studies Network U.K. Annual Conference at the University of Warwick, 22-24 July 1999.

Presented a paper entitled "Women in Contemporary Japan" at a national seminar on East Asia's 20th Century Development Experience held at the Department of Chinese and Japanese Studies, University of Delhi in November, 1997.

Presented a paper entitled "Linkages between education, tradition and women's health in urban slums in India" at the of First Annual Conference of the Comparative Education Society of Asia, Tokyo, Japan in December 1996.

Presented different versions of a paper entitled "Images of the body and sexuality in women's narratives on oppression in the home" at the South Asia Workshop, University of Chicago; at Hofstra University, New York; and at the Annual Conference of the Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery at the University of Southern Colorado in February and March 1995.

Presented a paper entitled "Psychological oppression and physical violence in the home : implications for women's well-being" in a Session on Domestic Violence at the 13th International Conference on the Social Sciences and Medicine held at Hungary in October 1994.

Organized an international conference on "Femininity, the female body and sexuality in contemporary society" in November 1994 at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi. Edited and published selected papers from the Conference in Embodiment. Essays on Gender and Identity (New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1997).

Organized a national Workshop on "The nature and significance of subjectivity in fieldwork" at the Dept. of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, in 1987. Organised a continuing Workshop on the same theme in 1988. Presented a paper at the Workshop. Edited and published selected papers from the Workshop in Anthropological Journeys. Reflections on Fieldwork (New Delhi, Orient Longman, 1998).

Presented a research paper at a Conference on "Education and Democracy" organised by the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi in 1988.

, Books

1. Life at School. An Ethnographic Study. New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1991, 282 pages.

2. Embodiment. Essays on Gender and Identity. (Edited and under the auspices of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi). Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1997, 340 pages.

3. Anthropological Journeys. Reflections on Fieldwork. (edited) Orient Longman Ltd., New Delhi. 1998, 320 pages.

Under Consideration of publication (with Sage publishers) : Women's Lived Experience : Multiple Voices, Diverse Locations.


Research Papers in Edited Books

1. "Gender, Body and Everyday Life", in Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (ed.) Gender and Nation, New Delhi, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 2001.

2. "The Body in the Mirror : Women and representation in women's magazines", in Neera Chandhoke (ed.), Mapping Histories. Essays presented to Ravinder Kumar, New Delhi, Tulika , 2000.

3. "The Conflict of Ideology", in Abha and Anil Chaturvedi (eds.) Formal Organizations. (Readers in Sociology Series), New Delhi, Oxford University Press, 1995.

4. "Missing voices in the sociology of the school in India : an attempt at restoring them", in Krishna Kumar (ed.) Democracy and Education in India. New Delhi, Radiant. (Under the auspices of the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi), 1993.


Research Papers and Articles in Journals

1. "Marriage, well-being and agency among women", Gender and Development, July, 2003.

2. "Pedagogy and the Future Citizen", Economic and Political Weekly, April 12-18, 2003, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 15, p. 1450.

3. "Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002). A Personal Tribute', Economic and Political Weekly, March 2, 2002, pp. 826-28.

4. "Adolescence, Embodiment and Gender Identity in Contemporary India : Elite Women in a Changing Society", in Women's Studies International Forum, Vol. 24, No. 3/4, pp. 359-371, 2001.

5. "Profiles of Famous Educators. J. Krishnamurti (1895-1986)" in Prospects, Journal of the International Bureau of Education, UNESCO, Geneva, Vol. XXXI, No. 2, June 2001, pp. 253-265.

6. "Moral Education in the Contemporary Moment", Economic and Political Weekly, 2000, Vol. XXXV, No. 42 : 3715-16.

7. "Linkages between culture, education and women's health in urban slums in India", in Economic and Political Weekly, 1997, vol. XXXII, No.43 : WS83-WS88.

8. "Understanding the Anthropological method", in Economic and Political Weekly, 1996, vol. XXXI, No. 38 : 2631.

9. "Gender, body and everyday life", Social Scientist, 1995, vol. 23, Nos. 7-9 : 32-58. Also published in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, Research-in-Progress Papers, "History and Society", Third Series, Number II, March 1996.

10. "Images of the body and sexuality in women's narratives on oppression in the home", Economic and Political Weekly, 1995 (Women's Studies Special issue 28 October 1995), Vol. XXX, No. 43 : WS 72-80. Also published in Will Wright and Steve Kaplan (eds.) The image of violence in literature, media and society, Selected Papers of the 1995 Conference of the Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Imagery, University of Southern Colorado, USA; and in the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Research-in-Progress Papers, "History and Society", Second Series, No. CIX, January 1996.

11. "Partial Truths. Privileging a 'male' viewpoint", in Economic and Political Weekly 1995, vol. XXX, No. 23 : 1399-1400.

12. "Femininity and Culture : an agenda for research", IDPAD Occasional Papers and Reprints, The Hague, 1994 - 93.

13. "Sociology in India. A view from within", Economic and Political Weekly,1991, Vol. 26, No. 19 : 1229-1234.

14. "For a Sociology of India. Contributions and the Sociology of India", Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1988, 22, 2 : 259-272.

15. "Some aspects of cultural reproduction and pedagogic communication", Economic and Political Weekly, 1988, 23, 13 : 592-596.

16. "Nature and significance of subjectivity in fieldwork". A report on a symposium held at the Dept. of Sociology, Delhi University in 1987. Economic and Political Weekly. 1988, 9 :408-409 (co-authored).

17. "Forms of discourse, a typology of teachers and commitment", British Journal of the Sociology of Education, 1986, 7, 4 : 415-431.

18. "Aspects of ritual in a school in South India", Contributions to Indian Sociology, 1986, 20, 4 : 199-219.

19. "Lifting the Veils. Fieldwork in a public school in South India." Economic and Political Weekly.1986, 21, 49 : 2133-2139.

20. "An experiment in education", Seminar, July 1982.