To read and not to eat: South Indian children between secondary school and work

Abstract

This article challenges the view that in the Third World universal schooling would provide, as is widely believed, an antidote against the widespread involvement of poor children in work. Analysing the everyday life of poor children in a coastal village, the author contends that for the children of the rural poor, expanding schooling, because it involves time to be free from work and new expenses for clothing and study material, has generally resulted in an increase in drudgery. To defray the costs of schooling, children have, by and large, had to continue to perform their customary work roles in the local economy. The combination of schooling and work has however also brought undeniable gains by providing the children of the poor with a space which seniority and gender relations, and the subordinate position of children therein, can be challenged.