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Abstract

The article presents an ethnographic study conducted in a class in a government-run primary school in Delhi.

It was found that a chief concern in the school was that of disciplining children. In the observed class, this took the shape of controlling children’s bodies and motor movements. It is argued that through disciplining, teachers were striving to create docile and obedient bodies. In addition, disciplining was also aimed at reforming children.

The pedagogic practices were also observed to further the agenda of reforming children. Learning was construed as no more than a set of motor skills. Learning was seen as a passive, silent and individual activity. It is argued that the pedagogic practices employed by the teachers served to cast a normalising gaze on the children, and to differentiate between them along a moral–scholastic dimension. When seen through a Foucauldian lens, it appeared that the purpose of pedagogic activity in the observed class was to maintain surveillance.

It was found that while children actively negotiated with the prevailing culture, they nevertheless remained bound by the dominant norms.

Keywords

Discipline Foucault pedagogy classroom ethnography reform Krishna Kumar order primary class symbolic Interactionism surveillance

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An Ethnographic Study of Disciplinary and Pedagogic Practices in a Primary Class

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