Disadvantaged Children In India

This book addresses issues concerning five major categories of disadvantaged children, namely street children, children involved in trafficking, child labor, slum children, and children in institutional care, which apply to a large number of children around the world, including India. Compiling primary and secondary research-based evidences in addition to the first-hand experiences of the authors, it describes the link between social dynamics and the plight of disadvantaged children from both social and cultural perspectives. Each chapter includes examples and case studies to offer readers essential insights into the real-life situations of these children. At the end of each chapter, a number of evidence-based measures and models are proposed for agencies working to support disadvantaged children. Given its comprehensive coverage, the book is of interest to scholars, and government and non-government agencies involved in the welfare of disadvantaged children, funding agencies, and social science, medical and public health professionals.

This Report is one of the first comprehensive studies on young children in India. It focuses on children under 6 years of age and presents key aspects of their well-being and development. With the highest number of neonatal, infant and under-5 deaths in the world, there is an urgent need to address issues that continue to affect the young child in India. This volume: Introduces two young child indices aggregating selected indicators to separately track child outcomes and child circumstances. Provides an account of the current situation of the young child in terms of physical and cognitive development, access to care, disadvantaged children and major issues that have led to the continued neglect of this age group. Explores the policy and legal framework, fiscal space and the role and obligations of key stakeholders, including the state, private sector, civil society, media and the family. Highlights key recommendations and action points that can help to improve the ecosystem for early childhood care and development. Drawing on specially commissioned technical background papers, supplemented by extensive field experience of Mobile Creches in childcare, this Report will be of interest to practitioners, policymakers and influencers, think tanks and researchers of public policy, development studies, human rights, sociology and social anthropology, as well as general readers. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.tandfebooks.com/doi/view/10.4324/9781003026488, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. .

About the Book ‘Two classrooms in this school double up as a night hostel for students whose parents migrate seasonally so that they do not miss school.’ For a large majority of Indian children, their only chance of an education is the government school. For nearly two decades, S. Giridhar has been crisscrossing the country in the course of his work with the Azim Premji Foundation, travelling to remote corners and observing the public education system. In these years, he has met hundreds of government school teachers—profoundly committed to improving the lives of the children in their care. These are teachers who defy all constraints because of a burning belief that every child can learn. Ordinary People, Extraordinary Teachers has emerged from Giridhar’s in-depth study of these inspirational teachers and the ecosystem they function in. Innovative and creative, dogged and resourceful, firm and kind—the government school teacher wears many a hat. This book is a tribute to their commitment and resilience.

Examines the educational experiences of disadvantaged and marginalised children and young people in different international contexts, including Vietnam, Ukraine, the UK, the USA, and India.

Study conducted in Uttar Pradesh.

Based on the author’s doctoral dissertation, the book makes an emphatic plea for a strength-based educational strategy for disadvantaged primary grade children. In this context it focusses on some cognitive and socio-emotional strengths of these children and suggests ways in which these can be capitalized upon in the teaching-learning situation to make the learning process more effective for them. A highlight of the book is a stimulating foreword by the internationally acknowledged, eminent Indian psychologist, Prof. Durganand Sinha. Other highlights include an exhaustive review of researches both from India and abroad on six major variables—field dependence, creativity, visual modality preference, cooperation, dependency and delay of gratification which provides excellent resource material for researchers and students of Child Development and Educational Psychology. Also of interest are a set of informative case studies of two contrasting groups of high and low achieving children from the resettlement colonies of Delhi which offer revealing insights regarding priorities in child rearing and their relationship with school achievement.

Why are children from disadvantaged and minority communities overrepresented among academic underachievers, poor learners, and school dropouts? This volume engages with this question and examines classroom learning as a process that involves a multitude of actors situated in specific social, cultural, and historical contexts. The volume covers an interdisciplinary spectrum of educational processes, contexts, educational ambitions, and limitations of low-caste, working-class, and middle-class students from different Indian communities and regions. The volume delves into the problem of academic underperformance from a social identity perspective and probes into social context-based variability in classroom learning, systemic disadvantages in the form of negative stereotypes, and the family as an under-studied social group in all discussions of schooling. It also examines the teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards Adivasi students and other minority groups in primary schools and their effect on children’s classroom engagement. The chapters in this volume provide insights into unresolved and critical research questions that require the attention of teachers, school management, educators, and policymakers alike. This book will also be useful for academicians, policymakers, teacher educators, pedagogic practitioners in India and abroad, and state and central government institutions working on school education, educational psychology, policymaking in education, learning methods, and research on educational enhancement.

The book is a comprehensive compendium on child rights in India from a child development perspective. It discusses the challenges that Indian children face for survival, development and education, especially if they are marginalized through disability, lack of care, and poverty. The major issues expounded by the author in relation to rights are infant and child survival, early child development, street and working children, children in conflict with law, children with disabilities, child trafficking and child sexual abuse. The author goes further to delve into the causes, among which are high population, poverty, migration, illiteracy, poor legislation and deep-rooted social norms and behaviour. The book presents the existing policy and legal framework in India for each of these issues. The broad purpose of the book is to comprehensively discuss the roadblocks that the marginalized child in India faces, to understand the causes of these roadblocks and to evaluate government and civil society action for children in India.