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- Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, 1962-
(författare)
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A common education-for-all and life-long learning? : Reflections on inclusion, equity and integration
- 2014
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Ingår i: Theory and methodology in international comparative classroom studies. - Kristiansand : Cappelen Damm Høyskoleforlaget. - 9788202470616 ; , s. 225-243
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Two important reasons are often presented to account for the significant organizational shift at the compulsory educational level and for ways in which continuing education is conceptualized in many parts of the world in the post-World War II period. These two encompass ideologies related to a “common education-for-all” and a “life-long learning” perspective. They have had far reaching consequences for both individuals and collectives. Even though access to schooling and learning opportunities over the life-span are unevenly distributed across the globe, a major transition has occurred during the last five-six decades: doors to formal education have become a feasibility (if not a reality) for all members of society. Formal education became a possibility for groups that were previously marginalized; for instance, girls, functionally disabled, economically disadvantaged, individuals in rural areas, immigrants, etc., and for the post-school and college going sections of the population.A common education-for-all young people including the life-long learning movement are, in different ways, understood as constituting fundamental principles that many democracies currently uphold. These conceptual traditions, based upon the notions of equity and human rights, have specific implications regarding (i) what is understood as legitimate in the conceptualization of human diversity and (ii) concomitantly how teaching and learning are organized for groups that previously stood outside the educational system/s. In other words, how human difference is conceptualized has a bearing upon how communities have historically organized education and/or provision for “different” groups. In addition and more significantly, as will be argued, what is meant by learning plays an important role in how education gets organized for some groups within the framework of a “common education-for-all”.This chapter takes the discourse of equity and rights as a point of departure in order to discuss how education for different groups of young people and adults in the post-World War II period has been organized, particularly in the contexts of the global North. Issues related to human difference, the meanings subscribed to different identity categories or constructs (for instance, immigrants, functional disability and gender) and the ways in which learning for different groups gets framed is of focal interest here. My aim here (and in current academic work) is to theorize what can be termed the “didactics of inclusion-equity-integration”. Thus for instance, an interest is to understand the basis on which education for different groups has been argued for and organized. Given that learning and instruction was organized differently for different groups in the pre-World War II era, an interest here is to try and tweeze out the ways in which exclusion and segregation currently get played out, particularly in the contexts of the global North. What kinds of knowledge about human diversity are seen as important, are privileged and are made relevant in educational contexts? What understandings of learning and instruction guide the organization of education and everyday practices in educational contexts? In other words, what are the didactics of inclusion, integration and equity? These constitute some of the issues that are explored here.Reflections on the themes attended to here arise from my previous and ongoing studies across different projects. The cumulative empirical work that the present chapter draws upon can be understood in terms of different long term ethnographically oriented projects that are framed within sociocultural and postcolonial perspectives and that furthermore invite intersectional analysis. In addition to these empirically driven research projects, the issues I raise here draw upon experiences from both large scale school developmental projects and national level work for Governmental and policy organisations since the mid-1990s.
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- Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, 1962-, et al.
(författare)
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Accessing global communities through local resources? : a study of barriers and facilitators of first generation women users of new communication technologies
- 2014
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Ingår i: Swedish-Indian International Research Conference LanDpost, Languaging and Diversity in the age of post-colonial glocal-medialization. - Mysore, India : CIIL.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- India has witnessed a massive transformation in the development and use of information technology in the last decade. The way technology is experienced however, varies; and social class, gender, and age are prominent parameters that frame its use. The present study focuses the spaces of Mumbai Mobile Creches (MMC)[1] – a not for profit organization which works towards ensuring nutrition, health, and safety of migrant families and their children who spend their lives on construction sites in the mega-city of Mumbai. MMC operates day care centres on 25-30 construction sites where trained early childhood care givers, teachers and attached professional staff, including volunteers, deliver a large range of services including qualified crèches, preschools and educational facilities for children between birth and 14 years of age. Currently, 40% women workers at these centers are made up of members of construction workers’ communities. While these women execute a range of tasks creatively and under very challenging conditions, limited exposure and competencies in the use of English restricts their use of digital technologies, including web media. It is these women who constitute the first generation of technology users that this study focuses upon. The study explores the access and reported experiences of women first generation digital users. It aims to understand barriers and facilitators for access to new technologies among these women, what significance these have for them, the role/s these play in shaping their sense of self and role of gender and age in technology use. The main research questions include: How does access to and engagement with new communication technologies look like in the lives of first generation women users in mega-city hubs in present times of flux? How do issues of access shape women first generation users lives? In what arenas do women from the middle and lower economic strata in a mega-city context in India have access to new communication technologies? What do their life trajectories look like and what, if anything, can we learn about development from this type of collaborative research?The following empirical materials have been specifically used in this study. In-depth case studies with adult women first generation new technology users based upon a series of audio-recorded conversations and written daily records maintained by the women, video-documentation of Sakhi empowerment monthly meetings, minutes of the Sakhi meetings, and MMC annual reports across two decades, 2000-2014.This paper empirically supports often sighted association between women’s entry into workforce and their empowerment. Nuances of the gender role expectations in use of technology and empowerment of women are focused. Empowerment of women emerges as a complex process wherein women transgress some aspects of traditional gender roles while continuing to be framed by others. LanDpost is concerned with intersections of language, gender, and media in an increasingly digital world. The present study illuminates the role digital media and language play in the access to and use of new technologies, including web media and how access to these shapes adult, first generation users lives.[1]http://www.mumbaimobilecreches.org/aboutus.htm
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- Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, 1962-
(författare)
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Accounting for and (re)visiting special needs : the identity of language and the language of identity
- 2013
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Ingår i: Panel “Social Workers andusers encounters – narrative and accounting practices”.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- My interest in this paper is twofold: first, to make visible the work that participants and institutions do throughanalyses of naturally occurring communication, including policy texts over time. Second, by using a range ofrepresentational techniques, illustrate how multimodal analyses across time and space allows for revisiting theways in which language categories get talked-and-written-into-being and how identity positions become framedin and through social practices. This data-driven contribution takes both a socially oriented perspective and apostcolonial framework on human ways-with-words and human ways-of-being. It is based upon analyses ofethnographically framed video-recordings of mundane activities, naturally occurring or data-prompteddiscussions and policy texts vis-à-vis different institutional settings in Sweden where Swedish Sign Language,SSL is used in addition to Swedish and English.My previous studies in a range of settings inside and outside schools across time in Sweden have highlighted theneed for “Going beyond the great divide” (Bagga-Gupta 2004, 2007) in both research and education for studentswith hearing impairment. This divide points to the highly dichotomized state of deaf research, institutional fieldsand discussions therein vis-à-vis oralism-signing, integration-segregation, normality-disability,medical/psychological-cultural, monolingualism-bilingualism etc. Transcending these dichotomies (and theconcomitant normative positions that they are tagged with), I juxtapose ethnographic data from primarily twoareas brought together under the umbrella concepts “languaging” and “diversity/identity” research with theintention of exploring how special needs are accounted for through the systematic analysis of data-sets from twolarge scale Swedish national research projects where fieldwork was conducted in deaf schools since 1996. Dataincludes video-taped classroom life in signing environments, video-data prompted oral reflections and policydata including discussions during the 1990s that lead to the establishment of some of these projects.Analysis focuses upon exploring the ways in which individuals and institutions account for the special needs ofpupils with a functional disability. What are the ways in which language use in itself frames identity positions indifferent sites (and across time)? How do micro-interactional analysis and the use of time and space ininstitutional settings inform issues related to inclusion/exclusion? What is the status that is accorded differentlanguage varieties in these settings and how does this status frame accounting practices related to special needs?The preliminary findings in this study challenge current understandings attributed to identity and languagegenerally and the organization of (segregated) education for the deaf in Sweden more specifically. Issues are alsoraised with regards to the ways in which individuals and both SSL and Swedish become “technified”. This paperpresents evidence that questions the polarized positions between linguistic-medical, signed-spoken/writtenlanguage varieties, mono-bilingualism and deaf-hearing worlds. The analysis contributes to the growing researchliterature where detailed analyses of textual discourses and signing-oral-written interaction can both provide anemic understanding of how narratives and accounting are a core aspect of the negotiation of identity positions aswell as illustrate the Third Position in the area of special needs.Bagga-Gupta, S (2007) Going beyond the Great Divide. Reflections from deaf studies. Örebro, Sweden. Deaf Worlds. International Journalof Deaf Studies. Special theme issue: The meaning and place of “Deaf Studies” 23.2 & 3: 69-87.Bagga-Gupta, S (2004) Visually oriented bilingualism. Discursive and technological resources in Swedish Deaf pedagogical arenas. In VHerreweghe, and M. Vermeerbergen (eds.), To the Lexicon and Beyond. Sociolinguistics in European Deaf Communities, Volume 10. The Sociolinguistics in Deaf Communities Series. Editor C. Lucas. Washington DC: Gallaudet University Press, pp. 171-207.
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- Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, 1962-
(författare)
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Agency, agents and artifacts : Performing and accounting for languaging and identity
- 2014
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This contribution has a threefold interest: first, to make visible the active work that participants and institutions “do” with symbols and artifacts through detailed descriptions of naturally occurring communication and interactions across time and space. Secondly, by using a range of representational techniques, the paper illustrates the ways in which multimodal analysis allows for revisiting the dimension of agent-artifact-agency. Agency here gets accounted for not as the sole property of human agents, but rather in terms of an intrinsic performatory dimension of agents-cum-artifacts-in-concert. Finally, the study illustrates the incongruence between individual actors talk and institutional accounting of language, learning and identity on the one hand, and the performance of languaging, learning and identity on the other.Drawing upon multidisciplinary and multisited studies of social practices in different settings across time and space allows for juxtaposing of micro scale analysis of the unfolding of identity positions as well as the dynamic and chained obstacles, resistance, support, meaning-making that characterizes everyday social life at a meso scale. This data-driven contribution is based upon analyses of ethnographic recordings of activities from projects that can be conventionally described in terms of (i) virtual platforms and social media; (ii) expert lead public discussions on gendered spaces in a megacity in Asia; and, (iii) segregated special schools in Sweden.This empirical contribution takes both a socially oriented perspective and a postcolonial framework on ways-with-words and ways-of-being. The ways in which human beings “live in language” and their “languaging” has a bearing upon socialization, including the learning of conventional language varieties and identity positions in different settings. Focusing performatory and accounting practices shifts the analytical lens away from actors “pure” intentions, motivations and desires, and the “real” meanings that reside in and are ascribed to human talk.
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- Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, 1962-, et al.
(författare)
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Center-staging global north-south research in the glocal-virtual age : Challenges in researching and theorizing learning, communication and diversity
- 2014
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The emergence of the knowledge society, increased global-local migration flows, the explosion of social media and disparate regional power and resource shifts, including conflicts in the new millennium have shaped not only the sociocultural fabric of human existence on our planet, but also the parameters of the research enterprise itself (Appadurai 1996). This paper aims to highlight and discuss challenges related to researching and theorizing learning with a specific focus upon issues of language and identity in present day times. Taking neo-(post)colonial points of departure, we aim to contribute to the following questions: what (newer) global north hegemonies can be identified that are involved in the research enterprise in itself in present day global-local-virtual spaces that constitute Europe? What framings allow for understanding newer and older concepts such as superdiversity and pluri/multilingualism in European geopolitical spaces? Are the largely Eurocentric conceptions regarding (super)diversities, (multi/pluri)lingualism and inclusion/exclusion, that have (re)emerged during the recent past, an entrenchment of the colonial order under a new guise?These questions are interrogated by drawing upon experiences from some of our own empirically framed research projects that focus the areas of learning, communication and diversity in the physical geopolitical spaces “inside Europe” (Sweden and Italy, where we are situated as researchers) and “outside Europe” (Argentina and India particularly, where we also conduct research) on the one hand, and virtual spaces in higher education, social media and synchronous/non-synchronous interaction (for instance dropbox, facebook, mail, moodle, skype, twitter) on the other. With these as points of departure, we discuss current challenges related to the “doing of research” itself on learning and its relationship to issues of language and identity – two central domains of concern in Europe. Using empirical examples from our projects, we will discuss the current analytical paucity of power-structures and processes in analysis that focus cultural and linguistic diversity in learning spaces in European settings. In addition we will contribute to theorizing in these domains across time and space. Our preliminary explorations suggest that the dominating theoretical framings in the educational sciences are eurocentrically flavored.Drawing upon various turns, especially the “decolonial turn” (Maldonado-Torres 2011, Mignolo 2009) and the “boundary-turn” (Bagga-Gupta 2013) in the human sciences and the educational sciences, our intention is to center-stage the growing disparity in newer-colonial power relationships in research, including access to and the acknowledgement of different epistemologies in the learning sciences, not least when cultural and linguistic diversity are in focus (Apple & Buras 2006).Postcolonially (compare with neo-(post)colonially) framed research has in itself, we will argue, created new epistemological hegemonies for dialoging, including epistemologies that of languaging and translanguaging, identity positionings in the research landscape in itself. Our paper will attempt to exemplify these issues (i) by attending to aspects of the social location and north-south location of the researcher and her/his subjects and field/s of study, and, (ii) the significance of empirical downscaling and micro-focusing in research (i.e. attending to local sociocultural interactions and events across spaces), including focusing different scales of empirical engagement (i.e. micro-meso-macro and multi-modal) in the research enterprise in itself. We will suggest how these allow us as researchers, research educators, policy makers, policy enforcers, to engage with issues related to newer hegemonic differentials. These issues are significant in the domain of “Learning for Sustainable Development” and we argue that they allow for important dimensions of engagement at the level of the individual (researcher or professional), institution (department, university, school) and also policy and governance (university, research councils, nation-state, EU, etc).
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| 9. |
- Bagga-Gupta, Sangeeta, 1962-
(författare)
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Creating and (re)negotiating boundaries : representations as mediation in visually oriented multilingual Swedish school settings
- 2010
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Ingår i: Language, Culture and Curriculum. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0790-8318 .- 1747-7573. ; 23:3, s. 251-276
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article brings together salient findings regarding communication and identity through studies of everyday social practices, studies of discourses about these practices and policy documents pertaining to special schools from previous and ongoing ethnographic projects based at the KKOM-DS (Communication, Culture and Diversity - Deaf Studies) research group in Sweden. Central findings regarding the complex nature of language usage in these 'bilingual' Swedish-Swedish Sign Language settings are highlighted and the key concept of different types of chaining is empirically explicated. The work presented here also takes its point of departure in how Self and Other are represented in everyday talk, in how the organisation of time and space and how the sociohistorical discourse about language, 'bilingualism' and identity in policy documents mediate a particular world view in terms of an 'imagined and pure homogeneity'. Together, these two empirically grounded analyses highlight a tension between human beings' ways of being or their actions and orientations in social practices and human beings' ways of understanding and conceptualising bilingualism in educational settings. The empirical analyses suggest that understanding linguistic competencies and the organisation of the primary languages in the special schools, on the one hand, and human beings' use of both the languages, on the other hand, are very different phenomena.
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