3. Textbook Regimes: Gujarat Study Report
Textbook Regimes: A Feminist Critique of Nation and Identity explores the linkages between nationalism, identity and gender in school textbooks. The study attempts to understand the politics of school textbooks, moving beyond standard techniques of addressing gender, like increased visual representation and removal of gender stereotypes. This feminist critique uses power as a key concept to analyse how structures and hierarchies are reflected and validated in the content and pedagogy of the language, social sciences and adolescent education/moral science textbooks. An indepth reading of textbooks maps the manner in which knowledge within the different disciplines gets constructed for the learner. It also studies the impact of centrist notions and regional politics on the content of school textbooks. By intersecting gender with other categories of caste, class, religion, and with issues of sexuality, the study attempts an understanding of how inequities are recast and communicated in textbooks. Nirantar is a feminist organisation that works on issues of gender and education, promoting literacy and access to information and engendering the education process in diverse contexts. Through grassroots interventions, research, training, creating educational resources, advocacy and engagement with the women's movement, the organisation brings issues of equity and gender centre stage in the arena of education. TEXTBOOK REGIMES a feminist critique of nation and identity This report is part of a larger study on school textbooks visualised and undertaken by Nirantar, in partnership with Women’s Studies units and research organisations in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, West Bengal, and Uttar Pradesh. In addition to the four state-specific studies, textbooks produced by national-level institutions, including private publishers, have been analysed by Nirantar.
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