A Linguistic Ethnographic Study of a British Sikh Project for Childhood
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CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by University of Birmingham Research Archive, E-theses Repository MAKING AND SHAPING THE FIRST NISHKAM NURSERY: A LINGUISTIC ETHNOGRAPHIC STUDY OF A BRITISH SIKH PROJECT FOR CHILDHOOD by Gopinder Kaur Sagoo A thesis submitted to the University of Birmingham for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY School of Education College of Social Sciences University of Birmingham June 2015 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ABSTRACT This thesis presents a study of the processes involved in creating the first Nishkam Nursery in 2009 in Handsworth, Birmingham. Led by British Sikhs, the project was embedded in wider work undertaken by the transnational ‘Nishkam’ community of practice. The research aim was to examine: 1) the blend of ideas and values guiding the nursery’s creation; 2) the ways in which the nursery world was configured in and through day-to-day communicative and semiotic practice; and 3) parental responses. I took a linguistic ethnographic approach to data collection and analysis and adopted a case study design. Three orienting theories guided the study: 1) ‘the cultural production of the educated person’ (Levinson, Foley and Holland 1996); 2) ‘policy as/in practice’ (Sutton and Levinson 2001) and; 3) ‘figured worlds’ (Holland et al. 1998). An ethnographic approach was best suited to this theoretical framing. It allowed me to examine the interplay of agency and structure in the creation of the world of this local nursery, in ‘postsecular’ societal conditions characterised by complex diversities and mobilities. It also allowed me to capture the ways in which national policy frameworks were interpreted by local social actors and blended with educational approaches stemming from the Sikh dharam. i ii DEDICATION ‘By the toil of each and the fellowship of people good will happen.’ - quote on entrance signage for ‘Uplands Allotments’ in Handsworth, Birmingham ‘None is a foe, nor a strange other; I’ve come to feel allied to all.’ - translation of verse located in Sri Guru Granth Sahib, p. 1299 To all who bring hope to the near and far worlds which intersect this local study. III ACKNOWLEDGEMNTS From the early to closing phases of this study, there are many people who have helped and supported me, directly or indirectly, along the way. My thanks goes to them all. I am immensely privileged to have been guided by Professor Marilyn Martin-Jones, who was my main supervisor throughout the course of study. Both the researcher and the research have benefited from her finely-honed expertise in social science, the steady care and encouragement and sound, practical support she has provided admist her many other commitments. I am grateful, too, for earlier guidance provided my co-supervisor, Dr Geoff Teece, on some of the study’s curricular themes. Thanks also goes to other staff and postgraduate colleagues whom I had the chance to encounter at the School of Education at the University of Birmingham, including those linked to the MOSAIC Centre for Research on Multilingualism. I also thank Helen Joinson for her ever dependable administrative assistance and Ildegrada da Costa Cabral for her technical support in the final stages of producing this thesis. I extend my appreciation to Professor Eve Gregory and Dr Laura Day Ashley who examined this thesis and whose valuable comments and guidance helped me to take it to a new level. I will add here add my fond thanks to Professor Eleanor Nesbitt who, through our long-shared interdisciplinary interests, has become in many senses a ‘friend in the field’. My sincere appreciation goes to the intergenerational network of Nishkam sewadars, the hands-on ‘volunteers’ who have been instrumental to developing the Nishkam ‘campus’ (as it is locally known) in Handsworth, where the nursery and growing family of Nishkam organisations are based. I am grateful to the nursery staff, children and parents for having me around and taking time to speak to me whilst life in the new nursery was settling and iv finding its feet. Across the road from the nursery, the gurudwara and Nishkam Centre also provided resources that helped me in many everyday practical ways. To Bhai Sahib Ji, who is patron of the nursery and Nishkam School Trust, I offer deep thanks. His reflective, practical and dedicated leadership approach to capacity-build local communities was a key enabling factor in the nursery’s creation. The insights I gained from observing this approach and its underlying perspectives helped to shape some of the directions my research took. This study would not have been possible without sponsorship from the Economic and Social Research Council. I am therefore grateful that my interdisciplinary research proposal was selected for funding and hope it is found to be worthy of it. I am most grateful too for the additional support provided by Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha. This enabled me to write up and complete this thesis following the birth of my second child. My PhD journey began and now ends with having a nursery-aged child. The first was my daughter, Kanpreet, and the second is my son, Harjot. I thank them for all our walks and bus rides to school through Handsworth and for keeping me in touch with the different worlds which came into play in the research. As I now reach this milestone, I give a huge thank you to my husband, Raj, for his unflinching support as we made our way through and around different life challenges. I am really grateful also to our extended family members and friends, both near and far - and some now sadly departed - for all their encouragement and helpfulness over the years. I thank my two, ever-supportive sisters and, finally, my parents, Harbhajan Singh and Jaswinder Kaur Panesar, to whom I am always indebted. Following Sikh tradition, I ask forgiveness for any shortcomings or errors in this work which, in the end, represents a part of my ongoing process of learning. Gopinder Kaur Sagoo Birmingham 2015 v TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract …………………………………………………………………………. i Dedication……………………………………………………………………….... iii Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………... iv Table of contents ………………………………………………………………... vi Glossary of Sikh and Indic terms ......................................................................... x List of abbreviations and list of tables.................................................................... xii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 The focus of the study and the approach adopted……………………............ 1 1.2 Rationale, significance and guiding ideas …………………………............... 3 1.3 Introduction to the nursery site and the nursery project…………………...… 17 1.4 Personal and interdisciplinary starting points for the research………...……. 21 1.5 Summary of the nursery project: Key phases and developments……………. 26 1.6 Key research questions …………………………………………….............. 28 1.7 Outline of thesis …………………..……………………..………………...... 28 PART A: THE THEORETICAL BASIS OF THE STUDY CHAPTER 2: ONTOLOGICAL ASSUMPTIONS, EPISTEMOLOGICAL STANCES AND ORIENTING THEORIES 35 2.1 Ontological and theoretical assumptions …………….……………………... 36 2.2 Associated epistemological stances ……………………………………........ 45 2.3 Orienting theories …………………………................................................... 51 2.4 Chapter summary.............................................................................................. 65 CHAPTER 3: LINGUISTIC ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH PRACTICE 67 3.1 Why a single case study conducted ethnographically? ……………………… 67 3.2 Linking language, discourse and social life through ethnography................... 70 3.3 Researching school and classroom-based discourse practices......................... 74 3.4 Conceptual tools for analysing multilingual interaction................................. 78 3.5 Chapter summmary........................................................................................ 86 vi PART B: HISTORICAL, CULTURAL AND POLICY CONTEXTS CHAPTER 4: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION – THE WIDER PICTURE 89 4.1 Socio-historical processes giving rise to public provision.............................. 89 4.2 Influential philosophies and movements from the West................................. THE WIDER PICTURE …...……...……...……...……...……...………....… 92 4.3 Critical, postcolonial and global perspectives.................................................. …………………. 96 4.4 Chapter summary ............................................................................................. 102 CHAPTER 5: EDUCATION IN ENGLAND: RELEVANT POLICY AND CURRICULUM CONTEXTS 106 5.1 The complex policy environments in which the Nishkam nursery project emerged.... 107 5.2 The relevant curriculum contexts...................................................................... 130 5.3 Chapter summary............................................................................................ 145 CHAPTER 6: DOING BEING SIKH – EVOLVING FRAMINGS AND CONTEXTS 149 6.1 Five centuries of being Sikh: Historical turns and