The Fair Chance for Education project saw its first formal conference presentation in April. The conference was organised by Sarah Hodges (History) in relation to the University of Warwick Global Partnership Fund Award 2017/18. A delegation from Shiv Nadar University, India visited Warwick and the conference itself was held on the 26th and 27th of April 2018. The conference was titled “Order/Disorder: Self and Society in Modern South Asia”. The event was attended by the four visiting academics from the Shiv Nadar University and faculty and research students (History, Literature, Sociology, CES and Theatre) from Warwick. A majority of the presentations were on literature, history and political developments in India.

Emily Henderson and Anjali Thomas presented the first Fair Chance for Education paper on the second day of the event on 27th April 2018. The paper was entitled ‘Deconstructing Haryana: Dis/order in representations of gender, caste and education’. Emily started the presentation with a brief introduction of the project and its focus on gender and educational trajectories in Haryana. The second part of the presentation was a conversation between Emily and Anjali, where Emily discussed the process of deconstruction and Anjali deconstructed the narratives and representations of gender, caste and education in Haryana. There was a lot of interest in the funding and the focus of the project. People were also interested in how we deconstructed the emerging narratives of development and gender empowerment in Haryana.

Project partner Dr Nidhi S Sabharwal has published a guest post on the Conference Inference blog co-edited by Dr Emily Henderson, project co-investigator for the Fair Chance to Education project. Running parallel to this project, Emily Henderson’s other research explores various aspects of academic conferences, and her blog – which she runs with Dr James Burford (Thammasat University, Thailand) – considers critical and social issues relating to conferences, such as caring responsibilities in the context of conferencing.

To extend the project collaboration beyond the Fair Chance project, Emily invited Nidhi to contribute a post to the blog. In her post ‘Mind the Gap – Gendered and Caste-based Disparities in Access to Conference Opportunities’, Dr Nidhi S Sabharwal answers some pressing questions about the issues of caste and gender inequality in relation to access to conferences in India, as well as the correlation between the prestige of the institutions and the diversity of access. Dr Sabharwal also discusses the repercussions that such limitations have on individual professional growth.

Click here to read the full post.

The Fair Chance for Education Project Team has made its way to Haryana this February to run the pilot study for the project. The Consultative Group on the project contributed greatly to this by assisting with the development of the research instruments. Particular thanks go to Sharmila Rathee, Manju Panwar and Roma Smart Joseph who helped trial the research instrument by sampling it with their students. Thank you also to project partner Nidhi S Sabharwal, who provided invaluable feedback on the research instruments.

(Photo: Dr Manju Panwar’s student completing the survey)

We are pleased to announce that the Project Blog for the Fair Chance for Education Research Project is here!

Our PhD student Anjali Thomas has put a lot of work into this blog and it looks great!

We welcome guest contributions for the blog, and encourage submissions about issues connected to the project such as gender, education, Haryana, etc.

To have a look at the newly launched blog, see here. To stay updated, see the Follow icon on the right-hand side of the blog website.

For more details on guest submission, see here.

Our project partner in India, Dr Nidhi S. Sabharwal has attended a Global Engagement Meeting in Delhi this month, here are her thoughts on this event:

“Attending the Global Engagement Meeting (GEM) in Delhi provided me with clarity on the current research focus of the global initiative GCRF. The current research agenda of GCRF takes the SDG lens and encourages project proposals to align with the SDGs. It emphasises the creation of new knowledge, and promotes innovations to ensure that 'no one is left behind'. Importantly, disciplinary, inter-disciplinary and international partnerships to identify pathways of change are encouraged. The main focus is the production of knowledge connected with social transformation, and on pro-actively finding solutions. The broad SDG goals that our work addresses include: improving access to inclusive and equitable quality education; reducing gender inequalities; and, strengthening of institutions that enable respect for human rights and the rule of law. Cyril France (one of the participants), from Youth Path Organisation in Ghana, was kind to share this link that helps determine which Sustainable Development Goal(s) and targets relate to our work: http://sdgfunders.org/wizard/

Attending the Global Engagement Meeting (GEM) allowed me to engage with a wide spectrum of research peers - it also offered an opportunity to explore the possibility of additional research opportunities for the Fair Chance for Education: Gendered Pathways to Educational Success in Haryana project. It gave me a platform to speak about the Gender and Education in Haryana project and showcase the collaborative research opportunities available.”

Applications are invited for a fully-funded doctoral studentship in the School of Law starting in October 2018. It will build on research in Haryana, India to develop a gendered understanding of how a right to education can be implemented; and produce a PhD thesis. It is co-funded by Fair Chance Foundation and the University of Warwick’s Collaborative Postgraduate Research Scholarships (WCPRS) scheme. It is linked with Warwick’s interdisciplinary research network, the International Development GRP. 

See here for more details.