This book studies the intersection of language and social privilege in education in India. Drawing on rich ethnographic detail and primary data, it introduces a conversation of privilege, specifically contemporary configurations of caste and socioeconomic class in India, to the fields of South Asian studies and sociolinguistic educational studies. The author examines how and why education at the pre-primary, secondary, and higher education levels in India remains largely segregated by socioeconomic class and caste through the lens of language. She advances fields of study of multilingual education, language ideologies, and complexities between language and identity to contribute to work on language and privilege in education by providing a novel and contemporary case from India. The book also critiques contemporary caste configurations in India that uphold urban middle-class Brahmins as the socially privileged purveyors of social and linguistic norms.
Mother Tongue Prestige parses out threads of motivation, perceptions of education, and aspirations tied to language use and learning that shape generations of students in an educational system preparing them for a globalized workforce and urban, multilingual livelihoods in India and abroad. It will be indispensable for students and researchers of education, language, sociology, sociology of education, linguistics, sociolinguistics, South Asian studies.
About the Author: Jessica Sujata Chandras is a linguistic anthropologist trained in qualitative, ethnographic and sociolinguistic research methods. Currently, she holds an Assistant Professor position in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at the University of North Florida. Her PhD is in Anthropology from the George Washington University, in Washington, DC and was awarded in 2019. Her on-going research in India examines values attached language and practices of multilingual language socialization pertaining to education through a lens of power. She explores a political economy of language with a focus on intersections of language and socioeconomic class, caste, and politics of language revitalization movements. In her projects, she examines configurations of identity categories, such as caste and class, with language negotiations in access to education. Previously, She has also worked and researched in multilingual communities on impacts of indigenous language on identity and community formation in Oaxaca, Mexico and the Basque Country.
