Papers by Rachel Philip
This is the report of a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) funded study undertaken for the Ce... more This is the report of a United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) funded study undertaken for the Centre for Equity and Inclusion (CEQUIN), New Delhi, which examines the status of adolescent girls' education in Mewat, one of most socio-economically backward districts of Haryana, India.
GYANODAYA - The Journal of Progressive Education, 2016
In this paper, various approaches to studying academic ability as a socially constructed category... more In this paper, various approaches to studying academic ability as a socially constructed category are presented. In particular, four types of studies are examined. Firstly select studies which have approached the concept of ability as a theoretical and academic construct are presented. These examine the forms taken by theories of ability including assumptions about its origins, sources and dispersion among social groups. Secondly, studies which explore our ideas of academic ability as culturally embedded in the Indian context are reviewed. Indigenous concepts such as buddhi, pratibha, etc influenced the changing notions of academic ability in the colonial period and they continue to do so after independence. Thirdly a number of studies have explored how the modern discourses of nation and national ability have influenced the construction of academic ability including intelligence, talent and merit. Fourthly, the paper considers how academic ability and in particular, talent have been studied in policy contexts and have been shaped by programmatic imperatives.
Educational Quest- An International Journal of Education and Applied Social Sciences, 2016
This paper examines the work of Alfred Binet, best known for the invention of the Intelligence Qu... more This paper examines the work of Alfred Binet, best known for the invention of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scale with respect to his ideas on the assessment of various attributes of children. This exploration is anchored in an analysis of his final work ‘Modern Ideas of Children’, published in 1911 and which was a review of thirty years of his own experimental work in this area. His understanding of ‘modernity’ in the field of pedagogical sciences was tied to a faith in the application of the scientific method (systematic observation, measurement and experimentation) to reveal the ‘real’ nature of human beings. This is reflected in his consistent engagement with the question of what aspects of a child's being are measurable and under what conditions. In his perspective the teacher had to play a critical role in the assessment of a student's potential and his work was an attempt to demonstrate how the teacher could use the scientific method within the context of the classroom to improve his or her pedagogy. Equipped with the right diagnostic tools and methods, he envisioned the teacher as playing an important role in ameliorating social problems such as poverty. These insights continue to be relevant a century after the first publication of Binet's work.
Gyanodaya: The Journal of Progressive Education, 2016
In this paper, various approaches to studying academic ability as a socially constructed category... more In this paper, various approaches to studying academic ability as a socially constructed category are presented. In particular, four types of studies are examined. Firstly select studies which have approached the concept of ability as a theoretical and academic construct are presented. These examine the forms taken by theories of ability including assumptions about its origins, sources and dispersion among social groups. Secondly, studies which explore our ideas of academic ability as culturally embedded in the Indian context are reviewed. Indigenous concepts such as buddhi, pratibha, etc influenced the changing notions of academic ability in the colonial period and they continue to do so after independence. Thirdly a number of studies have explored how the modern discourses of nation and national ability have influenced the construction of academic ability including intelligence, talent and merit. Fourthly, the paper considers how academic ability and in particular, talent have been studied in policy contexts and have been shaped by programmatic imperatives.
Science and Education, 2021
India’s National Science Talent Search (NSTS) examination (1963 to 1976) was imagined and impleme... more India’s National Science Talent Search (NSTS) examination (1963 to 1976) was imagined and implemented by some top scientists of the period. It aimed to identify 'talented' secondary school students with an aptitude for science and mathematics. Selected students attended undergraduate summer schools, did research in special labs during their Master's degree, and were supported by a scholarship till the completion of a Ph.D. Today, the extent to which NSTS changed the discourse of 'talent' as well as the mode and content of large-scale testing in India is often forgotten. Among the innovations that the examination introduced and legitimized include the Multiple Choice Question (MCQ) format. It shaped a positivist discourse around a special category of questions called the ‘thought-type’ in scientifically establishing the mental acuity of students. It also defined and used ‘extra-curricular knowledge’ as a proxy for scientific interest. Another legacy of NSTS’s discourse of objectivity was a misplaced confidence in separating the performance of candidates from the social advantages/disadvantages that shaped their school experience. Additionally, the importance of expertise in designing the examination did not give space to the input of school science teachers. Eventually, the design of the scheme fell short of the expectations of policy-makers as well as the aspirations of those who were selected. In 1977, the examination was redesigned as a general National Talent Search Examination (NTSE). A critical analysis of the short history of the NSTS enables us to reflect on the construct of ‘science talent’ and the challenges in identifying and nurturing talented students in science.
Centre For Equity and Inclusion (CEQUIN), New Delhi, 2016
Educational Quest, 2016
This paper examines the work of Alfred Binet, best known for the invention of the Intelligence Qu... more This paper examines the work of Alfred Binet, best known for the invention of the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) scale with respect to his ideas on the assessment of various attributes of children. This exploration is anchored in an analysis of his final work 'Modern Ideas of Children', published in 1911 and which was a review of thirty years of his own experimental work in this area. His understanding of 'modernity' in the field of pedagogical sciences was tied to a faith in the application of the scientific method (systematic observation, measurement and experimentation) to reveal the 'real' nature of human beings. This is reflected in his consistent engagement with the question of what aspects of a child's being are measurable and under what conditions. In his perspective the teacher had to play a critical role in the assessment of a student's potential and his work was an attempt to demonstrate how the teacher could use the scientific method within the context of the classroom to improve his or her pedagogy. Equipped with the right diagnostic tools and methods, he envisioned the teacher as playing an important role in ameliorating social problems such as poverty. These insights continue to be relevant a century after the first publication of Binet's work.
Journal of Indian Education, 2016
In the Indian context, the term 'quality' has come to stand for a variety of meanings and approac... more In the Indian context, the term 'quality' has come to stand for a variety of meanings and approaches that attempt to describe, evaluate and reform the state of education in terms of the nature of its provision (institutions), curriculum and textbooks, the professional competence of teachers and the learning outcomes of students. While these are significant indicators of the health of an educational system, this paper argues that engagements with the idea of 'quality' in education must be contextualised in the light of a society's ideas on what constitutes the desirable human life as well as the role of the State and education in that enterprise. The arguments of Enlightenment philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau are reprised in this context, considering his influence in shaping the discourse of 'inequality' and its political and educational solutions. The amelioration of inequality was very much a part of engagement with the idea and identity of the India by nationalists during the first decades of the twentieth century. The philosophical positions adopted by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and Mahatma Gandhi on what constituted an equitable and sustainable social order are examined in this regard. While their visions were diametrically different (especially regarding the nature of the State and the kind of education that was required), revisiting and negotiating with their ideas offer us scope in reordering our priorities with regard to how we conceptualise and locate 'quality' in the public education system.
Drafts by Rachel Philip
University of Delhi, 2018
The thesis examines 'talent' as a socially constructed category by examining drawing attention to... more The thesis examines 'talent' as a socially constructed category by examining drawing attention to the interpretation of the ‘talented student’ in policy and practice. The research looks at India's most prestigious talent search search exam for school students, i.e. the National Talent Search Examination (NTSE) conducted since 1964. In the 1960s, such a student was conceived as a passive ‘national resource’ but post 2000, the notion is of an autonomous, ‘trans-national’ professional. In the scheme's inception as the National Science Talent Search Examination (NSTSE), ‘talent’ was conceived as the potential of school students to become creative scientists. Their perceived role in ‘nation-building’ shaped the programmatic emphasis on nurture through summer schools and a substantial scholarship. These benefits incentivized a career in the basic sciences for many scholars, especially women. The prestige associated with a elite science career among things reinforced a perception that ‘talent’ was a label acquired on passing the NTSE. With the scheme being opened to other disciplines in 1977, the prestige associated with the scheme continued without there being the kind of detailed attention to nurturance of students in various disciplines being carried through. This research examined the profile of students selected under the scheme from 1964 to 2004. These results were contextualized against changes in Indian Education Policy and the institutional transformations of the test's nodal agency the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT). 19 winners between 1964 and 2004 were interviewed, with their narratives highlighting the differences between institutional and individual interpretations of 'talent'.
Conference Presentations by Rachel Philip
Fifth International Conference of the Comparative Education Society of India (CESI), 2014
The representations of ‘talent’ in the official literature of the National Talent Search Examinat... more The representations of ‘talent’ in the official literature of the National Talent Search Examination (1963-2013) are examined to establish how this category in educational policy and programmes has evolved in response to various social and political forces in post Independence India. The programme’s initial format, the National Science Talent Search Examination (NSTS) (1963-1976), was oriented towards identifying and nurturing students with an aptitude for research in the basic sciences. Diverse domestic and international contexts of the period shaped this discourse of the ‘talented student in science who serves the nation’. With the revision of the scheme as the National Talent Search Scheme in 1976 to allow winners to pursue the social sciences or professional careers in engineering and medicine, there was a break in the discourse from a commitment to nurture talented students to a new commitment to identify and certify increasingly diverse groups of students as ‘talented’. The paper argues that this break permits us to examine the coupling of the discourse of ‘talent’ with that of the ‘nation’ and the modes by which state institutions like the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) both produce the nation and socialize individuals into it in post Independence India.
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Papers by Rachel Philip
Drafts by Rachel Philip
Conference Presentations by Rachel Philip