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This article introduces a collection of papers comprising the special issue, "Competing interests: Parents, Schools and Nation States." Drawing on the seven papers in the collection, and situating them in recent developments in the sociological field, the article discusses globally shifting relations between families, schools and the state across a range of nations in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (Australia, Germany, India, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, USA). The article proposes that the school is a crucial site for relations between family and state, and argues that a significant focus of the material and occupational investment of contemporary parents is the formal education of their children, re-shaping not only the relationship between parents and schools but also the nature of parenthood itself. In the contemporary context of global neoliberal education reform, parents are analysed both as local actors in schools and as subjects of national and international policy regimes.

Global education agendas frequently draw on the construct of 'school readiness', indexing the developmental trajectories of children to the expectations of school systems. Through in-depth ethnographic research in a village in Bihar, India, this paper examines how normative discourses of 'school readiness' govern family strategies for early childhood care and education (ECCE). To navigate the demands of a competitive and socially stratified school system, marginalised families saw it as crucial for their young children to access multiple forms of educational capital: written literacy, discipline, and dominant caste-class codes. In the absence of functioning provision of ECCE by the state, the low-fee and low-quality private market of early childhood education was seen as a key site through which 'school readiness' could be secured. The paper illustrates how normative developmentalism in education, and the 'hegemonic aspirations' it enshrines, has entrenched the marketisation of ECCE and reinscribed forms of caste-class domination.

This paper reports on a rigorous literature review of research into medium of instruction in Ghana and India, whose language-in-education policies represent two contrasting models of use of local languages and the development of competence in English. The paper begins by briefly overviewing the language-in-education policy in these two countries and sets out the methodological approach underpinning this review. It then turns to the initial findings, which are discussed in two parts: the first categorises the three areas of research explored in the empirical studies reviewed, namely the effectiveness of language-in-education policies, problems hindering the implementation of these policies, and attitudes to these policies. The second provides an overview of the recommendations for how, given the obstacles in implementing the current policies, to better ensure the effectiveness of language-in-education policies in Ghana and India. Together these findings show that similar issues arise that contribute to challenges of providing equitable, quality education, and similar recommendations have been put forward as a result. This paper thus provides a valuable overview of key issues in the role of language-in-education policies in improving equity and quality in education in LMICs.

This paper interrogates the ways in which "reflexivity" has proliferated as a normative methodological discourse in the field of international and comparative education. We argue that the dominant approach to reflexivity foregrounds the standpoints of researchers and their subjects in a way that does not attend to the situated, contingent, and relational dynamics of "knowing" itself. This too easily bypasses the "performative" effects of research; how disciplinary ways of knowing (through associated methods and discourses) enact particular realities of the world. Drawing on theoretical devices from actor-network theory, we put forward the perspective that social researchers, through the methods and disciplinary discourses they deploy, are "brokers" and "translators" of knowledge. This signifies the ways in which the process of research engages actors, scripts, and performances which produce particular understandings of, and effects on, education and development. The paper illustrates the contribution of this perspective through the case of research on teachers and education reform in India.

The paper examines education practice in India in terms of the division between indigenous cultures on the one hand, and the formal culture of learning and knowledge systems inherited from colonial times on the other. These "two Indias" are still reflected in the modern educational system in India, seen in the vast differences between the formal school system, whose benefits reach only a minority of the population, and the millions of crafts-persons working in India's informal sector, many without education or training. The paper looks at reasons for these divisions within the culture and history of India's formal, non-formal and informal systems of education and training. The paper also throws light on the aspirations to unite these divided cultures of learning by looking at some of the writings of J.P. Naik, the famous educationist and secretary of the first "Report of the Education Commission (1964-66)" after India's independence. The analysis needs to be seen against the background of international educational thought which is improving the value, relevance and quality of non-formal and informal learning, as key pillars for building lifelong learning systems. (Contains 1 note.)

Human capital and functionalist paradigms underpin the stance taken by most governments to education policy. These models have also had a profound effect upon the determination of education priorities in the poorest states and, indeed, upon aid policy. This paper argues, on the basis of evidence from the papers in this volume and from the wider research literature, that the outcomes of education for individuals and for society depend more upon national and local contexts, on history and on culture, than such models typically allow. (Contains 8 notes.)

This paper examines the shifting relations between the family and the state in Indian education policy. It charts how family resources, responsibility, and participation have been variously called upon by the state across three historical conjunctures of education reform: the decades of post-independence planning for school expansion and nation-building after 1947; the global development era of economic liberalisation and decentralisation in the 1990s and early 2000s; and the present turn to a rights-based approach in the context of intensified educational marketisation, as marked by the 2009 Right to Education Act (RTE). Across these periods, we identify an enduring paternalism of welfare governance alongside strategies for devolving state responsibility in matters of school education. The analysis situates the conditions of family responsibility for education under the contemporary RTE, in which parents are expected to be 'morally' compelled to meet the state's education goals. Through this analysis, we bring to the fore the politics of family governance in education policy, a politics that is largely overlooked by, despite being central to, research on education and international development.

This paper addresses the politics of researching private education with special reference to the Indian context. Due to a recent increase in privatised forms of education globally and recognition of the private sector by governments, international agencies and researchers as a policy and academic interest, this is shifting ground. The evolving nature of the politics of researching the private in the recent past is discussed with reference to research on private school outreach for out-of-school children in India. First the author critically examines the reception of this research when it was conducted in 2000-2003 in relation to the discourse and policy in Indian education at the time. The research is then revisited in the contemporary context in the light of considerable changes in Indian education policy, involving increased public-private partnership. In this new climate private school outreach is reconceptualised -- previously considered an educational anomaly, it now has renewed relevance. Finally, findings from the research are drawn on to shed light on emerging concerns about the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act's (2009) requirement for private schools to reserve at least 25% of school places for economically disadvantaged children in their neighbourhoods. (Contains 3 tables.)

Transitions to adulthood are usually defined by markers such as leaving school, starting a first job, leaving the parental home, forming a first union, marrying and having a first child. Youth policy remains strongly influenced by these linear transitions, and by the metaphor of a "pathway" from school to work and adulthood, taking little account of poverty, and the significance of micro-social changes within personal relations, which in many rural cultures have considerable importance in transitions to adulthood. This paper utilises data on social and human outcomes of schooling, collected under the RECOUP programme of research in the north of Ghana and India. Micro-reconstructions of gender roles/relations associated with communication, autonomy and decision-making are shown to have subtle implications for the transformation of young people's lives. The findings suggest that education may have unexpected and often complicating effects on "domestic transitions", particularly on the private/intimate spheres of gender relations. Transition studies need to reconsider how independent action is framed within strong patriarchal cultures. (Contains 2 notes.)

Faith ethos education has subjective elements in it that are elusive to planners and administrators of national and international systems. This paper looks at how Sikhs, a minority group both in India and in other countries to which they have migrated manage to retain their faith-based education programmes successfully and yet relate to the educational systems and practical needs of the society in which they live and work. The countries studied are India, the UK and the USA. Although recognition has been given to faith-based education in community development by international planners, the factors that link spiritual development and culture in education with social development have been neglected in research on education's contribution to socio-economic development. Sikh culture and education offer a case study which illuminates this. (Contains 4 notes.)

In spite of gains, Indian women's educational level still lags behind that of Indian men. Illiteracy is highest for rural women; unemployment is highest for urban women. Access to education for women is limited and is further delimited in higher levels. Acceptance of changed roles for educated women is lacking. (BRR)

Proposes a typology for examining Indian educational thought and experiments: the British period and its legacy, basic education, elementary education, higher education, adult education and literacy, and other trends. Concludes the essential prototype of education as represented by the university and the formal school system has remained India's strongest element. (BRR)

This paper reports on a rigorous literature review of research into medium of instruction in Ghana and India, whose language-in-education policies represent two contrasting models of use of local languages and the development of competence in English. The paper begins by briefly overviewing the language-in-education policy in these two countries and sets out the methodological approach underpinning this review. It then turns to the initial findings, which are discussed in two parts: the first categorises the three areas of research explored in the empirical studies reviewed, namely the effectiveness of language-in-education policies, problems hindering the implementation of these policies, and attitudes to these policies. The second provides an overview of the recommendations for how, given the obstacles in implementing the current policies, to better ensure the effectiveness of language-in-education policies in Ghana and India. Together these findings show that similar issues arise that contribute to challenges of providing equitable, quality education, and similar recommendations have been put forward as a result. This paper thus provides a valuable overview of key issues in the role of language-in-education policies in improving equity and quality in education in LMICs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Including all children in large-scale educational studies is a pressing concern. Omitting certain types of children from studies can lead to skewed findings that promote inaccuracies about learning levels or educational quality. Increasingly, assessments are a method for investigating the quality of education systems, but national assessments are typically conducted in classrooms and may fail to accurately represent a country’s full range of children. Alternatively, households can be a site for testing or collecting data on children’s learning. Analysing the quantitative data from two studies in India that use both household-based and school-based methods alongside data from Government of India sources, the issues with child representation in school-based assessments are examined, and the benefits of household-based research as an alternative are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]