The School of Social Sciences has built on a long tradition developed by several leading social scientists of the country. This tradition has evolved, across the three programmes of the school, into a broad-based concern over the challenge of exclusion in India. The three programmes have travelled different paths to pursue an understanding of the processes of exclusion and their manifestation in everyday life. In understanding the multiple dimensions, and interconnections, of different processes, the school has developed a more comprehensive and heterogenous view of the Indian economy and society.
During the past year, the oldest programme in this school – the Education programme –focused on the following on six lines of research: (i) Analysis of National Education Policy 2020 (ii) Sustainability and Education (iii) Employment, education and skills (iv) Education and the Urban (v) Women in STEM disciplines (vi) Shifts in Indian higher education. The programme completed two reports, one on education for sustainability and the other on urban dislocation and the politics of educational access. The programme also launched a project on Vocational Skill Education Policy and continued with the paradigm shifts in the thinking of giftedness among rural students.
The Inequality and Human Development Programme received financial support from Tata Consultancy Services to further build on the understanding of inequality developed in the first phase of TCS supported projects. The new phase is focusing on the instrumental impact of inequality on five important processes in India: the process of technological change, the process of regional inequalities influencing development, those left behind from the process of socio-economic transformation, the creation of inter-generational inequality, and the process of climate change. The year also saw the publication of a paper and policy briefs based on the first phase of TCS supported projects. Routledge is also publishing a book on inequality.
The Urban and Mobility Studies Programme also spent most of the year analysing, writing and disseminating the findings of recently completed research projects. The final report of the APU funded project, ‘World-City’ Planning in Andhra Pradesh: A New Model for Urbanisation? was submitted to Azim Premji Foundation, and a paper on caste struggles around the land in the development of Amaravati was accepted for publication. A policy brief on the current skilling paradigm was also completed. There were also publications from the Speculative Urbanism project that documented diverse processes of displacement and dispossession amongst low-income urban and rural communities in Bengaluru.
