Theorising Sexuality: Postmodern Ways

In conjunction with the Gender and Sexuality Cell of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity Unit, the Department of Sociology and Social Work Students Association organised a Faculty Charcha by Dr Rajeev K, Asst. Professor Department of Sociology and Social Work.

Dr Rajeev started the Charcha by acknowledging how conventional educational institutions did not provide many avenues for publicly discussing Sexuality as a topic until very recently. Dr Rajeev went on to talk about how in the 18th and the 19th centuries when societies were slowly becoming modern or at least entering the process, Gender and Sexuality remained an area of great concern. Through these aspects, the ruling sector of the society wanted to control and civilise the ordinary people to regulate them.

In India, the British wanted to control the sexualities of Indians with the same motive. Hence they criminalised homosexuality in the year 1861 (section 377). He further added how Indians internalised this notion, and in this process, heterosexuality (and monogamy) was made the norm as it facilitated the working of the larger socio-political system.

According to Dr Rajeev, postmodern theories made a difference by deconstructing the term “Sexuality”, which no longer has biological connotations; it is not limited just to sex and desire but is also an instrument of discipline people organising sexual relations. The pre-modern societies, Dr Rajeev added, didn’t stigmatise alternate sexualities such as homosexuality the way modern societies did, and the evidence of this claim can be found in the mythologies. According to him, modern societies had proposed various categories for people to fit into, which further suppressed alternate sexualities under a box and made them vulnerable to attack or resistance. Postmodernity deconstructed the binaries of masculine/feminine, and male/female, which helped bring about a spectrum of sexualities.

Dr Rajeev concluded the discussion by acknowledging the LGBTQ+ community’s efforts toward challenging the concept of heterosexuality as a norm and thereby challenging the larger power structures of society. The session was followed by a short Q&A where the audience willingly asked questions and presented their perspectives on the topic of Sexuality. It was an overall healthy and insightful discussion.

The charcha had the following outcomes:

• Students became aware of the concept of Sexuality and its nuances.
• Sir addressed some myths about homosexuality.
• The session helped the students analyse their stances on the topic of Sexuality, and they realised the importance of having a safe space to talk about these sensitive issues.

Lake Restoration: Life Below Water

The Environmental Justice Cell of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) Unit, under the Department of Sociology and Social Work Student Association, had conducted its first offline event, a Guest Lecture on the topic of “Lake Restoration”. The session commenced with Dr Victor Paul welcoming the esteemed guest, Mrs Mithan Subbiah, the Hulimavu Kere Tharanga core team volunteer. The NGO is rounded for the protection and restoration of the lake ecosystem of the Hulimave lake, dated 300 years old. As the talk progressed, Ms Mithan shared the geographical parameters and the historical evidence of the lake with the attendees. She shared the inception of the team of driven individuals and how the responsibility was taken into their hands in reminiscence.

The team adopted a cohesive approach to ensure that the lake never remains unchecked. This included sessions of enquiries and interaction with the fisherman, the corporates and the local members living close to the lake. The selfless actions of the members of the Hulimavu Kere Tharanga showed how determined individuals, regardless of their social and economic background, can muster up the courage to deal with the challenges together. The unit worked in caution as they were often questioned for their motives by the officials, but this was tackled with their apparent resolve and commitment to the project, which led to the inquirers’ giving in.

Ms Mithan gave an overview of their schedule during work. The diversity of the team and the activities through which they gather were shared fondly by the speaker. The NGO had covered it all, ranging from children having their birthday tree-planting sessions to companies holding CSR-related activities. As a unit, they grew exponentially with the actions they had taken charge, including the transformation of a barren road in 2017 to a greener landscape in 3 years. Furthermore, the team's efforts were not left unnoticed by the rest of the world. The NGO had amassed media coverage to clear the submerged POP (Plaster of Paris) idols in the Hulimavu lake. They were able to achieve the goal of bringing down the idol submersions by 90%. In summary, the session provided an exclusive insight into a different hue of social work to the attendees. In a reward-centric age of social responsibility, Ms Mithan provided a new meaning to the feeling of being rewarded.

The session attracted an enthusiastic audience, and some of them were volunteers of other Lake Restoration projects in and around the city of Bengaluru. Ms Mithan's lecture gave necessary insights into community involvement, intake ownership and care of a public resource such as a lake.

Ms Adrija Dutta od 3MSW HRDM brought the session to an end with a vote of thanks.

NEP Tallk Series: Circular Development for Foundational Literacy: What the Science of Reading Tells Us by Dr Nidhi Vinayak

The Department of Sociology and Social Work Student Association, in conjunction with Socius, Applied Sociology Students Collective, invited Dr Nidhi Vinayak for a talk on “Curricular Development for Foundational Literacy: What the Science of Reading Tells Us”.

Dr Nidhi commenced the lecture series by throwing an open question to the audience, asking what ‘foundation literacy’ meant to them, to which she got a lot of interesting answers. Foundation Literacy means reading and writing introductory text by grade 3 and understanding the background knowledge and the attached meaning.

Since these were lecture series, we learned a lot about our education system and its inside. Along with that, Dr Nidhi also taught new terminologies.

The first thing she taught was about these reading wars that take place in between curriculum in charge policymakers and textbook makers since they advocate contradicting approaches as follows:

• Whole Language School of Thought: For the child, reading happens only when the focus is on meaning. Tell them stories, discuss them, and give exposure to them. Gradually, the child will speak once they start associating bigger words with meaning and break them into alphabets.
• Phonetics Approach: The conventional learning where the child is taught alphabets, and then they combine them to make small words, then big words, then sentences, and then associate meaning to things.
  

Dr Nidhi stated that some scientific research that justified these reading wars is redundant and baseless. She, later on, explains how reading should take place. This simple reading view occurs when letters and sounds combine and make meaning out of it, i.e. comprehension of language and spoken words. Dr Nidhi talks about the harsh reality of government schools where kids do know how to read and write and make sounds, but they do not associate any meaning to those words, making the education baseless and unworthy.

Furthermore, our speaker explained that if we want every child to have an education, then we have to work on developing particular skills, which are :

• Oral language development - Ability to speak the language.
• Orthographic - ability to read, write and understand.
• Exposing children to reading material.

All these skills should be intertwined for the smooth functioning of each child's education within the country.

While talking about languages, Dr Nidhi mentioned a myth that the English language is complex to learn. In reality, it's Hindi which is more challenging since it's an akshara language. She explained how research shows that these languages take 2-3 years, whereas children are expected to learn them in 3 months. After all the hurdles that are still present in our curriculum and system Dr, Nidhi discussed all the possible ways and plans for greater kids to engage and participate in.

She suggested that our curriculum should focus more on discussing than rote learning. She explained two types of learning, i.e., teachers feel that the child should write the words correctly, and Independent - where young kids draw and paint using colours freely. She also mentioned the importance of age-appropriate text since she once visited a grade 1 library in a government school and found that none of the books were the ones those kids could read since either they were of no good quality or not for them.

Dr Nidhi is an ardent advocate of the 4th Sustainable Development Goal, which talks about quality education. She wants to make a curriculum where all the foundational literacy goals are achieved. Education is being provided to every child.

Ms Angita Lama of 3MSOC concluded the session with a vote of thanks.

NEP Talk Series: Paradigm Shift in Educational Development: Learning Through NEPs since Independence by Dr Resmi P Bhaskaran

Another key speaker of the NEP talk series organised by the Department of Sociology and Social Work Students Association and Socius, Applied Sociology Students Collective, was Dr Resmi P Bhaskaran, a trained applied economist specialising in policy research.

She brought up some glaring issues in policies through her presentation in a chronological manner to assess how we started and where we are now. According to her, policies provide a roadmap, and thus the NEP is an essential document because education has become an integral part of politics. In today’s dynamic environment filled with technology and progress, the concept of education has changed, and so have the aspirations of students.

According to her, this third National Education Policy should accommodate these changes in socio-cultural and political spheres. The quality of education influences the quality of democracy and thus influences economic, societal and political developmental processes through the right attitudes, values and knowledge.

She talked about the year 1948 when then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had a meeting with the education ministry to discuss the policy and utilised the chance to revolutionise the issue, just as we should today. She talked about the history of educational planning in terms of funding and the different committees created for the same.

She first analysed the first policy presented right after independence, when the economy was focused on reconstructing itself and its trajectory. As per statistics, nations at this stage that invested in education were more successful at this reconstruction, as they boosted the development of science and technology. The policy back then made education more of public responsibility than a private one due to costs.

She then discussed the second policy in 1986 and revised it in 1992, which focused on human resource development, female education, and scientific temperament. This policy faced the challenge of second-generation illiteracy and a population boom, and semi-skilled teachers had to be brought in, which also affected the quality of education. She also talked about the spillover benefits of widespread education.

Finally, she assessed the third policy, the NEP 2020, that adapted to the 21st-century goals for its planning. According to her assessment, the NEP considers the SDG goals but ignores imbalances in region-wise educational supply.  She ended by saying that no document or policy is ever conclusive and must constantly be challenged.

This was followed by a question-answer session that covered budget allocation, education of the girl child and income disparities. Teethi Nag from 3MSOC delivered the vote of thanks, which concluded the session.

NEP Talk Series: Questions of Equality and Identity in NEP 2020

 The Department of Sociology and Social Work Students Association, along with Socius, Applied Sociology Students Collective, under the NEP lecture series, organised a session on “Questions of Equality and Identity in NEP 2020.” Ms Neha Ashar from 3MSOC was the host for the session. The session began by welcoming the esteemed guest, Dr Amman Madan, faculty with the School of Education at Azim Premji University. Dr Victor Paul, other faculty members and the students were also welcomed. Dr Amman’s expertise lies in the use of education as a tool to address social stratification and the issue of identity.

The session highlighted the positive aspects of NEP. According to sir, every Post Graduate discipline should become multidisciplinary but should be recognised by the government and schools must be exposed to vocational training. NEP focuses a lot on functional literacy. i.e., it aims at children learning to read and write. The policy also talks about equity and justice.

The NEP provides emphasis on scientific-technical research.  In the Indian class structure, 15% of the jobs are white collar. Education is a part of the system of equality. Therefore, NEP might help in bridging economic gaps by improving employability. There is a commitment to attack social inequality.

The session provided the participants with insights on the aspects of fee structure, nationalism, the ideas of age-old tradition, its drawbacks and more understanding of the policy. The session ended with a vote of thanks by Ms Annet Rose from 5PSEco.

NEP Talk Series: Student Roundtable

 The Department of Sociology and Social Work Students Association and Socius, Applied Sociology Students Collective, conducted a student roundtable discussion on the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Mr Dhruv Ahluwalia from 5PSEco smoothly moderated the session. Dr Rajeev was of immense help in making the event a successful one. The National Education Policy 2020 lays significant focus on various topics concerned with education in the 21st-century. 
The panellists came in with vibrant perspectives and insightful views on all the substantial issues and benefits of the policy. Ms Serene Teresa of 1MSOC spoke about the focus on avenues that vocational education opens for eager students and the poor student-teacher ratio that results from teacher absenteeism in government schools in India. Ms Supriya Bedi from 1MSW CCP spoke at length about the privatization of education through the National Education Policy 2020 and its effects through decolonization and neo-liberalization of schooling. The privatization of education on the marginalized sections of India’s social fabric was examined as it exponentially increased the cost of education. Ms Pooja Anbu of 5PSEco praised the National Education Policy 2020 as a step towards thinking globally but acting locally and the National Education Technology Forum (NETF) to close the digital gap among rural and urban Indian students. Mr Harshil Sangal from 5PSEco discussed a philosophical flaw in the policy in that he examined the effects of favouring private education over public education systems.

Students put forth their views and opinions in the most lively manner, and the discussion successfully turned out to be invigorating and fruitful. The session ended with a vote of thanks from Ms Varsha Lourdes from 3MSOC.

Mental Wellness: A Webinar on Mental Hygiene

The Department of Sociology and Social Work Students Association, Christites Against Substance Abuse (CASA) and Project Rooh, under the Millennium Fellowship (Class of 2021) organised the webinar on Mental Wellness: A Webinar on Mental Hygiene and the Usage of Positive Psychology Techniques.

The guest speaker for the event was Ms Rachel Jayasellan, a certified NLP Practitioner. She has conducted psychological and educational assessments at Reach Clinic. The session started with a small survey on what one understands about Mental Hygiene. Ms Rachel explained the meaning of Mental Hygiene, which is a way to react to a situation or control ourselves; however, using substances is more of giving control to an external environment. Mental Hygiene is all about predictability. It is a way of seeing certainty through uncertainty. She then talked about positive psychology techniques.

Ms Rachel conducted another survey through the platform Mentimeter on, “What are some negative beliefs/statements you have heard about”. She then pointed out two crucial things:

• Take decisions where your mind and body is safe
• Negative beliefs and statements don’t define an individual or your mental health.

She then explained the five essential techniques/interventions followed with the client: Mindfulness, Meeting and Finding, Kindness, Empathy and Gratitude.

After this, she circulated the third survey regarding the three things we are grateful for through Mentimeter. After this, she wrapped up the session, answering a few questions asked by the audience. The session ended with a vote of thanks by Ms Samuykta Ramakrishnan from 5PSEco.