research

My research interest lies in the exploration of the social imagination, construction, and implementation of ideas of 'equality', 'quality' and 'access' through educational interventions and discourses.

My doctoral research studied the history and legacy of India's oldest talent search examination for school students, ie. the National Talent Search Examination, which was first conducted across the nation in 1964. The study examined the relationship between 'talent' and 'nation-building' as it becomes articulated at the levels of education policy, institutions and individual lives.

Another related research trajectory which my work has now taken relates to the deconstruction of discourses relating to educational motivation (such as 'interest', 'strain', 'burden' etc.) which are used to explain the orientation of learners in pedagogic contexts. This ongoing work is based upon a year long action research study of a bilingual book club for preschool children in a small Russian town.