Effect of social stratification on education: A case study of three generations in a family

Introduction:
At any point in history, we’ve seen the examples of great people fighting for equality and social
justice. Society is divided into different groups of varying degrees of power and accessibility to
resources (material and social). Many a sociologists have tried to engage with the distribution of
people across different groups. Few keep the means of production as the axis of classification while
few others consider the various socio-economic factors of lifestyle, occupation, education and
spending patterns as the basis of stratification. The differences in such a wide array of areas in life
inevitably leads to differing power positions of each person in the society. Depending on which rung
of such stratification one lies in, one’s education, employment, sexual behaviour, cognitive
capabilities, political ideologies and culture get defined.

Those who occupy a higher position in social stratification, enjoy more power, prestige, dominance
and resources than the ones occupying a lower position. While sociologists like Durkheim believe
that different parts of the society function to strive for equality and maintain a balance in society,
other like Marx believe that dominant group works towards maintaining its privilege in the society.
Depending on what view one subscribes to, the role of education also gets defined. Whether it’s role
is to facilitate social mobility or it is to sustain and reproduce the social inequality is worth exploring.
This paper attempts to analyse how education is placed in the reality of social stratification and
thereby the ways in which it gets affected by the stratification.

Caste:
Indian society is unique in having developed a status group of caste based on the concept of purity.
Ambedkar theorises that caste arose to preserve the ‘purity’ of the upper caste people. The Varna
system of social classification that assigned a fluid class to each person of the group paved way to
caste system where the social mobility was no more flexible and accessible to members of all Varnas.
Those who belonged to the lower echelons of social classification remained powerless and dominated
by the upper caste members. In a functionalist sense this means that the upper caste population had
better access and claim over social and economic goods and that they allotted a status of lower purity
to the people excluded from their group. Ambedkar talks of endogamy rule that prohibits the inter
mingling of castes. Uma Chakravarti and Satish Deshpande point out the fact that those who belong
to dominant castes will try to gain an upper hand in accumulating capital (Bourdieu, 1997) in forms
of economic, cultural and social capitals. Schools in turn validate and legitimise the capital of the
dominant castes and thus help in the reproduction of social inequalities.

Sachin Deshpande argues that even though caste has been constitutionally removed as the criterion
for designing policies and implementing them, it still hasn’t gone from the psyche of Indians and
remains very prominently in the national and political discourses. The caste of a person very much
defines the cultural capital that he/she can accumulate and thus the educational quality he/she
receives also get affected. M. Muralikrishna and Kumud Pawde's trying schooling and childhood
experiences illustrate how difficult it is for students from lower castes to access a good education.
The multi-layered schooling system in the country has created schools that are different for different
caste and class groups thus limiting the opportunities for a child depending on his/her caste and class.
The further section determines how class in Indian society decides the fate.

Class:
A Marxist definition of class is based on the accessibility of means of production. Non-Marxist
definitions classify the class of a group depending on their education employment lifestyle and
spending patterns. In earlier capitalist societies, the occupations were passed on from one generation
to another and hence the distribution of means of production was controlled. But in modern capitalist
societies, where a linear transfer of class isn’t feasible, graded labour force is required and
differentiated educational institutions aid this. Better the class of a person, more time his/her child
spends in school. Thus schools are also economic reflections of the society and they cannot purely
remain the liberating forces in society.

In Indian context, the middle class families' cultural capital allows them to invest more time, energy
and money in educating their children. Hence children belonging to such families have an apparent
advantage over those coming from lower classes who do not have the cultural capital to benefit from
schooling in the same way as middle class children.

Functionalist view of Durkheim and Comte propose that different parts of education system come
together to maintain the equilibrium and stability in the society. Parson looks at schools as sites that
help children acquire the commitment and capacities required to adopt into adult roles in society.
Conflict theory based on Marx’s advocacy believes that dominant groups dictate their terms on the
society and there is no consensus to maintain stability in the society. According to this view then,
schools generate a consensus about inequality by saturating conscience.

Gender:
Acker (1994) terms gender as an “oppressive cultural reality”. Acker (1994) argues that patriarchy
has a material base and that it is not just a mental construct. There are three views of feminism that
have different premises for defining gender discrimination and thus different focus areas for
education of women. Liberal feminism that believes that the gender discrimination arises due to
prejudices against women, sexist attitudes and differential socialisation calls for a focus on equal
opportunities for women, equally opening up occupational and family roles for girls and choice in
curriculum. Socialist feminism that holds capitalism responsible for gender discrimination thinks that
women’s liberation lies in possession of property. To give the invisible and devalued labour (giving
birth, cooking, elderly care and making a home) appropriate due, socialist feminists call for links
between schools and motherhood; sexual division of labour in schools and gendered skill
development. Radical feminism believes that patriarchy is not a product of capitalism and hence cuts
across classes, castes and other systems of stratification. This calls for elimination of male
dominance and patriarchal structures; abolition of male monopoly over culture and knowledge;
critical analysis of sexual politics of everyday life in schools and declares the goal of education as the
“abolition of gender as an oppressive cultural reality”.

Women go through double discrimination in many cases due to their situated circumstances of caste
and class and also to the fact that they belong to the perceived weak gender. Across any group, the
overall literacy of women is lesser than that of the men (Census,2011). Even in matters of
employment, there has been disparity in terms of opportunities and remuneration. 1
Combined effect of different stratifications:
Jain (2012) elucidates that in our nation the policy makers often ignore the systemic and cultural
difficulties that the lower caste groups face and this often leads to them being treated on par with the
lower economic group. Caste system operates so differently in our society that a poor upper caste

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https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/2015/wp1555.pdf
person (a man at that) fairs far better than a middle class lower caste person in terms of access to
social and cultural goods. Along with differential caste opportunities, one should also take into
account the social status of people from minorities. Caste like minorities such as Muslims cannot be
compared to caste minorities. Sachar committee (2006) illustrates that Muslims have the lowest
grade of educational development among all other religious minorities in our nation. Even though
religious and class minorities accumulate economic capital, for that to manifest as worthy cultural
capital is problematic since the upper caste groups have claimed a historical domination over the
resources of cultural capital.

Women are the most disadvantaged in all of these groups. They have to bear the innumerable
subjugation factors of caste, class, patriarchy, economic dependence, inaccessibility to religious
rights and institutions2, wage disparity etc., As a result they have lesser opportunities for economic,
political, educational, social and cultural development.

Summary of educational status of 3 generations:

First generation
The family under consideration belongs to the ‘Madhwa Brahmin' community in Karnataka. This
group of Brahmins considers itself the purest of all castes and sub-castes. The first generation of this
family headed by Venkataramanaiah hails from Salgame village of Hassan district in Karnataka. He
was the lone child to his parents. Venkataramanaiah had studied till 8 th grade in the early 1920s and
worked his entire life until retirement as a teacher at his village primary school. He was also the store
manager for government ration store house in the village, which was looked after by the Brahmins of
the village. Post retirement, he bought 4 acres of land for agricultural purpose and that served as the
source of income for the entire family. He married a child bride aged 13 and had 5 children (3
daughters and 2 sons). His wife Kamalamma had formal education only till class 4. Although she
was a bright child who wanted to study, she was taken out of school early on to get trained on
household chores before marriage. Kamalamma taught herself to read and write Kannada with the
help of elders at home and her village and became highly well read with the epics of Ramayana and
Mahabharata, Bhagawata, Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna Purana and innumerable devotional songs and
books. After the age of 35 she even taught herself go read and write Hindi. Having a good foresight
for a person of his times, Venkataramanaiah underwent vasectomy as a reliable contraception
(receiving much criticism from the village community for this). The couple lived under poverty
nevertheless educated 3 other kids from their extended family.

Second generation
Except for the first daughter of the house who studied only till tenth grade everybody else completed
their graduation. The children completed their primary education from village school while the
further parts were completed in Hassan (the district headquarters). Mostly the children walked for
10km to reach school (late 60s and early 70s) and took buses in college. Two daughters took Arts
education (B.A) while the sons took B.Com in their graduation. Although the girls faired better than
their elder brother, the eldest son was compelled to take up commerce and complete his education
come what may. The sons were allowed to go out of village post their graduation to look at better
employment opportunities while the girls weren’t allowed owing to the apprehension of parents
regarding their daughters’ safety in an unknown city milieu. The eldest son established a good
accounting career in a famous hotel chain of Bangalore before his untimely death and the second son
started a very successful interior decoration business in Bangalore. All three daughters took to
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http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2016/jan/13/menstruation-temples-mosques-india-ban-women
sewing, home tuition and knitting as source of income till marriage. The eldest daughter was married
to her maternal uncle while the other two were married to potential grooms outside the family circle.
All three girls married men from lower middle class background who had completed graduation.

Third generation
The family in focus is that of the third child and the second daughter Sudha. Sudha had graduated in
Arts with a major in Kannada. She took great interest in self learning and was well read with
exposure to classic medieval Kannada literature, novels and non-fiction and dailies (newspapers and
magazines). She nurtured dreams of starting tailoring or home tuition but was not encouraged by her
husband’s family. Due to son preference of her husband and mother in law, she had three children,
while she wanted to have only one child. When the third child was also a girl, she decided to have no
more. Her husband was in government services and the couple made a decision to have all three girls
well educated. Hence in spite of transfers in the husband’s job, the family stay put at Mysur for the
sake of their daughters' education.

Out of the three daughters, two studied engineering (information science and electronics) and the
other studied diploma in electronics (did not complete graduation due to a lack of interest in studies).
Much stress was laid on schooling for all three and they all scored distinctions (85% or above) in
board examinations. The first daughter grew into a very successful technical lead in software
industry, the second daughter established herself in human resource department of corporates and the
third went on to shift careers to social sciences and completed her master’s course. All three have
keen interest in reading and have travelled extensively across the globe. When the first daughter
started working in the IT industry, the economic class of the family dramatically improved and she
financially supported the education and weddings of the other two siblings. Due to this the youngest
girl had freedom to choose the course of her own employment and wasn’t bound by the constraints of
middle class economic considerations. It also gave her the freedom to marry outside her caste.

Analysis:
Caste has played out a prominent role in the lives of all family members. The fact that they were
Brahmins of the highest purity allowed Venkataramanaiah, the leeway to extend his income beyond
his full time job. Kamalamma although uneducated had access to accumulated cultural capital due to
which she was able to educate herself and also stand for the education of all her children. Although
they lived in poverty in their prime years, the social respect that they earned due to their caste status
fetched them access to additional job and cultural resources for education. Due to the influence of
patriarchal hierarchy and the limitations of economic resources in rural area, the girls faced
discrimination in their educational, employment and marriage opportunities. Since there was no
pecuniary benefits of educating girls in commerce course they were discouraged from pursuing it in
spite of good academic performance. There options of job and partner was constrained by the
condition of staying put in the village. However the caste status of these girls allowed them to read
extensively outside course work which wasn’t the case for girls from lower caste in their village.

Furthermore the economic dependence of Sudha on her husband crushed all her employment
aspirations. Had she been earning equally then she would have had a say in family planning while in
the case of her father he was the one who could decide for himself since he was a man. The gender
disparity was so pronounced in this caste that unwillingly Sudha had to bear three children. Elevation
of Sudha's family economic status to that of middle class enabled her and her husband to educate
girls and allow them the access to valued embodied cultural capital in the form of engineering
degree. At the time of the youngest daughter in the family the accumulated cultural and economic
capital was such that she was free to choose non-conventional employment path and break
endogamy.

It did not take just a shift in attitudes to bring about the autonomy of choice and equality in the third
generation girls' lives. It took a lot of change in educational, economic and cultural aspects of the
family.

Conclusion:
Social stratification conjures different levels of inequality in society and the education system in
modern capitalist societies legitimises and perpetuates this inequality. Educators cannot expect this to
change unless they employ multicultural pedagogy and curriculum taking into consideration all the
inherent lack of opportunities that the different economic and status groups face and work
consciously to bridge those gaps. Freire’s (1974) critical pedagogy that opposes the silence of culture
to discourage inequality in children’s lives is the way out.

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