Professor of Anthropology Chaise LaDousa has been traveling to North India for 25 years investigating the ways in which language plays a part in people’s lives and, in particular, their engagements with schooling.
LaDousa recently edited Language and Schooling in India and Sri Lanka: Language Medium Matters, a special issue of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language (IJSL). The issue focuses on the notion of “medium,” the primary language of pedagogy of a school. “The term refers to schools at types of institutions, but also can be used to infer all manner of social distinctions,” LaDousa said.
LaDousa’s article, “Language Medium and a High-Stakes Test: Language Ideology and Coaching Centers in North India,” appears in the issue. It is based on research conducted during his 2014 leave from Hamilton.
Additional contributors to the volume include Usree Bhattacharya and Lei Jiang of the University of Georgia, Athens; Meghan Chidsey of Teachers College of Columbia University; Christie Davis of Western Illinois University; Manabi Majumdar of the Centre for Studies in Social Science, Kolkata; Rahul Mukhopadhyay of Azim Premji University, Bengaluru; and Priti Sandhu of the University of Washington, Seattle.
LaDousa and Davis co-authored the introduction to the special issue.
In addition, LaDousa and Vicky Anibarro ’19 recently spent a month photographing images of advertising in India. The photos will be used on a new website and for a comparative analysis with LaDousa’s previous work.
