The Contested Terrain of Reproduction: class and gender in schooling in India

This article addresses the need to elaborate the concept of resistance by creating an historically specific and more nuanced typology of student behaviours in schools, in the context of the particular configuration of capitalism and patriarchy in India. In particular, responses of upper/upper‐middle class and lower‐middle/working class girls are analysed. It is argued that socio‐economic background, as well as the structure of the school itself, plays a vital role in directing the channels taken by the students’ resistances. Data for this research project were gathered in the summer of 1986, from two schools in Calcutta, India.