Book review: Disciplined subjects: schooling in colonial Bengal, by Sutapa Dutta

Research output: Contribution to journalBook/Film/Article reviewpeer-review

Abstract

Dutta’s aim is to examine the production of knowledge within schools through a detailed study of textbooks in colonial Bengal between 1757 and 1911. By considering the philosophical context of learning and a detailed textual analysis of the primers produced for elementary schoolchildren, she is particularly interested in the ways in which children’s minds were shaped within the classroom. Education was central to the colonial project and civilising mission, and institutional learning within the school reinforced the political, social and economic dominance of the colonisers. Importantly, this work focuses not only on the gradual and uneven imposition of a new curriculum, but on the ways in which Bengalis – particularly the educated elite – increasingly influenced, even co-constructed, the knowledge transmitted within the school, ultimately using it as a way of mediating and undermining British rule. Dutta highlights the power inherent in the teaching of children and the ways in which textbooks were used to produce new subjectivities, and to strengthen existing cultural, racial, social and economic hierarchies within Bengali society.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)759-761
Number of pages3
JournalHistory of Education
Volume51
Issue number5
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Sept 2021

Keywords

  • book review
  • education
  • Bengal

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