Mediocrity is often built into the everyday practices of academe under the guise of civility. Civility becomes the trope that manages our academic relationships. I see this for example in how teacher student relationships are constructed. The value of such relationships measured in the form of student evaluations works well to reify the status quo. Teachers are prompted by the lowest common denominator under such systems of measurement. Learning takes the backseat as teachers work on minimizing assignments, making lectures entertaining etc. so that teaching evaluations can be higher. Minimizing expectations then works to reify the mediocrity of the status quo. As teachers, we pay more attention to making nice than to caring about our students learning. We are also trained to be inauthentic, managing our teaching by norms of civility in the mainstream, learning to stage a face. The neoliberal organizing of knowledge works precisely through the organizing of teaching under a
This blog offers Mohan Dutta's reflections on the theoretical framework of the culture-centered approach, examining the interplays among Structure, Culture, and Agency in shaping marginalisation and the ways in which communities at the margins challenge structures. Writings on the blog are continually being revised to reflect the organic analysis of structure and agency.